The Foreigner in Formosa

Welcome Danes

(Photos from supportdenmark.com and No Pasaran!)

A Few Links

Mohammed over at Iraq the Model discusses the clerical preparation behind the "spontaneous" demonstrations in Iraq following the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra.  His brother Omar describes new developments in the Saddam Hussein trial.

Meanwhile, Sandmonkey has a bit of evidence that the Europeans are starting to get fed up in the aftermath of "The Battle of Khartoon."  He has more here.

Finally, Wretchard at The Belmont Club had a moving post a while back about World War II poem codes.

February 28

It's not just a date in Taiwan, but a national holiday.  The day commemorates the 1947 massacre of 27,000 Taiwanese by KMT troops from China, which followed a failed revolt instigated by the KMT's rapacious occupational policies.  It's always an uncomfortable time for the capitulationist KMT party, which still wields considerable influence in Taiwan and indeed holds a majority in the Taiwanese legislature.

Interesting then, how the English-language pro-KMT China Post tries to paper over the massacre:

As a matter of fact, it is not important to find out the chief culprit. He may be Gen. Chen Yi, the administrator-general of Taiwan from 1945 to 1947. He may be Keh Ching-en, Chen's chief of staff. He may be Maj. Gen. Liu Yu-ching, the commander of an infantry division sent to Taiwan from China to "suppress" what was considered a rebellion. He may be Chiang Kai-shek, the head of state, as [a new] special report charges. The fact is that they are all dead, and it's of no practical use to blame any of them, unless the writers of the [latest] report and the man who commissioned it had some ulterior motive.

Just who exactly does the China Post think they're kidding?  Of course it matters whether Chiang Kai Shek, former dictator of Taiwan, was responsible for the February 28 Massacre.  It matters a great deal whether Chiang Kai Shek was a decent leader who simply made an error in judgement in appointing a bad governor to administer Taiwan, or whether he was chief architect of an atrocity.  If the former is true, then he deserves our sympathy.  If the latter, his portrait should immediately be removed from Taiwan's currency, public schools and government offices.  Mass murderers do not merit statues in public places, nor should roads or buildings be named in their honor.  There is no Adolf Hitler International Airport in Germany, for obvious reasons.  (And let me be clear: Chiang Kai Shek was no Hitler, but 27,000 people winding up murdered isn't small potatoes, either.)  If the Generalissimo was behind the massacre, then I can't for the life of me see why there should still be a Chiang Kai Shek International Airport.

The China Post's editorial goes on:

The [new] report is supposed to be a result of historical research. The writers are all historians, one of whom heads the Academia Historica. It seems that they forget what history is. History is understanding. History is a dialogue between the past and the present. History does not pass judgment. History is what notable events historians record just as Leopold von Ranke says "wie eigentlich gewesen (as is truly seen)."

What blather is this?  "History does not pass judgement"?  Of course it does!  It's history's job to tell us who's responsible for what.  What did Nixon know, and when did he know it?  Some historian somewhere positively SALIVATES over the possibility that he'll be the one who finds the memo that definitively answers that question.  Regarding the matter of World War I, historians initially assigned the lion's share of the blame to the Central Powers.  Twenty or thirty years later, revisionist historians found evidence that the war wasn't caused by evil intent, but by a series of misunderstandings and tragic blunders.  And about twenty years after that, the counter-revisionists found new evidence that once more pointed to prior German militarism as the war's prime motivator.

And so it goes.  Future evidence will be found to strengthen the claims of one side or another, for the study of history never ends.  But the China Post's point that history is "a dialogue between past and present" eludes me.  Yes, history can speak to me, at least in a metaphorical sense.  And yes, people of today can ask questions about the past that perhaps never occurred to those who came before us.  But precisely how does claiming that history is a dialogue between past and present invalidate the latest study regarding Chiang Kai Shek's culpability?

If anything, this claim is an unintended DEFENSE of the motives of the authors of the study.  For it is THEY who are engaged in dialogue with the past, asking tough questions - questions that were forbidden during the dark days under dictatorship.

There is then the obligatory attack on Taiwanese President Chen Shway-bian:

President Chen Shui-bian spoke at a meeting to mark the publication of the special report. He cited Chiang Kai-shek as the chief culprit. Is he one of those few people wishing to know who masterminded the massacre? Is it part of his hate-China campaign?

First, the China Post implies that few Taiwanese are interested in knowing the truth regarding the massacre.  I have no reason to know whether this is true or not.  But even if it is, how does it invalidate the question?  Discovery of the truth, like discovery in general, is always pioneered by the few.  Galileo was one of "those few wishing to know" about the heliocentric solar system.  Why should scorn be heaped upon Galileo for wanting to know what most others were too busy or uninterested in learning?

The statement about Chen hating China is one of the reasons why I've avoided using the term, "pro-China" to describe the KMT and its political allies.  For if one faction is pro-, then it's natural for most to assume that the other side must be anti-.  At that point, it's too easy to characterize the "anti-China" parties as haters.

But seekers of Taiwanese independence are not necessarily China haters, any more so than young adults moving away from home are haters of their parents.  It's possible to like China (or ones parents) without wanting to live under the same roof as them.

The China Post feels that the next point is important, for it's mentioned in Joe Hung's column as well:

The people of Taiwan are not hateful people. Nor are they vengeful people. They know hatred makes everybody unhappy.

It's indeed proper to point out that the Taiwanese people have not been hateful or vengeful, and have not visited revenge upon Chiang Kai Shek's descendants.  For Taiwan's former dictator has been dead many years, and whatever his responsibility for the 228 Massacre was, his grandchildren are blameless of the crime.*

But the implication here is not that the Taiwanese should be congratulated for the extraordinary decency they've shown to the Chiang family, but that those asking questions should be condemned for bringing up painful periods of history.  Let sleeping dogs lie; don't threaten the peace of Taiwan.  Murderers of 27,000 people mustn't be blamed, for blame is something to be reserved for those who ENQUIRE about the guilt or innocence of historical figures.

Finally, the China Post closes with a plea for forgiveness:

In fact, they believe the feud between islanders and mainlanders that the February 28 Incident begot was disarmed when President Lee Teng-hui proclaimed Peace Memorial Day in 1998. He apologized for the massacre on behalf of his Kuomintang government.

The massacre should not be condoned, but what is needed is forgiveness, which does not seem to be included in the dictionary of President Chen and those who wanted to publish the special report.

A few points here.  As a pro-KMT paper, it's in the China Post's interest to argue in favor of forgiveness for the KMT.  Let's face it:  it's a tough job politically to get people's votes after you've massacred their grandparents.  People don't usually forget little things like that.

This doesn't mean that the China Post is necessarily wrong in asking people to move on; it just means that they're not a disinterested party in the discussion.  At the same time though, one should note that the China Post has no trouble demanding additional Japanese apologies for World War II, yet reflexively shrinks from calling for KMT apologies for the 228 Massacre.  Former KMT leader Lee Teng-hui (whom the China Post openly despises) apologized ONCE they say, and that ought to be good enough for everybody**.

One last point, a point about forgiveness.  Christians might read and be sympathetic to the China Post's calls for forgiveness, because it's what their religion instructs them to do.  Sometimes I get the sense that in America this is given a bit too freely, as illustrated by the parents of a school shooting victim I once saw on TV, who tearfully stated in front of the camera that they didn't hate the perpetrator, and that they forgave him.

That interview was conducted on the same day their son was murdered.

The same freakin' day.  I'm sorry, that's not godly; that's downright creepy.

I've since become slightly familiar with the Jewish attitude towards forgiveness, which is a little more grudging than that of Christians.  Jews too, believe that forgiveness is an imperative, but that the perpetrator must first apologize, and then promise not to repeat the transgression.  Only then, can they ask forgiveness from the victim.  At that point, only the victim - not his friends, not his family, not even God Himself - can grant that forgiveness.

It logically follows from this that murder is perhaps the one truly unforgivable sin. 

Why?

It is unforgivable because only the victim can grant forgiveness.  But once murdered, the victim is NO LONGER ALIVE to offer that forgiveness. 

Agree with that approach or not, it's something to think about the next time some huckster comes by opportunistically demanding from you forgiveness on the cheap.

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* The Chiang family may be blameless for the crimes of Chiang Kai Shek, but they are not above using the force of the law to bludgeon those who would learn the truth.  The editorial also states that John Chiang has mounted a lawsuit against academics who would dare to look at the historical record and suggest that his grandfather may have fallen somewhere short of sainthood.  Perhaps Mr. Chiang should be reminded that the study of history should be conducted using reason, research and argumentation, rather than bailiffs, judges and 154 million dollar libel suits.

** This brings to mind a Finnish joke I once read in Ann Landers or Dear Abby.  A woman asks her husband of twenty years why he never says, "I love you."  The man replies, "I told you that the day we were married.  Why should I have to repeat myself?"

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UPDATE (Mar 4/06):  The Taipei Times had an account the February 28 commemmoration, along with KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou's appearance at same:

Ma, who spoke in broken Hoklo, was heckled by the audience...

He spoke in Hoklo (the native Taiwanese language), rather than Mandarin?  Wonder how his Hoklo compares to the pandas?

OK, cheap shot.  Anyways, the hecklers called the capitulationist chairman a "slave of China", and shouted, "Long live the Republic of Taiwan."

As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, "Tough crowd, tough crowd."

Anachronisms and the Sixth Branch

By now, you've probably heard of the president of Taiwan's decision to abolish the National Unification Council.  I say "abolish" because there was a bit of translational hair-splitting on CNN International last night as to whether it was "abolished", or whether it now merely "ceases to apply".

