Thursday, March 18, 2010

Links


  • Turns out, could be that sympathy or empathy are our strongest instincts. This bit brought a smile to my face:
    • While studies show that bonding and making social connections can make for a healthier, more meaningful life, the larger question some UC Berkeley researchers are asking is, "How do these traits ensure our survival and raise our status among our peers?"

    One answer, according to UC Berkeley social psychologist and sociologist Robb Willer is that the more generous we are, the more respect and influence we wield. In one recent study, Willer and his team gave participants each a modest amount of cash and directed them to play games of varying complexity that would benefit the "public good." The results, published in the journal American Sociological Review, showed that participants who acted more generously received more gifts, respect and cooperation from their peers and wielded more influence over them.

    "The findings suggest that anyone who acts only in his or her narrow self-interest will be shunned, disrespected, even hated," Willer said. "But those who behave generously with others are held in high esteem by their peers and thus rise in status."

    "Given how much is to be gained through generosity, social scientists increasingly wonder less why people are ever generous and more why they are ever selfish," he added. (My 2 pence worth? Ideology and fear)

    • Met office says evidence linking human activity to climate change is growing ...
    • 93% of Icelanders vote no to paying back Holland the UK for bailing out Icesave bank. Tellingly, Icelanders used a referendum on a specific economic issue based on a deal that was made with foreign governments but lacked the public's approval. Does this sound familiar? What then of President Ma's government's argument that ECFA is economic and not political and not a concrete policy? In Iceland, the citizens got a vote under their constitution and laws and voted. As a result they forced the foreign countries to come to the table with a more humble a realistic method of repayment. This is a perhaps a good precedent for Taiwan. Taiwan needs the ECFA referendum, now not after it is signed, - its importance economically must be mirrored or exceeded politically - it is not just some trade agreement.
    Britain and the Netherlands want the money as repayment for bailing out customers in the Icesave online bank, which folded in 2008 due to the global financial meltdown.

    The Reykjavik government approved the repayment plan last December but it was blocked by President Grimsson in January, which led to the referendum being called.

    President Grimsson rejected suggestions the vote was meaningless.

    "It's not a pointless exercise because the referendum, according to our constitution, is on whether the deal which the British and the Dutch insisted on at the end of last year, should remain in force as a law in this country," he told the BBC.

    "It is encouraging that in the last few weeks the British and the Dutch have acknowledged that that deal, on which the referendum takes place, is an unfair deal and that is by itself a tremendous achievement by the referendum... we will be able to continue the negotiations."

    Many Icelanders believe the plan should be rejected because they feel they are being penalised for the mistakes of the banking industry.

    The analogy just gets better the more you read:
    Arni Gunnarsson, a former Icelandic MP, told the BBC News website: "We have not forgotten how Britain used battleships against Iceland during the cod wars.There is also anger against the UK for using anti-terrorist legislation to freeze Icesave assets in the country.

    "We find this a very strange method of thanking the Icelandic people for sacrificing the lives of their seamen during World War II.

    "The colonial attitude is still going strong. The UK should come to its senses."

    • 33 Taiwanese environmental groups met two weeks ago to call for a national convention on climate change. It followed the release of +- 2 Degrees, a new documentary about the impact of climate change on Taiwan. Has anyone seen it, bought the DVD?
    • This Apple Daily critique of President Ma raised my eyebrows. Taiwanese style stuffing of Mencius where the Confucius doesn't shine.
    • I have to mention Premier Wu Den-yih. I loved his utterly disingenuous promise to resign if the word 'unification' appeared in the ECFA. If the wording concerning national titles on ECFA achieves the 're-designate' Taiwan out of the WTO description, neatly plopping it alongside Hong Kong and Macau with Beijing as 'the interior', then what need is there for adding the red flag 'unification'? Why scare the sheep? Wu makes the promise knowing that he will be able to keep it. I can do that too. I promise that as long as I live I will breathe.
    • Absurd simplification of the week? China Times:
    The involvement of gang violence and money in Taiwan's politics -- generally known as "black gold politics" -- stems from a mistake of the Kuomintang (KMT) in the 1990s in which it yielded to or exploited local factions.
    I took this video at an APGN2010 pre-conference meeting of environmental groups in central Taiwan at Lukang last weekend. Also in the temple grounds, a local poetry and calligraphy club held a meeting complete with singing and writing practice and this guy playing some really groove tunes. He played to a backing track. At times I could have sworn he was playing a little US country and folk music in between the more 'traditional' tunes.



    • Chinese oil firm buying a 50% stake in Argentinian power company Bridas Corporation. The race for the reserves begins.
    • Ma invokes the meme of pitiful Taiwanese becoming 'international orphans' - The last time Taiwan heard this was 1971 and 1979 when Taiwan (or rather Chiang's representatives) lost a seat in the UN and when the US switched recognition to the PRC. That led to democracy. Does Ma think he can motivate Taiwanese by presenting unification as a solution that parallels democratisation?
    • Politically inspired investigation or standard operating procedure? Finances of Dalai's visit under scrutiny.
    • Mexico close to trouble with the US as two American consulate workers, husband and pregnant wife, suspected murdered by narco-cartels in Ciudad Juarez. Perhaps all the main players including the government and victims representatives could sit down and come to an agreement. I really think that the best way may be to legalise drugs and invite underground operations to become overground, legitimate and non-violent ones. Government could issue licenses. Taxes on sales would help keep prices high enough to avoid a spike in usage and could perhaps be allocated to victims of the drug war. The end of the war would also reduce expenditure on policing, pull the troops off the streets and make Mexico a safe place for tourists to visit. Just a thought.
    • This was an interesting but confused article on Taiwan Independence. The final analysis seems a bit weak to me - smacked a bit much of early 1990's rhetoric. The case for independence has to be made around practice and tangible factors that Taiwanese see, hear and feel. It has to promise something worthwhile.
    • The President inadvertently insults young women of Taiwan?:
    Ma said that in 1995, when he was minister of justice, the ministry conducted an opinion poll on the abolition of the death penalty, which found that 72 percent of ordinary people, 78 percent of the elite (such as university professors or businesspeople) and 88 percent of judicial personnel — including prosecutors, judges and court clerks — opposed abolition.

    “It is interesting,” Ma said. “Half of the respondents said they did not think the death penalty was an effective deterrent to serious crime. I think most people are against abolishing the death penalty mainly because of a lack of security.”

    Ma said that by asking university students the same question on various occasions, he found that more women were against abolishing the death penalty than men.

    “I don’t intend to emphasize the differences between men and women, but it seems their intuition is that it would not be safe to abolish the death penalty,” he said. “It also shows that they don’t understand the issue very well.”
    • Surprise, surprise. Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) says local governments can't apply energy tax:
    Shen said that scientific evidence was still needed to determine how seriously carbon emissions affected people’s health, adding that if an energy or green tax were levied on CSC, it would be the responsibility of the central government to collect it.
    In an alternative world, I wake up and read this instead:

    Shen said that scientific evidence was clear on how seriously carbon emissions affected people’s health, adding that if an energy or green tax were levied on CSC, it would be the responsibility of local government to collect it.
    at 7:06 AM