(Human breast milk soap on sale at Jingguo Boulevard in Taichung on Sunday)
- The future of body part replacement is going to be 'grow your own' or reconstructive structures placed around a wounded or damaged body part with fresh cells containing the bespoke DNA required to grow the necessary part in the space provided. Growing teeth is just a start.
- A comparison of the two Health Care Bills in congress - from the Senate and the House of Representatives. My impression is that Obama's election promises are most nearly met by the version passed by the House of Representatives.
- The 30 day rule strikes again - the recent cross-strait agreements will not need Legislative review according to MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) because they do not necessitate a change in law. One wonders if ECFA will be treated in the same way.
- Wang Dan comes up against Chinese Students in Taiwan. Maddog has more detail including a claim that flyers promoting the Wang Dan speech were ripped down, implying that Chinese students may be responsible. Here we perhaps can see one of the first documented instances of Chinese students coordinating action. We also see a reference to 'professional students' or those who study abroad with a political agenda that is more like a series of directives than personal ideological bent.
- DPP takes a different tack on criticising the Government - this time saying that the Government hasn't been able to bring in a sufficient Chinese investment ...
- New EPA idea: solar-powered glasshouses on fallow land to grow valuable crops and provide power to communities. This is good. There are so many ways we can all convert to energy self-sufficiency. I believe the answer lies in the phrase 'take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves'. The trick is to proceed quickly so that new energy friendly means of production and consumption can actually allow for a significant cut in emissions and pollutants.
- A translated 'tell-all' UDN editorial on Former President Chen Shui-bian. The main charge is that Chen was corrupted as soon as he entered office. The main problem is that, even if true, the article provides no context to its claims as if Chen was a Marcos amongst saints. The ugly truth of corruption not just endemic in politics but also economics is avoided.
- Vice Premier Eric Liluan Chu wants the tax base to be broadened including " including revoking tax exempt treatment for military personnel and teachers, imposing higher taxes on expensive properties and luxury goods, and levying a carbon tax to secure "social justice and fairness" [sic]." Sounds good in principle but the struggle over tax exemptions for military and teachers was unsuccessfully tackled by the DPP and with luxury condos being built left right and center the developers won't like higher taxes cutting into their speculative profit margins. As for the carbon tax, I'd like to see one on the biggest producers of carbon rather than rises in the cost of everyday petrol and gas but pigs will fly before then (as an example, the biggest industries pay far less for electricity than household consumers yet produce much more carbon emissions - the damage the commons and do it cheaply).
- As was the case in the UK in the 1980's, but for vastly different reasons and to different ends, unions in Taiwan have been targeted. "The unions voiced their opposition against a proposal now under second reading at the Legislative Yuan which gives the government the right to disband unions and restricts their membership. Protesters from labor unions threw cow dung at the headquarters of the ruling Kuomintang Wednesday to protest against restrictive legislative proposals ... Because Ma had not delivered on any of his promises, union leaders said they might organize a series of protests in the run-up to his second anniversary in power next May 20. At a news conference Wednesday morning, Taiwan Labor Front Secretary-General Sun Yu-lien said laborers were not feeling anything of the economic revival touted by the government and the media. He also lashed out at Ma’s failure to realize his campaign promises of 6 percent economic growth, US$30,000 average income and 3 percent unemployment. Even though the jobless rate was now falling back from a summer peak of 6 percent, the number of long-term unemployed had risen faster than ever."
- I agree with the United Daily News - time for an economic revolution - Taiwan must be at the vanguard of environmentally friendly production, energy use and transportation.
- From the China Times: "what is more worrisome is that the public might simply not care about public affairs. One should never overlook the issue. A society that lacks public discussion on politics and policy will find it difficult to upgrade its political culture, and this is not healthy." - I agree except that we've been trying to have a debate on a really important issues - ECFA - and the Government keeps trying to shield the details from examination. Also, in Taiwan, public discussion of politics is highly partisan which I suspect has begun to have the effect of wearying the public in much the same way as voter participation levels have fallen in other 'advanced' democracies.
- Apple Daily (long a paragon of democratic and moral virtue (or rather not)) has a beef with the NCC including these interesting statements:
It seems the National Communications Commission (NCC) has been so capivated by China that it is diligently learning from China's control of mass media and may soon become an incarnation of the now-defunct Taiwan Garrison Command in restricting freedom of speech.
Claiming that current TV news graphics are messy and untidy, the NCC says it will lay out ground rules to standardize the format of TV news graphics, including the direction and size of the Chinese characters used in the graphics. Violators may face fines ranging from NT$200,000 to NT$1 million.
Since President Ma Ying-jeou assumed office, the sense and scope of government control has become more evident than during the previous A-bian administration. The NCC is a typical example.
Thirty-five media outlets ran a joint advertisement in local newspapers Tuesday reminding the NCC that it only has supervisory rights and should not try to expand its role in restricting electronic media operations.
We support such an appeal and suggest that they file a request for a constitutional interpretation by the Constitutional Court of Grand Justices to prevent the NCC from becoming an anachronistic "bizarre beast" with unauthorized power.