The CNN anchorman seemed a bit hysterical, demanding to know how Chen could be so "reckless" as to abolish the NUC, after China had warned that doing so would cause wars, floods, plagues, and all of those other things that they usually say will happen whenever Taiwan dares to undertake democratic reforms.  One should be aware that had Taiwan caved into China's belligerent threats in the past, it would not now have direct presidential elections, a president from outside the House of Chiang, or a national referendum law (limited though it may be).

In the course of the discussion, CNN did admit that the council responsible for the tempest hadn't actually MET in 7 years, but strangely neglected to mention that it had an operating budget of a whopping thirty dollars per YEAR.  Perhaps they wanted to spare the viewer of the burden of deciding for themselves whether the reaction was just a little over the top.  If so, then this would not be the first time it had done so.

(A side note here:  am I the only one who finds it a bit rich to hear China crying "Provocation!" over the abolition of a defunct $30 a year council when it adds million dollar missiles WEEKLY to its arsenal targetting Taiwan?)

At any rate, the question of what a country ought to do with its moribund institutions is an interesting one.  Any country with any amount of history behind it is bound to have its share of political anachronisms - relics of a bygone age.  These it can either abolish, reform, or leave alone.

There are at least two arguments in favor of abolition: cost and the goal of limiting the size of government.  In the case of the NUC, obviously the cost argument isn't particularly relevant.  However, if one believes that "government that governs best governs least", then it stands to reason that vestigial institutions like the NUC should be put to pasture once their usefulness expires.

The argument for retention is that anachronistic institutions DO serve a function: they remind us of our history, of where we once were, and of who we once were.  I for one, will regret the day that Australia, or Canada, or Great Britain herself becomes a republic.   But the NUC is not a visible reminder of the past like the monarchy, nor is its abolition irreversible.  Future governments can always reinstate some kind  of committee to consider guidelines for reunification if they deem it desirable to do so.

I therefore don't see a compelling case for retention, but on the other hand, I don't feel an overwhelming need for abolition.  As for the possibility of reform, I don't see what could be done on that front.  The NUC was set up in 1990 and charged with the responsibility of determining a set of guidelines for reunification with China.  Its job has been completed - what is there left for it to do?  Give recommendations for water conservation policies?*

Now up to this point, all of this assumes that Taiwan can make these decisions in a vacuum, which it most certainly cannot.  There is an 800 pound gorilla in the corner to consider.  And this beast beats its chest and bellows with rage whenever Taiwan gives the merest hint of a suggestion of a possibility that it doesn't want reunification.  Sure, sometimes (maybe most of the time!) it's all just an act, but how can you be sure of that with a government that shoots down American planes in international waters and instigates anti-Japanese riots over textbooks used in only 1% of Japanese schools?

When I pause to consider the gorilla in the corner, my thoughts on abolition of the NUC change from indifference to support.  First of all, my visceral response to those who would introduce the threat of  violence into political discussions is to deny them completely.  Showing weakness in the face of of thugs and murderers emboldens them and serves only as an incentive for them to increase their demands.  Like howling mobs of Islamic theocrats, the Chinese should be told that they will not be given their way.

My second reason though has to do with the principles of constitutional sovereignty.  To surrender to the Chinese on this issue is to give them more than they deserve.  Taiwan currently has five branches of government; if the Communist Party of China are granted veto powers then it will have six.  Note that it's not the number of branches of government that are objectionable (although having six branches may indeed be cumbersome) - what IS objectionable is the fact that one of the branches of Taiwan's government would be unelected and unaccountable to the citizens of Taiwan. 

This sixth branch of government would be completely hostile to democratic reform in Taiwan, and there would be no end to the mischief it could cause in any number of areas.  Even on questions as seemingly innocuous as full adoption of the Gregorian calendar or the appearance of Taiwan's former dictator on its currency would be subject to Beijing's new-found suzerainty.  The Taiwanese would be forced to relearn the habits of serfdom as their control over their destiny became more circumscribed.

Finally, it should be recognized by all that the sixth branch does not need to be enshrined in the Taiwanese constitution for it to exist in reality.  It does not even need to be physically stationed within Taiwan, when a mere phone call to capitulationist party members might be enough to make them leap to their feet, and perform their masters' bidding.

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*  Perhaps President Chen could have reformed the NUC by renaming it the National Empty Symbolism Council (NESC).

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UPDATE (Mar 1/06):  As mentioned in the post, a proposal for full adoption of the Gregorian calendar in Taiwan and the abolition of the Chinese Republican calendar has recently been mooted.  (Taiwan currently uses both calendars.)  Accepting the proposal would bring Taiwan more in line with the rest of the world, and would reduce confusion regarding expiration dates for exported foodstuffs.

(It's currently Year 95 of the Chinese Republican calendar.  What would YOU do if you had a pack of dried Taiwanese fruit with an expiration date of 96 or 97?  If I recall correctly, I may have previously thrown out some food here myself after looking at the package and exclaiming, "Hey!  This stuff was sitting around in that grocery store for the last ten years!")

On the other hand, the transition costs for changing calendars is likely to be fairly high.  People would need new driver's licenses, IDs and legal documents.  I'm sure this could be grandfathered in, otherwise it would be a nightmare to have everyone lining up all at once at various institutions to get their papers redone.  Prior to this, computer programs would have to be re-written, much like for the Y2K problem.  I've no doubt that a lot of political scare-mongering will take place over this last requirement, but I think everyone should remember that Y2K came and went, and no planes managed to fall out of the sky.

Of course, the change would be a symbolic act, further distancing Taiwan from its Republic of China past.  Pro-independence groups would be happy, capitulationist groups unhappy, and China...well, it's hard to say.  They obviously wouldn't like the symbolism of Taiwan further rejecting its "Chineseness", but it would be a bit hard for them to oppose this with a straight face, because China ITSELF uses the Gregorian calendar.

David on Formosa has a post on the subject, and laments the politicization of a policy move that seems entirely rational.  Michael Turton also has a post, where he points out how media bias affects two newspapers' differing coverage of the issue.

Blonde Cavegirls Had More Fun

Seriously.

[A study in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior] argues that blond hair originated in [Europe] because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men.

Lighter hair colours, which started as rare mutations, became popular for breeding and numbers increased dramatically, according to the research, published under the aegis of the University of St Andrews.

“Human hair and eye colour are unusually diverse in northern and eastern Europe (and their) origin over a short span of evolutionary time indicates some kind of selection,” says the study by Peter Frost, a Canadian anthropologist. Frost adds that the high death rate among male hunters “increased the pressures of sexual selection on early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of colour traits.”

Blonde prehistoric cavegirls.  Mmmmm.  But what does the future hold?

A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

A world without blonde jokes.  I think the living will envy the dead.

[UPDATE (Jan 25 / 2013):  Turns out the study claiming that blondness gene would disappear within 200 years was a hoax.  --The Foreigner]

The Iranian Ivory Tower

Further adding to Iran's lofty reputation for academic excellence, an Iranian professor has critically analyzed Tom and Jerry.

His conclusion? 

Zionist plot, what did you think?

Here's a few quotes from one of Professor Hasan Bolkhari's interfaith relations lectures.  If you check out the video, you'll see Iranian university students in a lecture hall, earnestly taking notes:

"The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon..."

"Some say that the main reason for making this very appealing cartoon was to erase a certain derogatory term that was prevalent in Europe."

[...]

"If you study European history...[the] Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice.

[...]

"The mouse [Jerry] is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute...This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase [the previous negative] image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty..."

I can see that he's put A LOT of thought into this.  But I'm puzzled by one thing, though.  The good doctor says that "Jewish Disney" feverishly spent its valuable time and money just so that it could rehabilitate the unfavorable image of a few European rodents.  But then that very same "Jewish Disney" turns around and undoes it all by remaking "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which portrays mice as greedy, sneaky and manipulative puppetmasters.

Maybe the doc could use some of that valuable edjamacation to figure THAT ONE out for us.

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UPDATE (Apr 6/06):  Whoa, wonder how much grant money that prof's been getting.  Turns out Tom and Jerry were created by Warner Brothers, not the Disney company.

Facts sure are inconvenient things...

UPDATE (May 10/07):  Another well-known Zionist organization, Hamas Al-Aqsa TV, seeks to further redeem the reputation of mice by featuring it's own version of Mickey on a program for Palestinian children.

(Unlike the Disney version, however, Hamas Mickey calls for Islamic world domination and the annihilation of Jews.)

UPDATE (May 15/07):  A Cox & Forkum cartoon on Hamas Mickey:

UPDATE (Jul 1/07):  Amid the outcry, Farfur (otherwise known as Hamas Mickey) meets his end:

In the final skit, Farfour was beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, Farfour called the Israeli a "terrorist."

"Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.

 

Roger Rabbit: Fall Guy, Philosopher

AsiaPundit has a piece informing us that Roger Rabbit is now banned in Beijing.  Meanwhile, Imagethief reveals the secret backroom discussions that led to the ban.  As for myself, I think Roger's own words provide us with a clue as to why authoritarians of any stripe would want to silence a harmless 'toon.  For as Roger once astutely observed:

"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

And that is what they fear.

Impeachment in the Land of Smiles

Around the same time that the Cartoon Crisis was coming to a head, another situation was developing in Thailand.  This controversy threatened to bring down the government of Thaksin Shiniwatra, the prime minister of Thailand.

