You Big Mouth, You!

February 27, 2005

Musings: From the News

Filed under: Original writing, Musings — Chuck ---
  • The Queen won’t be coming the Charles and Camilla’s wedding. Shit, she didn’t come to mine either. Didn’t even send a present. See if I visit the next time I’m across the pond.
  • There is no right to abortion in the Constitution. The Supreme Court found that nothing in the Constitution restricts a woman’s medical right of privacy. There is a difference.
  • The Pope made a surprise appearance in a window at the Vatican today. He did not dangle a small child over the rail, however. Michael Jackson still has the franchise on that.
  • Local radio personality Bob Lonsberry is running for the village board in Mt. Morris. He is not an ape of any kind.
  • BTW, Bob Lonsberry has my endorsement for the post. I’m just saying…
  • Ambulance duty is very boring when the computers are broken and we have no money to replace them. [SOB]
  • When did it become the FCC’s airways?
  • When did we first start expecting news to be unbiased? Yellow journalism, Hearst starting a war, that used to be the standard for American journalism. When did that change and why?
  • My medic had to perform an amputation today. He pulled a prosthetic leg off a patient at their request. I saw the potential for some humor under other circumstances. Am I a sick puppy?
  • Hey, it could have been a glass eye.

February 25, 2005

China: Reunification on the Table?

Filed under: China, Taiwan — Chuck ---

I told you so!

The Standard

Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian said he would not shut the door on eventual unification with China if Beijing expressed goodwill. Chen - long viewed as rejecting the possibility of unification - on Thursday clarified his position at a meeting with opposition People First Party leader James Soong. They signed a joint declaration afterward.

The two have held widely diverging views on handling the mainland, which claims the self-ruled, democratic island is part of its territory and threatens war if Taipei declares formal independence. Unification is a passionate top priority for mainland leaders, who have routinely berated Chen as a traitor.

In Taiwan, Soong has accused Chen of lacking a consistent China policy and of provoking Beijing. The president has criticized the opposition as too accommodating towards the mainland. But in their joint declaration, they promised they would “not rule out the possibility of any model of relationship evolving on the basis of goodwill.'’ The wording was clearly chosen to include the possibility of eventual unification.

Chen repeated previous assurances that he will not declare independence, change the island’s current official name of “Republic of China'’ or hold any referendum on those issues during his term, which ends in May 2008. Some Chen supporters want to drop “China'’ from the island’s name - a step likely to infuriate Beijing.

Chen met Soong to try to mend fences, because Soong’s party is a key partner in the opposition alliance that controls the majority in the legislature. Soong welcomed the president’s stance. “Taiwan independence will only bring war and disaster, so it’s not a political choice,'’ he said. Chen would still not completely rule out formal independence as an option. However, he pledged to follow Taiwan’s constitution, which says the island is a part of China. “One cannot ask a political party or a person to give up their long-standing conviction, but we found a point of agreement for the good of the nation,'’ Chen said.

Some analysts saw the situation as good for both sides of the debate within Taiwan. Chen and Soong have found a basic consensus - and the president probably hopes he can keep the conciliatory momentum going, Institute for National Policy Research executive director Lo Chih-cheng said. But Lo said some would find it hard to accept Thursday’s developments. “Chen’s traditional supporters have only one option: Taiwan independence,'’ he said. It was too early to tell whether the mainland would be pleased with Chen’s declaration, Lo said.

The two politicians also promised to cooperate on restoring direct transport links with China. Taiwan this year temporarily ended a 56-year-old ban on direct passenger flights, so Taiwanese who work on the mainland could more easily go home for the Lunar New Year holiday. Taiwan has expressed hope this year’s special flights could form a model for talks on permanent cargo flights.

Soong’s party also differs with Chen over plans to buy NT$610.8 billion (HK$152.7 billion) worth of weapons from the United States, but opposition lawmakers have stalled a special budget for the weapons for months. They say buying the submarines, Patriot missiles and anti-submarine planes could spark an arms race with China that would bankrupt Taiwan.

