Month: May 2006

No Wonder The KMT Wants Chen Impeached

Over at the China Post, Joe Hung on Monday put his keen analytical mind to work examining President Chen’s failings, and discovered that Chen apologizes just too darn much for his liking.

In his piece, entitled, President Chen has apologized 10 times in six years, Hung triumphantly observes:

President Chen Shui-bian is the most apologetic chief of state in Taiwan’s brief annals of democratic government — and probably in world history as well.

He has apologized ten times in the six years of his presidency.

That’s ten apologies issued within six years.  Obviously, the guy’s worse than Hitler.

In all fairness, Chen has apologized for some pretty serious misdeeds:

[During a trip to Taipei in 2004, former Czech president Vaclav] Havel tripped [in his hotel room] and suffered some injuries. President Chen apologized to him on October 28th.

So, let me try to picture this:

Chen Shui-bian: I’m sorry, President Havel, that you got hurt while visiting this beautiful country of ours.

Joe Hung: (watching TV, ticking off scorecard) Aha!  Gotcha!

I hope no one takes this post as me being critical of other people’s hobbies.  After all, if birdwatchers can keep meticulous records of the birds they’ve spotted, then what’s wrong with Dr. Hung keeping track of the number of times that President Chen apologizes?

Whatever floats your boat, Joe.

Party on.

Well, Isn’t That Special?

Sorry for not posting for the last two weeks.  Had a lot of work…and really bad insomnia.

Couldn’t let last Sunday’s China Post editorial slip by without comment, though:

In the course of planning surprise visits by our president to countries that have no formal diplomatic relations with us, it is sometimes understandable that government officials try to keep their cards close to their chest.

Uh-huh.  Beijing frequently sends its diplomats to cajole or bully other countries into denying planes carrying Taiwanese officials a place to land.  As a result, the Chen administration misled reporters as to President Chen’s stopover point, thereby foiling Beijing’s plans.  Rather than congratulate Chen for outmaneuvering the Communists, the China Post saw fit to castigate him for, of all things, dishonesty:

From the very start of the nine-day trip, when the Foreign Ministry announced that the president’s plane would make a refueling stop in Alaska, it was clear that officials were making misleading announcements.

After the plane took off, reporters on board who were not told where they were going relied on hand-held compasses to confirm they were heading west and southwest, toward Southeast Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, rather than east toward the North American continent. Before his return trip, false announcements were again made suggesting places where President Chen’s aircraft would stop over, only to have the president make jaunts to Libya and Indonesia.

[…]

In his announcement made over the aircraft’s public address system, President Chen addressed demands that Foreign Minister James Huang step down for blatantly lying about every detail of the trip.

[…]

If Foreign Minister Huang was instructed to tell lies by the president and other superiors, we can forgive him for that. But we should not forgive President Chen for his bizarre and cavalier attitude about telling lies, even if those lies are ostensibly for a good cause.

In the future, President Chen would be wiser to follow the international standard of "refusing to confirm or deny" rather than lying point blank. Rather than do no harm by just keeping mum, President Chen has instead fostered a dangerous culture of lying. (Emphasis added)

Churchill once said that in war, truth is so precious that she should always be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.  That’s probably irrelevant though, because the China Post doesn’t view the Communist Party of China as being hostile, let alone as being an enemy.  But when its editorialists accuse others of "fostering a dangerous culture of lying", they should perhaps reflect on the possibility that a few of their own fabrications might contribute to that culture as well:

[One of the reasons that the U.S. refused Chen a transit stop on the American mainland is that it] has also been annoyed by Chen’s lukewarm response to Bush’s 2001 offer of selling an unprecedented robust package of advanced arms to Taiwan.

(From Chen’s problems U.S.-made, The China Post, May 9/06)

Staggering.  Chen and his party attempted to bring the arms package to a vote over fifty times, but were blocked each and every time by the opposition KMT party.  Meanwhile, it was the China Post that cheered, or least rationalized, the KMT’s obstructionism.

And now, given its own record of hostility to the deal, that newspaper has the face to claim that it was Chen’s response that was lukewarm?

Friendship

How does the joke go?  A friend is someone who’s always there to help you; a true friend is someone who will stick around afterwards to help bury the bodies.