Thais demonstrated in the streets and called for Thaksin's ouster because Shin Corp., a company formerly owned by Thaksin, was sold to a state-owned Singapore company for 73 billion baht ($1.88 billion dollars).  Their anger arose from the fact that the principals managed to avoid paying capital gains taxes due to the highly technical nature of the sale.

Initially, I sympathized with the demonstrators, but didn't really see what constitutional basis they had for bringing down the government.  Of course it doesn't sit well when ordinary folk pay 7% ad valorem taxes, while the well-to-do pay nothing on $1.88 billion dollar stock sales.  But the law's the law, and tax avoidance is perfectly legal.  You don't fire prime ministers for obeying the law.

I also didn't care for some of the hyperbole coming from the opposition newspapers.  Rhetoric such as this:

[Thaksin's] increasing hostility toward the country’s intellectuals has prompted sarcastic asides that he is less of a Hitler and more a modern-day Pol Pot. He may also even be more shrewd than the former Khmer Rouge leader because he has managed to appeal to the grassroots community despite his enormous wealth.

Pol Pot or Hitler, or simply a badly misunderstood leader, Thaksin is facing an increasingly strong alliance bent on toppling him through three-pronged assaults.

Uh, folks, some perspective, please.  Thaksin isn't Pol Pot, and he isn't Hitler.  Not by a long shot.  There are NO death camps or genocides taking place in Thailand.  You can't even claim that he's Pinochet, killing members of the political opposition.

Now don't get me wrong, Thaksin DID order death squads to carry out the extrajudicial executions of about 2,500 drug pushers in 2003 - and for that denial of due process he SHOULD have been impeached.  Instead, Thais "punished" him in 2005 - by re-electing him with an overwhelming parliamentary majority.  Guess drug pushers aren't the most sympathetic of minority groups.

So there's no use crying over that spilt milk.  As it turns out though, there's a good argument that laws were bent and broken in the here and now.  Prior to Thaksin's election in 2001, he owned a majority stake in Shin Corp, a Thai telecommunications company, and was said to be the richest man in Thailand.  After his election, he was required to sell off all but 5% of his shares, or place them in a blind trust.  This he did, in rather an ingenious manner.

Thaksin complied with the law by placing some of his Shin Corp. shares in his relatives' names.  Other shares were placed in the names of his maids, servants, and even his personal chauffeur.  What remained was deposited into a dummy investment firm called "Ample Rich".  Ample Rich (jeez - what a name!) is interesting, because although Thaksin claims to have sold it, no one really knows who the current owners are.  As a matter of fact, no one even knows where the company is headquartered - the documents filed with the Thai tax authorities list a false address in Singapore for it, although Thaksin insists it's based in the British Virgin Islands.

This is how the scandal appears to me, then.  Thaksin owned a company that had been granted a government monopoly.  Once he became prime minister, he "transfered" ownership to those around him, and proceeded to change the laws governing his monopoly to make it even more valuable.  On January 20/06, his party passed the Thai Telecommunications Act, which raised the maximum foreign ownership threshold (allowing him to sell more of his shares off).  Three days later, all of the shares owned by his children, relatives, maids, servants and chauffeurs were simultaneously sold, as if directed by a single intelligence, to a company in Singapore.  By strange coincidence, the shares held by the mysterious address-less Ample Rich were also sold to Thaksin's children at the bargain basement price of 1 baht per share, then promptly resold to the Singaporean company for 49 baht per share.

As I said before, Thaksin claims that he sold Ample Rich and therefore has no control over it.  If that's true, then the new Ample Rich owners must have just randomly picked Thaksin's two eldest sons out of thousands of investors and decided out of the goodness of their hearts to sell them shares at a fraction of their current market value.  Either that, or the owners of a multi-million dollar investment house suffered a really bad case of amnesia, and forgot everything they ever learned in Econ 101 about profit-maximization.

Believe that if you wish.  But a simpler explanation would be that Thaksin still controlled Ample Rich and wanted to give his sons an illegal 1 baht per share sweetheart deal.

The consensus seems to be that the biggest legal threat to Thaksin lies in the Ample Rich part of the trade.  There is a certain sad irony in the fact that Thaksin, by all accounts a devoted family man, may have placed his two eldest sons in legal jeopardy along with himself.

As of this date, Thaksin has managed to survive politically.  Over the past five years, wealthy supporters have bought out critical newspapers, or changed their editorial views by withdrawing advertising.  Some independent media still exists in Thailand though, and indeed initial reaction to the Shin sale came from media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul.  Sondhi's own democratic bona fides are open to question however, especially since many have interpreted his request for the country's military to "stand by the people" as a call for a military coup.

(A colorful side note:  about 2,000 Thaksin supporters in a small town near Chiang Mai marched to a graveyard one night in order to place some kind of voodoo-like curse on Mr. Sondhi.  I think that it was in a front page story in the Feb 10/06 {or thereabouts} edition of the Bangkok Post, but I've since lost the newspaper clipping.)

At any rate, Sondhi ceased to be the focus of the anti-Thaksin movement when the cause was taken up by members of the Thai political establishment.  Their quest will be not be easy:

The first [attempt at impeachment] was aborted [on Feb 16/06] when the 27 senators failed in their attempt to [petition the Thai Constitution Court to begin impeachment investigations].

The second seems likely to meet the same fate.  The Opposition, which has 124 House seats, will find it nearly impossible to gather 200 signatures of MPs to file a censure motion against Thaksin.

There's a glimmer of hope in the third, the collection of 50,000 signatures to launch impeachment proceedings against Thaksin (as of [Feb 16/06] 20,000 signatures had been gathered.)

But the hard part is the impeachment process.  When the Thammasat University Student Union gathers enough signatures, they have to send them to the Senate Speaker and then to the National Counter Corruption Commission.  And that's tricky, because there is no NCCC currently in operation. (emphasis added)

(From "PM slips past constitution court net again" in the Feb 17/06 edition of The Nation.  Sorry, no link is available.)

UPDATE:  Some members of Thaksin's own party have asked him to step aside for the good of the party.  Thaksin's shifting statements on the matter offer some insight into his thinking:

"I will consider [resigning] in my next reincarnation."

“I will die in office.”

“I won’t step down until I can find a successor who can run the country and the party.”

“Even hardened criminals get their sentences commuted to half if they eventually own up to having committed the crime.”

UPDATE #2:  Remember the possibility that 200 MPs could band together to force impeachment proceedings?  Recall too, the numerical hurdle: members of Thaksin's own party would have to vote for his impeachment. On Feb 24/06, Thaksin made good on his threat to dissolve parliament before this could happen.

How calling a snap election for April 2nd will save him is beyond me - unless he thinks that his ethical and legal improprieties can win him an even larger majority this time around.

Or maybe he's simply been advised that the stars are right.

UPDATE (Feb 26/06):  Blame my confusion as to Thaksin's motives for calling an election in Update #2 on the lateness of the hour in which it was written.  Thaksin's goal is transparent.  Change the subject.  Talk about low-interest loans to Thailand's rural poor.  Discuss tax cuts for roadside vendors in Bangkok, the heart of the anti-Thaksin movement.  Thaksin's populist policies have been immensely popular among Thailand's large population of the poor, so one of his goals will be to create fear amongst this voting bloc that his policies will be discontinued if he's not re-elected.

Imagine if the Lewinsky scandal had broken, not in '98 but during campaign '96, and that Clinton had gone on to win by a landslide.  At that point, Clinton would have been able to make the persuasive case that the people had reviewed his transgressions, and judged them to be inconsequential.  He would have been politically untouchable.

Thaksin's use of death squads in '03 went unpunished partly because of his overwhelming victory in '05, and he thinks he can repeat that success now.  Thais have it in their hands the power to grant or deny him that impunity.

May they get the leader they deserve.

UPDATE #4 (Feb 26/06):  The opposition is considering whether it should boycott the election, raising the spectre of some kind of Hugo Chavez situation.  Meanwhile, Santa Claus is on his way, with lots of election goodies on his sleigh:

[Thaksin] spent two thirds of his hour-long speech talking about help he wanted to give to laborers, civil servants students and farmers hit by inflation fuelled by high oil prices.

Thaksin promised a rise in the minimum wage in Bangkok, where the opposition to him is strongest by far, and more debt relief for farmers in the countryside where 70 percent of Thais live and where his support is thought to be solid.

There would also be pay rises for civil servants and a plan to give part time jobs to students, Thaksin said.

Not one to settle for bribing the judge, Thaksin has decided to bribe the electorate.

UPDATE (Mar 18/06):  Recall that Thaksin skirted the law by transfering assets to his employees.  It turns out that:

At one point, two of his domestic servants were among the top 10 shareholders on Thailand's stock exchange.

The Fifth Column

Video of a Feb 3/06 anti-Danish demonstration in London.  (Click on "Prophet Mohammed Cartoon Protest".)  Hat tip to The Counterterrorism Blog.

One slogan:

"Europe, you will pay.  Your annihilation is on its way."

(Their wordsmiths must really be sleeping on the job because that one'd roll off the tongue a whole lot smoother without the "your".  Ordinarily I'd say heads oughtta roll, but in this case, someone might take me literally!)

Watch for the animated fellow at the 1:47 mark:

"And we can bomb little Denmark, so we can invade their country, and take their wives as war booty!"

(And yet, the National Organization for Women has been shamefully slow in backing this important policy initiative.  Don't they know that Mohammed was "the world's first feminist"?)

More slogans:

"George Bush, go to hell!  USA, go to hell!"  (Cindy Sheehan - they're stealin' your stuff.)

"Denmark, watch your back!  Bin Laden's coming back!"  (Catchy.  Gets the point across, and the metering's perfect.)