At their meeting, Soong recognized the need for a strong defense, but indicated more negotiations were needed before his party could agree to the arms deal. In a conciliatory move, the government has recently said it could spend less money on the purchase.

Chen and Soong described their meeting as a new beginning after confrontation in the past few years. In presidential elections last March, Soong was the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket headed by Lien Chan, leader of the Nationalist Party, the island’s largest opposition group. After Chen narrowly won the vote, the People First Party joined rowdy protests against the result. But since the opposition alliance retained a slim majority in the December 11 legislative elections, political parties have indicated they want more dialogue and less confrontation.

China: What the Future May Hold 3 of 3

Filed under: China, China's Economy, Russian Far East, Original writing, Analysis — Chuck ---

Subtitle this: Russian Far East, China’s Land of Plenty.

In the bad, old days of the Cold War, the Soviet Far East was an armed camp. It was the closest to the United States, and heavily fortified. Now, it’s primarily South Los Angeles, only with Chinese, not Mexicans. [LINK]

Russia’s latest census has produced a bombshell result: over the past decade, the Chinese have emerged as the fastest growing ethnic minority in Russia. While official data of the October 2002 census will be published only next month, preliminary figures leaked to the press show that Russia’s Chinese population has grown from just over 5,000 in the late 1980s to 3.26 million today.

This makes the Chinese the fourth biggest ethnic group in this country after Russians (104.1 million), Tatars (7.2 million) and Ukrainians (5.1million) - all indigenous inhabitants of Russia. More than three-fourths of Chinese immigrants have settled down in Siberia and the Far East. The census results lend chilling reality to Russia’s age-old nightmare of a Chinese takeover of the Asian part of Russia. Eighteen million Russians scattered across the India-size expanse of the Far East and Siberia face 250 million Chinese cramped across a common border in China’s northern provinces.

Russia’s military is a sad and sorry remnant of its former self. In the Far East, Moscow is but a dot on a map for many, including many in the government. The pay for government employees and the military is even more haphazard than back west, and it often seems like no one in Moscow cares.

But, China does. Look at the oil fields that may exist:

Russian Far East Resources:

The population of the RFE totals around 15 million with the population centers being fairly isolated from each other. With estimated reserves of more than 15 billion tons of coals, 9.6 billion tons of oil, and 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, the RFE is a resource abundant region.

RFE Economics and Resources:
Immense reserves of diverse energy resources are concentrated in the Russian Far East’s vast territory. In the region there are not only traditional - commercial energy resources - coal, oil, natural gas, hydropower - but also a wide range of non-traditional energy sources (tidal, geothermal, wind, solar, etc.). The general amount of potential oil resources is estimated to be 29 billion tonnes, for natural gas - 23 trillion m3, for coal 2.2 to 3.5 trillion tonnes. Geological exploration of these potential resources remains low. The discovered reserves of solely commercial energy resources in the RFE amount to almost 23 billion tonnes of coal equivalent (tce), of which over 4 billion tce represents actual transportable crude oil and natural gas resources. The probable output from the RFE’s rivers is estimated to be 1008.2 billion kWh annually. [snip]

The RFE’s vast territory and uneven economic development has resulted in the formation of several local types of general-purpose infrastructure in the region. In the more-developed southern districts there is a fairly developed general-purpose infrastructure consisting of railroad networks (the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur railways), seaports, roads, and communications that have unused potential. On the other hand, most of the RFE’s prospective energy reserves are concentrated in the remote and less-developed northern districts, as well as the shelf zones of the Far Eastern and Arctic seas, which lack adequate infrastructure and developed transport links with concentrations of industrial districts, population and external markets.


China and the RFE:
Seven million people live on the frozen resource-rich taiga of Russia’s Far East, a region nearly as large as the contiguous United States. Roughly 1.3 billion Chinese are packed like pickles next door, where corruption, spiraling unemployment, environmental disaster, and growing rural unrest are taking the luster off the Chinese economic miracle. Unfortunately for China’s dire need for new demographic and economic horizons, Russia isn’t eager to share its chilly sandbox with the neighbors. The struggle between Dr. Malthus and Doctor Zhivago threatens the balance of power in the Far East. But economics rather than a Tom Clancy-style showdown will likely decide the winner.
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February 23, 2005

Paris Hilton: Advice for Living

Filed under: Mocking, Paris Hilton — Chuck ---

This isn’t advice from her. But it may apply to her.