By that measure, Taiwan’s KMT must now be counted as a true friend of the Communist Party of China:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus [on May 2nd] blocked a legislative resolution that would have asked the UN and international human-rights groups to investigate China’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

[…]

According to the Taiwan Falun Dafa Association, China has stepped up persecution of Falun Gong members, imprisoning them in concentration camps — including one in Liaoning Province where some are said to have had organs removed for transplant.

I’m SO disillusioned.  The China Post has written countless editorials extolling the KMT’s love of sweet veritas.  President Chen beat the KMT in an election after being shot.  Give us the truth, the China Post repeatedly states – we have to know how Chen orchestrated the assassination attempt on his own life in order to win crucial sympathy votes!

But now, despite that kind of idealistic commitment to the truth, the KMT helps the CCP bury corpses.  Say it ain’t so!  Someone wants to look into whether the Communists murdered members of a religious minority and harvested their organs?  Why, a trivial little matter like that, and the KMT’s appetite for investigations vanishes.  Let’s just quietly kill this in committee instead, they whisper.

What’s remarkable about the entire affair is that even members from the People First Party (a heavily pro-Communist political group) were in favor of the measure.  Their allies in the KMT would have nothing of it, however.  An investigation like that would destroy all of the KMT’s hard work to cozy up to the Communists.  An investigation like that would look bad when China makes a grab for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.  An investigation like that would make the Taiwanese reluctant to hitch their wagon to China’s star.

Dare I also point out that shining light on the subject might also reduce the available supply of fresh kidneys, hearts and corneas for members of Taiwan’s KMT?  Maybe it’s just a coincidence that a large number of them happen to be a tad on the geriatric side.

“Duty” Duty

Must be a lotta angry bureaucrats in the southern Taiwanese county of Tainan right about now…

The Tainan County Government implemented a trend-setting measure yesterday by requiring its staff to clean their office bathrooms.

Despite protests from some bureaucrats, County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said he would stand by his decision as part of his effort to promote good public hygiene practices throughout the county.

Many county employees came to work 30 minutes early, dressed in casual clothes, to clean the toilets. Su took the lead by cleaning the bathrooms next to his office.

First, a little backstory:  Elementary and junior high schools in Taiwan save money on janitorial staff by having their students clean the bathrooms.  Recently though, a few Tainan County schools decided to contract outside firms because the students didn’t seem to care much for the job.  When the county commissioner heard what the school administrators were up to, he tried to shame them into abandoning their plans by demonstrating that even county bureaucrats are required to do that sort of work:

"I think county officials should set a good example for the younger generation by cleaning up their office restrooms themselves," [Su] said. "I hope all county residents can adopt good toilet habits and etiquette."

Now, I’m sure that a lot of people reading this will be saying to themselves, "Make government bureaucrats clean toilets?  Hmm!  Why didn’t we think of that?"

Before you get too enthusiastic though, just consider this scenario:  Take a bunch of civil servants who have passed a grueling set of government examinations to get jobs that have traditionally excluded janitorial work.  Now, make them mop up backed-up toilets. 

Oh, and the kicker is that they’ve got to come to work 30 minutes early in order to do it.  At no extra pay.

Maybe the commissioner will succeed in making the schools back down, but thank Heaven none of MY paperwork will ever cross his employees’ desks. 

You think bureaucrats have a reputation for surliness now?  Man, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

But I haven’t come to the best part yet.  You see, the Commish is so enamored of his revolutionary, trend-setting idea that he believes he can save the county even more money by appealing to the altruistic instincts of other virtuous citizens in the county:

Su said he would launch a campaign to recruit volunteers to clean all public lavatories in the county to replace the current outsourcing practice.  (Emphasis added)

In loo of any serious comment, I just have to say, Mr. Su, I think urine luck.  How could a campaign like that ever tank?  After all, the world’s overflowing with starry-eyed idealists – people who are flush with that good-old can-doo spirit.

Of course, the worst case is that not enough people will be Johnny-on-the-spot.  That’d present a wee bit of a problem.  If that happens, my Number One suggestion would be that you provide a set of incentives so that people don’t let this fabulous op-pooh-tunity go to waste.

As an initial measure, might I propose offering partial course credits for those currently working on their Pee-h.D.s?

Cool / Silly Stuff

A lot of people looking for cool / silly links are directed to this site, but I suspect many of them leave in frustration because the list is at the very bottom of the left sidebar.  Hopefully, search engines will direct them to this post from now on.

So without further ado, here's a few links that either made me laugh, or made me say, "Wow!"  Please let me know if any are inactive, so I can keep the list updated.