"Kill, kill Denmark!  Kill, kill Denmark!"  (Aww, come on, guys, you're not even trying.  That one doesn't even rhyme!)

"Europe, you will pay!  Mujhadeen are on their way!"  (A bit derivative - too much like slogan #1.)

"UK, you will pay!  7/7's on its way!"  (But don't you DARE question their patriotism, you McCarthyite.)

"We want Danish blood!"  (And here's me, with a hankerin' for their CHEESE.  Guess there's no accounting for taste.)

"Khaibar, Khaibar, o' Jew.  The Army of Mohammed is coming for you."  (We are smelly, we are hairy.  We got a rhymin' dictionary.)

"Today's threat to our national security is not a matter of military weapons alone. We know of new methods of attack. The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery. Spies, saboteurs and traitors are the actors in this new strategy. With all of these we must and will deal vigorously."

– FDR, May 26, 1940, fireside chat

Dress Codes

Strategy Page has a few paragraphs on some of the more absurd elements of the dress regulations of the US military.  Can't say that I know too much about the subject, but I've heard a bit about the school dress codes in Taiwan.  Knew a junior high school girl who was sent home for violating the rules for shoes.  They were supposed to be 50% black and 50% white; hers were only 35% white.  Bloody anarchist!

It's a slippery slope here, people.  Let one student get away with wearing shoes 35% white and who knows where it could all lead to.  Sock hops.  Maybe worse.

Bridge for Sale: Cheap

From time to time, you hear about people making spectacularly fraudulent sales.  It makes sense that the best of these salesmen would have to be the ones whose job it is to lie for their country:

The [Thai] Civil Court yesterday ordered [Suseree Tavedikul,] a former Thai ambassador to the Netherlands to pay a total of Bt10 million in compensation after he was found guilty of selling the Thai embassy to [J. Bakker, a Dutch] businessman without permission.

"Psst, hey mack!  Wanna buy a consulate?"

OK, so fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and rogue ambassadors just can't resist making a little extra on the side.  By selling their embassies.  No harm done, right?

The scandal resulted in the [Thai] Foreign Ministry being sued by Bakker and [a] Netherlands Court [ordering the] confiscation of the Thai embassy premises.

"Uh, hello?  Is this the prime minister of Thailand?  Y'know that embassy of yours in Holland?  Sorry to have to tell you this, but, we're sending a crew over to repossess it on Monday.  Hope this won't, ahhh, damage the relationship between our two countries, or anything."

In all seriousness though, the matter didn't quite make it to that point:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said that Bakker withdrew the case against the Foreign Ministry after the two sides agreed to settle out of the court and the ministry paid a sum of money in compensation.

The ministry sued for compensation for its court costs in the Netherlands. The court ordered the former ambassador to pay the ministry’s costs of Bt10.54 million.

But the story doesn't end there.  Think of poor Mr. Suseree, with mouths to feed and $280,000 bills to pay.  It's quite a predicament, because incredible as it may seem, employers don't always beat a path to your door when they see "ambassadorial skills" listed on your resume'. What's a guy gonna do?

Why, open a school teaching English, naturally!

Suseree is a former Foreign Ministry spokesman and deputy permanent secretary in charge of administration. He now owns an international school in Bangkok.

A little friendly advice to all those foreign teachers working for Mr. Suseree:  make sure you're being paid up front.  Cash would be nice.

Just Win, Baby

Denmark's been in the news of late, so The War Nerd has written a good, funny piece on Danish military history.  Be warned, some of it's a bit rude.

Visiting Dusit Park

You're in Bangkok, Thailand, and you want to see both the Grand Palace and Dusit Park.  Does it matter which one you see first?

Oh yes, it does.  A ticket to the Grand Palace costs 250 Baht (the unit of Thai currency), and includes an admission ticket to Dusit Park that's good for 1 week.  A ticket for Dusit Park costs 100 Bt, but only allows you to see Dusit Park.

So if you want to see both, and go to the Grand Palace first, it'll cost you 250 Bt.  But if you visit Dusit Park BEFORE the Grand Palace, it'll cost you 350 Bt.  Going to the Grand Palace first is wiser, especially if you're with your family.

I jokingly, but unfairly call Dusit Park the "Not-So-Grand Palace" because it isn't as ostentatious as the Grand Palace.  No matter if I were staggeringly rich, I could never live in a place like the Grand Palace, but with enough money, I COULD imagine living in one of the fine mansions on the grounds of the Dusit Park gardens.

One of the buildings on the grounds is the beautiful teak Vimanmek Palace.  They take groups of tourists through it on guided tours, but there's a bit of a scam that you ought to be aware of.

Like most Thai houses, you're required to enter shoeless.  And since it contains antiques, you're not allowed to take photos either.  They've thoughtfully provided lockers for your camera and shoes in an entrance building, but what isn't so thoughtful is that the lockers aren't free.

So here's what happened to me:

I arrive at about 3 pm at the entrance building.  I put my camera bag and shoes into the locker.  I start to put one of the lens pouches strapped onto my belt into the locker.  One  of the Thai workers approaches me.

"Ticket, ticket, ticket!" she says rapidly in a raised voice.

"Huh?" I wittily reply.  So I dig through my pouches, and offer it to her.  For some reason, she's not interested in taking it.  Instead she shakes her head, pointing to the lens pouches still attached to my belt.

"Camera, camera, camera!" she snaps.

OK, now you're starting to get on my nerves.  I was putting that away in the first place BEFORE you interrupted to ask for the ticket.  The ticket that once produced, you didn't want.

Please kindly allow me to finish ONE task before assigning me with ANOTHER.

I decide that this is best left unsaid.  She wanders off, and I get everything into the locker.  Put the non-refundable 30 Bt into it, remove the key, and I'm on my way. 

Not so fast, buster.

"Ticket?" she asks. 

Oh, for Pete's sakes, it's in the locker!  Fuming, I open it up, retrieve the ticket and kiss another 30 Bt goodbye. 

Then as I take the tour, I realize that in all the confusion, there's something else I left in the locker.

My glasses.

You see, most people wear sunglasses on the grounds outside.  But the mansion itself is lit with ambient light, so if you continue wearing your prescription sunglasses indoors, everything's too dark.  Don't wear them, and everything's a blur.  Needless to say, once you're inside, it's too late to go back.

So now you know the Vimanmek locker scam, which to my knowledge, isn't mentioned in any tour book.  Put your shoes and camera into the locker, but have your ticket and indoor glasses in hand BEFORE you shovel in your money and lock it up.

(By the way, I later realized that the rude behavior of the Thai worker wasn't really rude at all.  At the time, I was unaware that I had come late for the last tour of the day.  She was really trying to HELP me - she was simply doing her best to hurry me up so that I wouldn't miss the tour.  Unfortunately, her English skills weren't sufficient to do that politely.)

Anyways, here's Vimanmek Palace:

A few more points.  There used to be a traditional Thai dance demonstration beside Vimanmek Palace, but that's now been discontinued.  The Grand Palace and Dusit Park each require about 4 hours, at least if you're a photography buff.  If you are, then leave your tripod in your hotel room, as you aren't allowed to use it anywhere on the grounds of either place.

Finally, wear long pants.  If you wear shorts, you'll be given a sarong to cover up with while indoors.  As for women, they shouldn't try to get away with wearing capri pants, because they'll STILL be issued a sarong and they'll wind up being TWICE as hot as ladies with slacks.

Cross-Burners

 

What's the Deal with Cambodia?

Back in January, the situation there seemed cut and dried:

Hun Sen staged a coup in 1997. He then intimidated opponents, manipulated elections and cut constitutional corners, allowing him to move steadily to reclaim the full powers he held before the UN intervention.

During the past year, he has choked off the last effective political opposition while continuing to marginalize the monarchy, manipulate the courts and intimidate labor unions and other civic groups.

In December, the leader of the only significant opposition party, Sam Rainsy, who had already fled the country, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for criminal defamation.

Now, with a series of arrests and lawsuits on defamation and related charges, Hun Sen is for the first time directly attacking the human rights groups that, by default, serve as a de facto democratic opposition.

The Bangkok Post further discussed Hun Sen's persecution of Cambodian human rights critics in a Feb 1/06 story titled, "Hun Sen says foreign critics are animals."  (Sorry, no link is available.)

Cambodian Centre for Human Rights director Cam Sokha and his deputy Pa Nguon Teang as well as legal activist Yeng Virak were arrested and jailed pending defamation hearings over anti-government slogans which had allegedly appeared on a banner for International Human Rights Day on Dec 10 [/05].

Gahhh!  They were arrested for a slogan on a banner.  Happy International Human Rights Day!

Others were arrested for politically disagreeing with the government:

Independent broadcaster Mom Sonando and teachers union head Rong Chunn were arrested last October after they criticized the government's new border agreement with Vietnam...

After foreign critics asked Hun Sen to withdraw the charges against the men, his reply was this:

"Any foreigners, if you are not an animal, please talk about the law.  Don't talk about politics...You have asked me to drop the complaint.  I am not the chief of the court.  I cannot drop it and am unable to suspend [the cases].  Now there are two possibilities.  One, let the court sentence them, and then I will ask the king for a pardon for you..."

"Two, please be quiet..."

Love them choices.

"Please choose your option.  Some critics are animals.  Cam Sokha, Pa Nguon Teang and Mom Sonando clearly understand about animals."

"In Cambodia, if you want to become well-known, they have to blast Hun Sen.  Then if they are jailed they can have donors..."