Daily News

It’s a bad idea to use a cell phone cam to take nudie pictures.

Use a real digital camera. The results are much better.

Medicine: Bird Flu

Filed under: Medicine, Influenza, Pandemic — Chuck ---
BULLSHIT ALERT!
BULLSHIT ALERT!
Official: Bird Flu Pandemic Is Imminent

45 people died last year, in a region with over 2 billion people. Big freakin’ deal! More later.

UPDATE: this the exact same crap they pulled with SARS. You remember SARS? It killed millions world wide. Oh, wait, it didn’t. They just thought it would.

The evolutionary goal of any germ is to reproduce. The best way to do that is to make the host mildly sick and contagious. Killing the host is a bad thing for a germ. Germs tend to mutate to milder forms because of that.

Nearly everyone who has caught the bird flu handles birds for a living. They also live in areas where medical care may not be all that good or they may not be able to afford medical care. And they may not be in the greatest health to begin with. So, more die.

Right now it appears that bird flu does not move from human to human. It may, at some point, but the disease has been known for a half dozen years now and it hasn’t yet. It may never become contagious person-to-person.

Drawing world-wide conclusions from a mere handful of cases is just plain silly. How many people died of malaria or dengue fever in the region last year? My suspicion is a whole lot more.

The earth has not been ravaged by SARS, nor Mad Cow, and it probably won’t be ravaged by avian flu, bird flu. On the other hand, curiously, the World Health Organization will receive funding to prevent such an occurrence.

Tsunami: Roman Catholic Americans Give

Filed under: Religion, Catholic Church, Charity, Tsunami relief, Stingy List — Chuck ---

Look on the left. $928 million and still climbing.

In the list are 51 Roman Catholic Dioceses, with a recorded total of giving to tsunami aid of over $27,852,000. That’s about 1/3 of the 178 Roman Catholic Dioceses in the United States. I’m biased, but I call that an extraordinary outpouring of charity. These dollars were raised by school children, or collected in a second collection on a Sunday. These are dollars from every strata of society, including those, who like the widow in the New Testament, give of their poverty.

February 22, 2005

China: What the Future May Hold 2 of 3

Filed under: China, China's Economy, Taiwan — Chuck ---

You could subtitle this post Taiwan Takes A Dive. This is part 2 of my series on the future of China. In this part, I’d like to examine the Chinese threat to Taiwan, the reasons for it, and some potential scenarios.

Taiwan is one of the top industrial economies in the world. It has the third largest foreign currency reserves. It is a democracy and has been an ally of the United States since the Communists conquered the mainland. At the time of this writing, our national policy is to prevent the conquest of the island by the mainland but to oppose any declaration of independence by the Taiwanese government. The United States is in the awkwardly contrived position of supporting the Taiwanese, yet recognizing the communist government of the mainland as China. Yeah, it makes me scratch my head, too.

The Chinese government treats Taiwan as a province in rebellion. Depending upon the pressure that they want to exert, they vary the terms that they use, but there is no doubt that they firmly consider the island a part of China. Indeed, the rhetoric used in many cases places reunion with the island on a par as the hunt for the “Holy Grail”. I am personally convinced that the Chinese would suffer almost any losses to achieve reunion. It’s that important to them.

There are obvious strategic reasons for the Chinese to want Taiwan. There are also strong economic reasons. I cannot read Chinese, so it is difficult for me to judge the strength of mystical reasons for reunion versus the practical ones.

In the table at the end of Part 1, I cite a Chinese spokesman named Jiang Zhijun. His premise is that Taiwan and the other offshore islands which China claims are their front line of defense. Without them, China must defend itself from the mainland, which is a far less desirable strategic position. Chinese history, since the 1700’s, tells them that trouble comes from the sea. They now have the desire and the growing ability to move their homeland defense offshore. Reunion with Taiwan is the heart of that move.