Thomas Jefferson, he's not.  But it seems though, that he'd rather silence his enemies rather than jail them.  Because on Feb 10th, Cambodia's convicted opposition leader returned to Cambodia, and he didn't wind up in the clink.  There was a price, though:

[Sam Rainsy] received a royal pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni last week.

The catalyst for the pardon appears to have been a letter that Mr Rainsy sent to the prime minister last Friday.

In it he apologised for linking Hun Sen to a fatal grenade attack on a Sam Rainsy Party rally nine years ago.

He also indicated he would be less abrasive towards the government in future.

I take that as meaning that from now on, he'll be much less critical towards government policies.  Quite frankly, I'm not sure what's the purpose of even having an opposition if it's just going to roll over and play dead.  Some of Rainsy's supporters feel the same way, though they've taken their disappointment with their leader a bit too far:

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has been allotted 12 armed bodyguards because of fears he could be assassinated by critics angered by his truce with his former arch-rival, Prime Minister Hun Sen, officials said yesterday.

(From "State assigns bodyguards to protect Sam Rainsy," in the Feb 17th edition of the Bangkok Post.  Sorry, no link is available.)

How threatening violence against their own party leader is going to help matters is beyond me.  Having to depend on the government for protection puts Rainsy even further in Hun Sen's debt.

All of this is pretty convincing evidence that Cambodia is ruled by a dictator.  Which leaves me scratching my head over the next story:

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday he wanted to remove from the statute books a criminal defamation law which rights activists say he has been using to silence critics.

Defamation should be a civil action under which those found guilty would have to pay compensation, Hun Sen said after making up with Sam Rainsy, for whom he requested a royal pardon allowing for Sam Rainsy's return from France.

(From "Hun Sen intends to pull defamation law," in the Feb 15/06 edition of the Bangkok Post.  Sorry, no link is available.)

So here's the question:  since when do dictators just voluntarily give up weapons in their coercive arsenal?  The criminal defamation law has obviously served Hun Sen well in the past.  Has he had some kind of Road to Damascus moment, and become a new convert to democracy?

What's the deal?

If anyone knows the answer, or can direct me to a good blog on Cambodian politics, I'd appreciate the help.  'Cause right now, I'm baffled.

Sounds Like the Title of a Bad Porno

North Korean Cheerleaders in Prison.

See what I mean?

Twenty-one members of North Korean cheering squads who traveled to South Korea for international sports events are being held in a prison camp for talking about what they saw in the South, a news report said yesterday.

...the female cheering squad apparently violated a pledge not to speak about what they saw in South Korea, the Chosun Ilbo reported.

Citing another unnamed defector, the newspaper said the cheerleaders had pledged before going to South Korea that they would treat the country as "enemy territory" and never speak about what they saw there, accepting punishment if they broke the promise.

Anyways, here's a few pics of the cheerleaders in happier days:

 

On the bright side, ladies, a strict regimen of hard labor along with Dear Leader's patented Starvation Diet™ will have you losing ALL of those unwanted pounds in NO time.

Kim Jong-il, you're all heart!

Bizarre Search Engine Results

Sep 19/07:  Googling "super-skinny models should be banned" brought one poor reader to a post about Chinese opposition to the Taiwanese flag during international sporting events.  Huh???

Sep 15/07:  This morning, someone was directed to one of my posts after searching for "what was the tiger's name on the flintstones."  Nothing in the post on that subject, but gee whiz.  Now you've got ME thinking about it!

Oct 10/06:  A recent search: will+that+taiwanese+president+ever+resign.  I can so vividly imagine the author's tone of exasperation.

Sep 24/06:  Someone recently googled indonesian+chinese+jewish+rioting.  Have there been many cases of Jews rioting in Indonesia, or what?

Jun 20/06:  A few visitors are directed to my post about fluorescent pigs while Googling foreigner+scientist.  What on earth are they looking for with such vague criteria?

Apr 5/06:  Searching google.com for, foreigner+in+taiwan+want+china+unification, brings the user to my site.

Pretty strange, but it does pose a question that I hadn't considered before, viz., how many foreigners in Taiwan actually DO want Taiwan to be annexed by Communist China?

Feb 18/06:  Searching msn.co.uk for, audio+I'm+Spartacus, instead directs the user to my post regarding the high-frequency songs of mice.

Obviously, the engine must have gotten confused upon seeing my posts discussing the Cartoon Hoax, No, I'm Spartacus and Why I Too, Am Spartacus.  Sorry to disappoint, but I've no audio clips of that inspirational moment in Stanley Kubrick's movie.

Feb 17/06:  Someone typed, Taiwan+should+surrender, and yahoo.com directed them to MY website.  Hilarious!

Guess it comes from this sentence, from a December 2005 post:

The "viable strategy" [to end Taiwan's isolation] that The China Post proposes is that Taiwan should surrender its sovereignty to the communists in exchange for a few scraps thrown to it from the masters' table.

Stop sugarcoating it Foreigner; tell us what you REALLY think about Taiwanese capitulation!

Compelling Explanations

You're the embattled prime minister of a country.  The Supreme Court has just agreed to begin proceedings to find out if there are grounds for your impeachment*.  It's only natural that people are going to ask you about your predicament.

[Yesterday, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra] told a group of visiting National Defence College students why he was suffering a downturn.

OK, this is gonna be good.  Surely he's gonna come clean and say that it was an unethical conflict of interest when he changed the nation's laws, allowing him to sell his company's shares at a greater profit?  Right?

Let's listen:

"They say Saturn has moved into the house of Cancer.  My stars are the Moon, Mercury and the Sun, but they are foreshadowed by Saturn, causing a bad impact.  The Moon signifies charm, the Sun stature and power.  Since they are foreshadowed by Saturn, all have decreased."

I swear to God I'm not making this stuff up.  It's a damn shame that there's no link to the Feb 15/06 story, "Stars not on his side," from The Nation.

My greatest fear is not that web surfers won't believe me, but that hordes of militant astrologists might go on a rampage if I heap scorn upon the sacred beliefs of Prime Minister Moonbeam.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE (Feb 16/06):  These things must work fast in Thailand.  CNN International just today announced that the Thai Supreme Court rejected the bid for Thaksin's removal.

UPDATE (Mar 22/06):  Thaksin recently fired his personal astrologer, after the fortune teller told him that the stars were "not in his favor and he should step down."

Yesterday, a religious shrine was attacked by a mentally ill man, and the astrologer had this to say:

"This is a very unlucky omen, especially since the perpetrator was crazy and was killed after committing the sacrilege...This is a sign that if the prime minister doesn't resign the country must sacrifice blood."

Don't you hate it when the stars turn against you like that?

Think You Had a Bad Day?

A female ice-skater fell through the ice into a freezing lake in Hungary and survived by holding on to the edge of the ice with her teeth.  Hungary's Bilkk newspaper reports that after the 29-year-old woman fell into the water, frostbite set into her hands and she could only hang on to the broken ice with her teeth.

Some people walking by discovered her 10 minutes later.  The woman was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for hypothermia.

(From the story, "Saved by the Hair of Her Teeth" in the Feb 15/06 edition of The Nation.  Sorry, no link is available.)

As the Scandanavian expression goes, "Heroism is holding on for just one minute longer."

Batman Steps into the Cartoon Crisis

They don't call him "The Caped Crusader" for nothing:

[Comic book writer Frank Miller] proudly announced the title of his next Batman book, which he will write, draw and ink...And Miller doesn't hold back on the true purpose of the book, calling it "a piece of propaganda," where 'Batman kicks al Qaeda's ass..."

"The Greeks had their Gods and heroes," Miller said. "We have ours." And if you truly consider these characters our mythological figureheads, you have to wonder about their place and purpose in our culture. "What are they there for?" Miller asked, rhetorically...

"It just seems silly to chase around the Riddler when you've got Al Qaeda out there."

But don't tell Human Rights Watch that the Dark Knight is on the case.  Miller's Batman throws razor-sharp batarangs, interrogates criminals by dangling them head-first from skyscrapers, and has been known to render mass murderers quadriplegics by twisting their necks until they break.

He's not exactly an "I feel your pain" kinda guy.

Welcome to the fight.

(Hat tip to The Belmont Club.)

Mrs. Simpson, Please! Insulting the Boot is a Bootable Offense!

Another casualty of the Cartoon Crisis:

"Porky Pig, you're nuh-nee, nuh-nee, nuh-nee, next!"

Two Hunger Strikers

Try not to get 'em confused.

The Business of Pandas

In the middle of the debate over whether Taiwan should accept China's "generous" offer of pandas, it should be pointed out that American zoos are having a bit of buyer's remorse when it comes to theirs:

Lun Lun and Yang Yang have needs.  They require an expensive all-vegetarian diet.  They are attended by a four-person entourage, and both crave privacy.

...A six person crew travels around [Georgia] six days a week, harvesting bamboo from 400 volunteers who grow it in their backyards for the zoo to provide their pandas' daily needs.  (Zoo Atlanta tried growing its own on a farm, as the Memphis Zoo does, but Lun Lun and Yang Yang turned up their noses.)

Picky little buggers, aren't they?

...their care runs five times what it costs to board the next most expensive animal - an elephant.

One more time with that one: They're FIVE TIMES more expensive to keep than ELEPHANTS.

...But the real sticker shock comes from the fees [they] must pay the Chinese government: $2 million a year to rent a pair of pandas....If cubs are born, the annual fee increases by an average of $600,000.