Taiwan is also a top twenty industrial power, and is the number three ranked nation holding foreign currency reserves. Reunion with China gives the Communists a massive and modern industrial base. It can be exploited in situ or dismantled and shipped to the mainland. Control of the reserves postpones for a time the collapse of the Chinese economy. They represent a fresh infusion of cash without any obligation to accompany it. Call it an international version of a bank robbery.

Taiwan sits about 200 miles east of the Asian mainland. Despite their mutual animosity, there is travel and trade that goes on between the two counties every day. Nearly 29% of Taiwan’s exports are to China and the mutual trade constitutes 18% of Taiwan’s overall trade. [LINK] Taiwanese businesses are estimated to have invested up to $100 billion in China. It’s fair to say that there are significant economic ties between the two countries. The BBC interviewed Taiwan’s Prime Minister, Chang Chun-hsiung, in 2001:

Trade - As of November 2000, total indirect trade with the Chinese mainland amounted to US$218bn. Compared to the same period last year, Taiwan-mainland trade increased 22.1%, reaching US$29bn from January to November 2000.

Investments - Over the past two years… Taiwanese [investment in China] increased by 72% in 2000. Mainland statistics show that as of September 2000, the number of approved investments by Taiwan businessmen on the mainland had reached 45,729, totaling more than US$46.5bn. This made Taiwan the fourth largest outside investor on the mainland.

By conservative estimates, more than 30,000 Taiwan factories or Taiwan-invested factories are operating on the Chinese mainland…. Taiwan businesses have created at least three million jobs for the mainland.

Private visits - To date, there have been 17 million visits [from Taiwanese] to the mainland.

Telecommunications - So far, over 186 million pieces of mail have been exchanged between the two sides.

That was four years ago. Clearly the two governments see a benefit in allowing the trade and investment, weighted heavily to the Taiwanese side. From the point of vie of the Chinese, a climate is being created in Taiwan that the mainland is not such a bad place. And, given the flow of investments to the mainland, many more Taiwanese have a vested self-interest in peace between the two nations.

(more…)

February 19, 2005

Military: U.S.S. Carter

Filed under: Military, Mocking — Chuck ---

The crew will be knicknamed “The Angry Bunnies”.

U.S. Navy
The Navy will commission its newest nuclear-powered attack submarine Jimmy Carter Feb. 19, during an 11 a.m. EST ceremony at Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Conn.

The attack submarine Jimmy Carter honors the 39th president of the United States.

President Carter is the only U.S. president to have qualified in submarines. He has distinguished himself by a lifetime of public service, and has long ties to the Navy and the submarine force. Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, served as a commissioned officer aboard submarines, and served as commander-in-chief from 1977 to 1981. Carter’s statesmanship, philanthropy and sense of humanity earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Via Wizbang. I know why the Navy did it, but talk about ill-named boats!

February 18, 2005

China: What the Future May Hold 1 of 3

Filed under: China, China's Economy, Original writing, Analysis — Chuck ---

I’m one of a number of pundits, a small number to be sure, that hold a contrarian view of the Chinese economy. Most opinions that you will read about China suggest that the nation is on the verge of becoming a world economic super power, an awakening giant. I have opined here and elsewhere that China today more closely resembles a Ponzi scheme, not a burgeoning economy.

China appears to be the Promised Land to Western economists, over a billion consumers, GNP growing rapidly, and the nation consuming more and more raw materials.

It is now for the first time the world’s leading consumer of grain, meat, coal and steel, with the report also underlining the country’s embrace of platinum. Lester Brown, the institute’s president commented: “China’s eclipse of the United States as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader. “China is no longer just a developing country. It is an emerging economic superpower, one that is writing economic history.” According to the Washington-based institute, the Chinese economy expanded by 9.5 per cent last year, which is the fastest rate in eight years.
Platinum Today

In January 2005, China and Hong Kong combined to hold $734.6 billion U.S. in foreign currency reserves. China’s big four banks hold an estimated $450 billion U.S. in bad debt. Industry wide, Standard & Poors estimates total Chinese bad loan debt at $656 billion U.S. [LINK] Notice how close the two numbers are? Take Hong Kong’s reverves out of the mix and the bad loans held by Chinese banks exceeds the amount of the country’s foreign reserves. From a balance sheet perspective, the country is broke. Bad debt exceeds cash reserves.