Because of the costly loan obligations, [the Atlanta, Washington, San Diego and Memphis zoos have joined together] - to negotiate some budgetary breathing room...."If we can't renegotiate, they absolutely will go back," [said the chief executive of the Atlanta Zoo].  "Unless there are significant renegotiations, you'll see far fewer pandas in the United States at the end of this current agreement."

Pandas are a big draw.  At first, anyways.  But:

...after the first year, crowds dwindle, while the expenses remain high..."Year three is [the] break-even year," [said the director of the Memphis Zoo.]

..."After that, attendance drops off, and you start losing vast amounts of money.  There is a resurgence in attendance when babies are born."

(From "Costly zoo strategy: Pandas as loss leader" from the Feb 13th edition of the International Herald Tribune.  Sorry, no link is available.)

I'm unaware of what the lease arrangements for the pandas offered to Taiwan are.  But whether they're more favorable or not, my argument against accepting the pandas has always been legal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE (Mar 23/06):  The Taipei Times has the same story that was cited in this post.

In the middle of the debate over whether Taiwan should accept China's "generous" offer of pandas, it should be pointed out that American zoos are having a bit of buyer's remorse when it comes to theirs:

Lun Lun and Yang Yang have needs.  They require an expensive all-vegetarian diet.  They are attended by a four-person entourage, and both crave privacy.

...A six person crew travels around [Georgia] six days a week, harvesting bamboo from 400 volunteers who grow it in their backyards for the zoo to provide their pandas' daily needs.  (Zoo Atlanta tried growing its own on a farm, as the Memphis Zoo does, but Lun Lun and Yang Yang turned up their noses.)

Picky little buggers, aren't they?

...their care runs five times what it costs to board the next most expensive animal - an elephant.

...But the real sticker shock comes from the fees [they] must pay the Chinese government: $2 million a year to rent a pair of pandas....If cubs are born, the annual fee increases by an average of $600,000.

Because of the costly loan obligations, [the Atlanta, Washington, San Diego and Memphis zoos have joined together] - to negotiate some budgetary breathing room...."If we can't renegotiate, they absolutely will go back," [said the chief executive of the Atlanta Zoo].  "Unless there are significant renegotiations, you'll see far fewer pandas in the United States at the end of this current agreement."

Pandas are a big draw.  At first, anyways.  But:

...after the first year, crowds dwindle, while the expenses remain high..."Year three is [the] break-even year," [said the director of the Memphis Zoo.]

..."After that, attendance drops off, and you start losing vast amounts of money.  There is a resurgence in attendance when babies are born."

(From "Costly zoo strategy: Pandas as loss leader" from the Feb 13th edition of the International Herald Tribune.  Sorry, no link is available.)

I'm unaware of what the lease arrangements for the pandas offered to Taiwan are.  But whether they're more favorable or not, my argument against accepting the pandas has always been legal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE (Mar 23/06):  The Taipei Times has the same story that was cited in this post.

The Birth of Cool

Etymology of "cool".

During the horse-and-buggy era, "cooling one's heels" described the need to rest a horse with overheated hooves.

I did not know that.

Life Imitates a John Belushi Sketch

Reality isn't quite so funny:

Samurai sword attacks are on the rise in Cambodia, police said yesterday after two Turkish tourists were rescued but seriously wounded by a Samurai sword-wielding gang near the city's Royal Palace.

...a police patrol spotted the terrified and bleeding tourists runing at about midnight on February 10, hotly persued by a gang of around seven men with the Japanese-style swords.

"The tourists sustained quite serious injuries to many parts of their bodies, especially their arms...[said Police chief Phan Pheng]

"It isn't just this district which has problems with Samurai swords.  Many gangs in the city use them..."

(From "Samurai sword attacks on the rise" in the Feb 14th edition of The Nation.  Sorry, no link is available.) 

It's all good, clean fun until somebody loses an eye or something.

Indonesia, Who Needs Ya?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me
(Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me...)

The Feb 11/06 edition of The Bangkok Post had a piece on the Cartoon Hoax, discussing the current protests and rioting in various Asian countries.  (If you care to read the entire article, "Islam-West divide grows", you'll have to register with The Bangkok Post first.)

This caught my eye:

About 175 students at an Islamic school in Surabaya, in East Java province, signed a pact saying they are "ready to die" for Prophet Mohammed, and would confront any Danes they meet, said their headmaster, Yusuf Muhajir.

He said, "They will ask Danish citizens wherever they meet to apologize.  They will be slapped if they refuse to apologize."

"The slap is merely intended as a lesson, instead of hurting them."

Oh well, I guess that makes it OK then.

When you think about it, you could actually call this a minor victory in the Global War on Terrorism.  I mean, it's kinda moderate, isn't it?  It sure beats bombing folks indiscriminately in Balinese nightclubs, doesn't it?

So from the bottom of my heart, I thank you, Yusuf.  Until now, I was entirely ignorant about the graciousness of Indonesian hospitality.  What in the world could be better than an idyllic vacation with sun, sand, snorkelling...and virtually limitless prospects for public humiliation?

UPDATE (Mar 17/06):  Sounds like Yusuf is an Indonesian moderate because today we learned that eleven percent of the population are pro-suicide bombing.  That works out to 24 million - exceeding the number of people currently living in Taiwan.

Oh yeah - and 50% of Indonesians support stoning adulterers.

Lobster Arcade Machines

Before coming to Taiwan, I had never actually seen one of those coin-operated arcade games where the player attempts to pick up stuffed animals in a glass booth using joystick-controlled pincers.

I read now that the machine can now be found in some American restaurants, but with a twist.  Instead of toys, the glass booths now contain live lobsters.  What you capture, you eat.

The animal rights crowd aren't too happy about the whole thing.  But it just seems to me that if you're going to thrown into a big pot of boiling water, maybe being picked up with a set of plastic-coated pincers is the least of your worries.

A Gamble with Some Big Claws

A somewhat related "Monty" cartoon.  No rioting, please.

The Cartoon Hoax

A summary of events so far:

In early 2005, a Dane decided to write a children's book about the story of Mohammed.  His goals were to increase understanding of Islam among Danish children, and to promote peace between cultures.

The standard convention is for children's books to have pictures, so the author went shopping for an illustrator.  At this point, the writer ran into a roadblock.  No artist wanted the job because they were afraid of being targetted by Muslim terrorists.  Drawing images of Mohammed is considered verboten by some (but not all) sects of Islam.

At this point, a Danish newspaper learned of the writer's difficulty, and the editors asked a question.  How strong really was the intimidation felt by Danish artists?  So they decided to perform a social experiment.  They sent out a call.  Who was willing to draw the prophet of Islam?  A few brave souls came forward.  The paper published 12 of their drawings on Sep 30/05.  An Egyptian paper also printed the cartoons about a month later.

William Kristol wryly describes Muslim reaction in Egypt:

...you surely must remember the anguish that provoked. Tens of millions of Egyptians were so tormented they could barely refrain from attacking Israel, slaughtering all foreign businessmen, and destroying the pagan Sphinx. So anguished was President Mubarak that he announced he would return his $2 billion in "infidel U.S. foreign aid." For his part, the chief Islamist televangelist on Al Jazeera, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was so anguished he repudiated the financing his branch of the Muslim Brotherhood receives from the "hatemongering European Union." Meanwhile in Iran, the nuclear program ground to a halt, as anguished engineers found they could no longer in good conscience consult technical manuals produced by Zionist and Crusader scientists.

You don't remember any of that happening?  Maybe that's because it didn't.  Egyptian Muslims saw the cartoons in their press and gave a collective yawn.  Not ONE protest ensued.

Meanwhile, back in Denmark, certain Danish Muslim clerics were upset, and were angrily demanding apologies.  None were forthcoming.  So the clerics went grievance shopping in December, and took the cartoons to the Middle East.  Surely, they thought, their religious brethren would help them make the offending newspaper (and the Danish government) grovel before them.

They were disappointed in their efforts.  Middle Eastern clerics were unimpressed.  The Danish clerics must not have known about the earlier Egyptian response.  It looked like the Danish clerics would have to return home empty-handed.

At this point, they decided that dishonesty was the best policy.  They added three bogus cartoons to the twelve that were actually printed.  See if you can spot the fakes:

Pretty tough, huh?  The first fake shows Mohammed as a pedophile, the second as a pig-snouted creature, and the last depicts a worshipping Muslim being raped by a dog.  It was at this point that Middle-Eastern clerics started to get angry - at the phony drawings.

There's a political element that shouldn't be overlooked however.  The case of the murder of Lebanese Prime-Minister Rafiq al-Hariri may be referred to the UN Security Council soon.  And which country is due to assume the presidency of the Council within the next month or so?  Denmark.  What better way could there be to politically neuter the future president of the Council?  The legitimacy of the Security Council's future decisions on the matter will now be under a cloud, at least in the Muslim world.

By the way, in which Muslim countries were Danish embassies torched?  Syria and Syrian-influenced Lebanon.  And who is the prime suspect in the Hariri murder?  Boy Assad of Syria.  What a co-inky-dink.

Syria is a police state, and "spontaneous" demonstrations of this nature simply don't happen by themselves in police states.  The best that could be said is that the Syrian government allowed the riots to occur; the worst would be that they actually organized them.  There are more than a few similarities here with the 2005 anti-Japanese riots in China.

(Iran arrived at the party a bit late, but a similar calculus holds for them as well.  They also may face the Security Council in the not-too-distant future about their nuclear weapons program.  They're poisoning the well so that when a decision is reached they can say that the president of the Security Council was biased against them.)

As for the violence in Pakistan and other places, that's just monkey-see, monkey-do.  Or, to be more clinical, mass hysteria.  If your co-religionists are rioting over the cartoons, they must be pretty bad.  Bad enough for you to start rioting, too.