In order to support its growth, China imports a tremendous amount of raw materials.

As China broadens its production base to include higher-value products, the country’s requirement for raw materials has grown in parallel with increased global demand. For example, oil demand is rising rapidly as the government works to diversify energy sources and move away from a reliance on coal. China accounts for about one third of the growth in global oil demand, with net imports expected to be about US$26 billion in 2004. There is also a rapid rise in demand for natural gas and hydro power. Companies on the ground in China � both multinational and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) � need raw materials and semi-finished goods for conversion to larger-ticket goods for sale in the domestic market and for re-export overseas. This, in turn, is driving an increased inflow of commodities.

The immediate challenge is to keep up with China’s voracious commodities appetite and the growing world demand for Chinese goods. These two demands are putting an upward pressure on pricing. For example, as the world’s largest producer of steel, China requires a large inflow of iron ore and other ingredients for steel production. Commodity flows to China such as iron ore, copper and oil have all seen price increases. The persistent strength of China’s demand for base metals has had much to do with the spectacular movements in base metal prices over the past year.

In recent months, China’s impact on metals has been most extreme at the margin in copper and steel. Last year China accounted for 121% of the increase in global copper demand and 90% of the increased demand for steel. Most metal analysts expect China to be a key source of relentless growth in worldwide demand for a considerable time to come.

J.P. Morgan

Imports of iron ore, crude oil, soybean and edible oil surged because of huge industrial demand. According to Li Yushi, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, the imports of raw material accounted for 80percent of the total imports in the first quarter’s US$124.1 billion. Mainly as a result of surging Chinese demand, the price of raw material in the international market has rapidly risen since late last year. The price index of raw material in the international market rose 17.2percent in the last quarter of 2003,and the price hike continued this year.
China Internet Information Center

In a report detailing the raw-materials production market in 2003 and forecast for last year, China’s Ministry of Commerce pointed out that the country relied on imports for 35 percent of its crude oil, 36.2 percent of its iron ore, 47.55 percent of its aluminum oxide and 68.24 percent of its natural rubber. At the annual National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference last March, an economist pointed out that energy consumption needed in China to create US$1 was 4.3 times that of the US, 7.7 times that of Germany and 11.5 times that of Japan. China has now become the world’s biggest consumer of crude oil after the US, importing more than 100 million tonnes last year.
Assn for Asia Research

In turn, it must then export goods and materials with value added. Growth depends on all parts of this chain functioning uninterrupted.

To prevent this from happening, China’s interests are best served by obtaining additional resources internally. Combine this obvious necessity with the repeated statements from various Chinese officials making land claims in territory now known as the Russian Far East, North Korea, Japan, the Philipines, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and South Asia and you begin to see a recipe for future war. China’s needs are now very similar in nature to those of Imperial Japan at the beginning of the 1930’s. We know what happened with Japan. I believe the Chinese will follow suit.

(more…)

February 17, 2005

PG: Another Pic

Filed under: PG — Chuck ---

February 16, 2005

Flora and Fauna: Free to Choose

Filed under: Sex, Odd News, Society — Chuck ---

The German gay penguin problem that I blogged here did attract the attention of gay rights activists. And the result:

A German zoo has abandoned a plan to break up homosexual penguin couples after protests from gay rights groups. The Bremerhaven Zoo in northern Germany had earlier flown in four female Humboldt penguins in an attempt to encourage three all-male couples to reproduce.

The zoo originally defended the experiment on the grounds that the birds were an endangered species. But after protests from gay rights groups, director Heike Kueck said the zoo was abandoning the plan. “Everyone can live here as they please,” Ms Kueck said.

The Age

This is the sort of animal news that gives you an all-over warm and fuzzy feeling. It’s nice to see gay animals rights being respected. [/sarcasm]

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