And that's the story of the Cartoon Hoax, as I understand it.  The epilogue to the story is that the writer of the children's book that started the whole saga finally found an illustrator.  The book was published near the end of January 2006, and is doing quite well, thank you.

And contrary to initial fears, there has been no Muslim outrage about the artwork.

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UPDATE:  The Toronto Star makes a point that seems so obvious, it's a wonder no one else has said it yet:

...for Arab governments resentful of the Western push for democracy, the protests presented an opportunity to undercut the appeal of the West to Arab citizens. The freedom pushed by the West, they seemed to say, brought with it disrespect for Islam.

...the demonstrations "started as a visceral reaction — of course they were offended — and then you had regimes taking advantage, saying, `Look, this is the democracy they're talking about.'"

UPDATE (Feb 15/06):  Another interesting idea was advanced in the Feb 15/06 edition of The Bangkok Post.  (Sorry, no link is available.) The column, "Assad sends defiant message to the West," by Khaled Yacoub Oweis points out that Syria needs to:

[calm] Saudi Arabia's anger over the killing of Hariri, who held a Saudi as well as a Lebanese passport and was close to the Saudi monarchy.

Rallying against a common enemy such as Denmark would be one way of facilitating forgetfulness regarding Syria's role in Hariri's murder.

UPDATE (Feb 18/06): Gateway Pundit has a day-by-day chronology of events, focusing mainly on the role of the Egyptian ambassador to Denmark.

UPDATE (Feb 18/06): As I said in my first post on this subject, the embassy burnings began while I was on vacation.  I wrote this to summarize for myself what a few other bloggers were saying.  There's really nothing written in this post that wasn't said first in one of these blogs:

The Brussels Journal - they were following the story before it even BECAME a story

The Belmont Club - good analysis

The Rantings of a Sandmonkey - the one who first realized that the cartoons had been published without outcry in Egypt back in October.  Interesting to read a pro-American Muslim's take on the issue.

No Pasaran! - nice, short updates

UPDATE (Feb 19/06): Michelle Malkin has a column where she reveals that the Danish clerics lied in the Middle East by claiming the newspaper published not 12, but 120 Mohammed cartoons.  They also lied in telling their co-religionists that the newspaper was state-owned.

UPDATE (Feb 19/06): The origin of the pig-snouted Mohammed fake.  Paul Belian of The Brussels Journal makes the case that the creators of the phony illustration (the Danish Muslim clerics!) are the ones who are guilty of blasphemy.

Because the twelve [newspaper] cartoonists are not Muslims, the Muslim blasphemy laws do not apply to them...But these laws do apply to the imams...[that]...created their own three Muhammed images. Consequently, these imams deserve death. They – and no-one else – depicted the prophet as a pig – the highest imaginable insult in Islam.

Why I Too, Am Spartacus

Wherein I respond to a Taiwanese commenter, who categorizes my posting of the Danish cartoons that sparked Muslim anger as an act of childishness and insensitivity, which furthermore undermines freedom of speech:

Dear Falen,

The more that I read about the subject, the more I realize that the "cartoon controversy" is nothing more than manufactured outrage.  Muslims themselves have drawn Mohammed over the ages, and PLENTY of images of him have appeared in the West previously.  If Muslims were truly upset about the depiction of Mohammed, then shouldn't they direct their attention first at the books within their own libraries?  But I'll talk more about the staged aspect of the situation in a later post.

As a matter of free speech I think it's entirely valid to show the petty nonsense that Muslims are going ape over.  You do understand that they're rioting over something that they've never actually seen, don't you?  OVER CARTOONS FOR CRISSAKES!  It's entirely valid to show the Danish cartoons and allow people to make up their own minds about whether the rioters' actions are justified, or maybe they're just a wee bit out of proportion.

(One additional point - Muslims are rioting due to written descriptions about the cartoons.  Is there not a possibility that the descriptions THEMSELVES might be needlessly inflammatory?)

These cartoons offensive?  They're child's play.  In The Divine Comedy, Dante didn't pussyfoot around, putting some staff in Mohammed's hand and pointlessly standing him in the desert with a donkey behind him.  No, he placed the founder of Islam in the 8th Circle of HELL.  And EVERY library in the West has a copy of that, probably with illustrations like this one by Gustav Dore':

That would be Mohammed in the center.  We know, because the poet wrote: "Look how Mohammed claws and mangles himself, torn open down the breast!”

Maybe we could have a good old-fashioned book-burning just to make the mobs happy.  But that wouldn't be enough to appease them.  We'd also have to blow up a few churches with offensive frescoes.  Frescoes like this one:

 

(By the way, I'm not being melodramatic here.  In 2002, Islamofascists actually DID try to blow up the Italian church containing this artwork.)

Don't think for a minute that this only concerns the the West, either.  China's a big place, with a lot of history.  Probably a few Chinese depictions of Mohammed floating around.  The Bamiyan statue incident in Afghanistan should be a sobering reminder to us all on the value that Islamofascists place on relics of the past.

(I won't even mention the hypocrisy involved when Muslims demand that their ever-so delicate sensibilities be catered to, while their own press spews the most vile anti-Semitic cartoons imaginable.  My time in Taiwan has taught me that Chinese have a pretty good handle on the concept that respect is a two-way street.)

Beyond these considerations however, is the question of national sovereignty.  It's a fact that blasphemy restrictions exist in countries of the Arab world.  I'll explain later why I think they'd be better off without them, but the reality on the ground is that their blasphemy laws are on the books, or that their societal taboos are in place.  If I visit Saudi Arabia, I promise not to corrupt anybody and set them on the path to hell by showing them any of these images.  Having said that though, by what theory of national sovereignty do Saudi blasphemy laws somehow migrate to countries within the birthplace of the Enlightenment?

European intellectuals have busied themselves for years worrying about the effects of American "cultural imperialism".  They would do better to be a little less concerned about Big Macs and Euro-Disney than about the women in their midst being raped for not wearing veils or the theocratic goons murdering their countrymen and attempting to impose their mores upon them.

Finally, and most importantly, is the question of freedom of religion.  Freedom of religion means the right to believe in God, to not believe, and yes, to think that belief itself is a crock.  Islamofascist intimidation represents nothing less than a deliberate attempt to rob a free people of their religious freedoms.  As Thomas Jefferson said, "Disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God."  That applies to religious tyrants as well.

Surrender is the easy and cowardly way out - whether the the enemies are Islamofascists or dictatorial butchers casting their hungry gaze on an small island of free men with a population of only 23 million. 

If there is a benevolent God, then it is MY belief that He wants us, His creations, to be free.  To accept Him of our own free will.  Which means that we are free to make mistakes, and to sin.  It also means that we are free to love, as well as to mock Him.

Which of course leads to an interesting question.  Islamofascists CLAIM their religious beliefs do not allow ME (a third-party, a non-believer, and someone living on foreign soil!) to mock Mohammed.  But MY beliefs inform ME that I have the FREEDOM to reject God.  Why exactly, should their theology take precedence over mine?

To my knowledge, China never had religious wars.  I could be wrong.  Please then, allow me to explain that the consequences of the Thirty Years War were catastrophic.  Germany's population before the war was 21 million - by the end it was 13.5 million*.  And it was all because Catholics and Protestants claimed the right to force each other to conform to their own theologies.

NEVER AGAIN.

Moreover, to my knowledge, pre-communist China never had a Dark Age (at least in a religious sense).  Again, I could be wrong.  Perhaps you're not aware of the fact that there was a time when Europeans were broken on the wheel for heresy.  This punishment consisted of tying the victim to the wheel of a cart, and breaking all of his limbs one at a time with a metal bar.

I believe the bar was made of lead.

NEVER AGAIN.

These two reasons are why I think you are so uncomprehending of the importance of religious liberty to Westerners.  (Pre-communist) Chinese history may simply not have the abundance of examples that lead to the conclusion that religious freedom is an absolute necessity for a peaceful society.  Consider: if Muslims get their (admittedly minor) blasphemy prohibitions enacted now, they will be inevitably be tempted to demand more later on.  Other religions will follow suit.

What will the result be?  Eventually, religious inquiry itself will be stifled, as theologians discover that new interpretations violate theocratic taboos.

The followers of religion may complain about freedom of religion when their religion is insulted.  Quite frankly, I don't blame them.  But they should reflect on the fact that the freedom that allows others to mock their most cherished beliefs is also the very same freedom that allows themselves and their theologians to argue and debate the nature of God, and man's relationship with Him.  It gives them the right to change their minds.  It gives them the right to belong to a religion that continues to grow and innovate, so that it doesn't lose relevance for its practitioners.  Such change and progress cannot happen without thought preceding the deed.  And that thought cannot happen without freedom.

You're free to think that I'm some kind of gleeful provocateur who enjoys making fun of other people's faith.  Maybe my reasons for showing the cartoons mean nothing to you.  They happen to mean a lot to me.  And I'm sorry if you find that childish.

Sincerely,

The Foreigner

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* I originally was mistaken in placing these figures at 30 and 3 million, respectively.  I believe that the numbers given now are the correct ones.

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UPDATE: No Pasaran! slyly wonders when the Muslim world will begin burning Egyptian flags and boycotting Egyptian goods.  After all, they printed the cartoons of evil too!

UPDATE (Feb 18): The Brussels Journal makes the observation that Muslim complaints are more than a little rich considering their past behavior:

For centuries and until today, Islam has ordered the destruction of everything that is sacred to other religions, starting with the 360 idols in the Kaaba (including Jesus and Mary) smashed to pieces by Muhammad himself, down to the Bamian Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, the weekly vandalising of Hindu temples in Bangladesh, or the destruction of Christian churches in Iraq during the last couple of months. In many cases, moreover, not only the places of worship but the worshippers too have been assaulted. What an arrogance for Muslims, with their heritage of iconoclastic insensitivity, to put up this show of indignation for a handful of harmless cartoons. And now we are being expected to feel pity for those poor touch-me-nots?

Moreover, if lack of respect for other religions is to the basis for banning speech, then the KORAN should be one of the first publications to be so censored:

The Quran contains dozens of verses that preach hostility to Pagans (polytheists, Zoroastrian ‘fire-worshippers’ and atheists), Jews and Christians. It denounces their teachings as false and evil and a sure passport to hell.

The Quran also expressly forbids conversion from Islam to other religions, while allowing and encouraging the reverse... It is also in contravention of the European Convention on Human Right's article 9...for this article defines “freedom of religion” as including “the right to change one’s religion.”

In addition the Quran rejects the principle of “equal rights and duties for everyone,”...Apart from the candidly affirmed inequality in rights and duties between the sexes (which admittedly exists in all religions), it explicitly ordains inequality between the different religious communities. To the non-monotheists Muhammad denied freedom of religion completely, and as for Jews and Christians, the Quran only allows them to retain their faith if they accept the status of third-class citizens and pay a ‘toleration tax.’

There is even grimmer reading, however, in dozens of Quran verses that go further than mere doctrinal disputation and actually enjoin the Muslims to go out and fight the ‘infidels.’ The core text of Islam is not merely disrespectful towards other religions, it extols killing and glorifies dying in the war against the non-Muslims.

UPDATE (Mar 10/06):  Islamofascists in the birthplace of the Enlightenment recently demanded another surrender, calling for one of Voltaire's plays to be cancelled.  After some initial waffling, the local French authorities grew a spine and provided police protection to the theater presenting the play from a small mob of Muslim thugs outside.  The mayor speculated as to why Muslims think the West is gutless, saying, "For a long time we have not confirmed our convictions, so lots of people think they can contest them."

(Hat tip to Sandmonkey.)

UPDATE (Apr 9/06):  A Chinese model wearing a bikini with the word "Allah" on it.  No rioting over this, but then, Muslims don't have any particular axe to grind against the Chinese.

Yet.

No, I'm Spartacus!*

That's what it'll take to really end this.  100,000 Danes marching in downtown Copenhagen wearing t-shirts with the offending cartoons boldly emblazoned on them for all to see.  You can kill one Theo van Gogh.  You can knock off a cartoonist here or there.  But you'll never beat us all.  So you might as well give up now, 'cause we never will.

Until that day, here are the cartoons that started it all.

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*  After Wretchard's original post, I am Spartacus over at The Belmont Club.

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UPDATE (Feb 11/06):  Walid al-Kubaisi, a moderate Muslim living in Norway, essentially agrees with my thesis.  He thinks that the cartoons shouldn't have been published in the first place, but now:

“The only way to protect freedom of expression is for as many newspapers as possible in Europe to publish the cartoons. The Islamists cannot boycott the whole world. They cannot ask the whole world to apologize.”

Read the whole thing here.  You'll be disappointed to learn that Carrefour (a French hypermarket chain with stores in Taiwan) is boycotting Danish goods in its Middle Eastern franchises.  Shame on them.

UPDATE #2 (Feb 11/06):  That was fast.  News is out that the t-shirts are now available here.  Sadly, I don't get a cut.

Sure beats those "Never Trust Democracy" t-shirts that were all the rage among the pro-capitulationist parties here in Taiwan.

UPDATE (Feb 12/06):  Apropos from No Pasaran!:

UPDATE (Feb 19/06):  A Pakistani Muslim cleric helped to further Islam's already stellar reputation for peacefulness by offering a $1 million bounty to anyone who murders one of the Danish cartoonists.  Making this post's proposal all the more urgent.

UPDATE (Mar 2/06):  A Danish website displays the cartoons accompanied by "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister.

Twisted Sister.  Now THAT takes me back.

Crank it up.

UPDATE (Apr 12/06):  Borders Books in America refused to carry a magazine printing the cartoons.  Here's a satire about Borders' decision.

Kanye West

Rapper Kanye West says that a new, modern-day Bible should be written, with himself as one of the characters.

Bor-ring.  You REALLY want to shock us with your irreverent attitude, Kanye?  Tell us that you're "bigger than Mohammed now".  Then we'll talk.

UPDATE (Feb 11/06):  Over at Kesher Talk, LevyBen discusses the general idea in a bit more depth:

"...the concept of bravery as it pertains to the arts is now redefined...Bravery to an artist, is now an all or nothing thing.  Leave [Islamofascism] alone, and all your efforts, no matter how avante garde, provocative or just plain offensive your work is, and you're just pretending at courage.   Cross the line and say something about Islam, and your life is on the line...It's as if mountaineers were to suddenly be faced with only two choices: Everest, or the plastic rock-climbing wall."

Travel Tips

1)  If you're ever in Thailand, DON'T cut in line.

2)  If you DO insist on jumping the queue, DON'T taunt the armed security guard asking you to move to the back by questioning whether or not he's got the guts to use that gun of his.

Word to the wise.

Bank queue-jumper shot by annoyed security guard in mall

Who Made YOU the Boss of Me?

On vacation and without CNN for over a week, I flipped on the hotel's TV late Monday evening and saw Muslims rioting and embassies burning.  DANISH embassies?  Over those insignificant cartoons The Brussels Journal discussed back in December or January?

It's like I've landed on some other planet or something.

If you've been following the story, you probably know much more about it than I do.  But here's a few of my reactions:

Saturday:  Danish protesters march with placards reading, "We're sorry."  And I'm thinking - what a buncha goddamn pussies.  By all means, apologize when you hurt someones feelings.  But when buildings are set alight, it isn't YOU who should be the ones offering apologies.

Sunday: TV says most Danes see this as a free speech issue.  And they're NOT apologizing for the crime of living in a country with freedom of speech.  Good for them.

But CNN International claims that the "world standing of Denmark has been damaged".  Huh?  How so?  No offense to Danes, but I've never previously given their country a second thought.  Now I'm seeing them as a tiny country being pushed around by a bullying mob numbering one billion.  A situation rather similar to Taiwan's, when you stop to think about it.  That's pretty heroic, in my book.

Wednesday: Sounds like the US State Department fumbled the ball a bit at the beginning.  Clinton kicked the Danes while they were down, too.  All of which is uncool.  But the Yanks and Brits seem to be giving Denmark support now.  The time for humoring vicious theocrats ends when they start breaking things, killing people and promising a new holocaust.

Thursday: Anderson Cooper today had a guest who made the bizarre claim that blasphemy restrictions would somehow demonstrate to Muslims that there really is religious freedom and equality in Europe.  1984 and Animal Farm all at once now.  Freedom is slavery.  All religions are equal, but some are more equal than others.

I'm sure you've all heard of the contest launched in Iran for cartoons mocking the Holocaust.  The Belmont Club informs its readers of another contest:

A contest to humiliate Mohammed has been launched not in Texas, not in Israel but in the [politically-correct] Netherlands. The Netherlands. Almost inconceivable.

The Dutch website can be found here.  Some of it's pretty offensive, but TS.  Right now the only thing that the Danes should apologize for is the fact that the original cartoons just weren't all that funny.  Leave it to the Dutch to rectify THAT:

 

 

This one wasn't bad:

 

 As Sun Tzu wrote, "When your enemy is angry, annoy him":

A little more risque', this one:

 

But it's pretty tame compared to:

Hardcore atheists will like:

 

But in my opinion, the final one is spot-on:

 

 

 

I am free, and I am uncowed.

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UPDATE (Mar 2/06):  Danes issue the kind of apology that the situation merits, giving  Islamofascists the middle finger salute.  Uitstekend!

(Hat tip to Sandmonkey.)

UPDATE (Dec 20/10):  The internal links to three of the images seem to have become broken.  Looks like these were BMP files, and the newer versions of TypePad have problems with that format.

After much searching, I found the original BMP copies, and converted them to TIFFs & JPGs.  The JPG files have now been linked where the old BMP files once were in this post.

Views Within the Chinese Leadership

Over at StrategyPage, there's a short column regarding what the Chinese leadership really thinks.  Now, I'm no mind-reader, so I don't claim any special insight into whether the Chinese communists view India as a future threat or not.  There's probably many schools of thought in Beijing.  But this line struck me as being authentic:

...they don't seem to think we're “bogged down” in Iraq so much as that we're gaining valuable combat experience (maybe a million “seasoned” troops by the time it’s over) as well as learning all sorts of new tricks in how to fight insurgencies, and how to use new military technologies*.

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* I was talking to a Taiwanese aquaintance way back when, and he casually stated his belief that the real reason that America attacked Afghanistan was to test out its new weapons systems.  9-11?  That was merely the excuse!

Now, normally I would dismiss this as the conjecturing of some kind of moonbat.  Except that the individual in question was an otherwise bright young man who was in fact an ROC officer (or officer-in-training).  So it doesn't surprise me to hear that similar opinions hold sway among the political class on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

Newspaper Editor Beaten to Death in China

Beaten do death by the cops.  The big story that triggered the attack was an expose' about how 50 policemen were illegally charging people with BICYCLE FEES.

Not exactly ENRON-scale stuff.  But it was enough to get Wu Xianghu killed.

Chinese editor died after beating