Waleed Ziad blames the West for creating conditions conducive to Islamic fundamentalism:

The turning point was the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The West and its allies decided the best resistance to Moscow would come through presenting the war as a religious struggle. While Pakistani religious leaders had little political power, they did have considerable influence over the madrasas in Pakistan's northwestern frontier region and in Afghanistan. Even the most benign found this to be an opportunity to finally win recognition (and a fortune), and they set up their own militant subsidiaries. Madrasas were converted overnight into training grounds for mujahedeen. In exchange for political power and global recognition, these impoverished students readily became cannon fodder in Afghanistan...

To battle this phenomenon, then, we need to open a new front on the war on terrorism. Permanently dislodging these extremists calls for educational, economic and cultural development. A first step should be working with Afghanistan and Pakistan to move the focus of the madrasas away from holy war. Equally important is providing more Western money for new schools to provide functional education, coupled with real economic opportunities for graduates.

The Modern Language Association Language Map via TED ANTHONY at the Wapo. Note that following the US census usage, it describes Chinese as a single language. All hail the glorious strivings of the anti-splittist heroes of the Census Bureau!

The Employment Policies Institute's Craig Garthwaite says,

The irony is that the minimum wage undermines welfare reform...

Following minimum-wage increases, employers often replace less-skilled employees with machines, or simply reduce the level of service to customers...

Employers also react to minimum wage hikes by replacing low-skilled adults with teenagers from high-income families, who are drawn into the job market by the better pay...

Low-skilled adults who are terminated because of a minimum wage increase lose more than their salaries; they also forfeit their federal earned income tax credits. These programs pay up to $4,000 tax-free to those on low incomes — provided they have a job.

Perhaps more important, employees who are let go also lose the opportunity to improve their skills and raise their wages as a result...

Sensible anti-poverty programs should provide the bulk of their benefits to the hard-working poor. But families living below the poverty line received just 17 percent of the benefits from the last minimum wage hike. Only a quarter of such increases go to the poorest fifth of families, while over a third goes to the richest two-fifths. "After all," President Clinton's first labor secretary, Robert Reich, admitted, "most minimum-wage workers aren't poor." Indeed, the average minimum-wage employee's family income is over $43,000.

By increasing the minimum wage, Congress would raise the bar even higher for less-skilled employees and welfare recipients, who struggle to find work at the existing minimum wage. That would cause many more to exchange their paychecks for welfare checks — for as long as those benefits last.

Of course, everything they say is against the minimum wage. But does that mean they're wrong?

Furniture 'Dumped,' U.S. Rules By Paul Blustein:

The Commerce Department ruled yesterday that Chinese bedroom furniture is being "dumped" in the U.S. market. But the department imposed relatively modest duties on the furniture, a rare departure from a long tradition of slapping stiff penalties on imports in such cases...

"I'm elated by this news," said Dan Ikenson, a trade specialist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian-oriented think tank that has long criticized U.S. dumping laws and Commerce's administration of them. Ikenson voiced hope that the ruling was indicative of a new mindset at Commerce, but he noted, "China's the number one target of anti-dumping cases. New cases have been initiated at a rate of one per month since January 2003."

A paper Ikenson wrote said the furniture case gave a clear example of why the dumping laws need reform. Although U.S. furniture manufacturers were angered that retailers were importing items direct from China, many of the 31 manufacturers that brought the case were themselves importing furniture from countries like the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Hypocrites.

Taipei park sign I

Taipei park sign II--in the same park!
Sloppy translation:
Behavior not permitted in the park (violators will turned over to the authorities)
1. Sales or rentals of childrens' toys.
2. Nudity, urination, or other improper behavior.
3. Littering or dumping.
4. Swimming, bathing, washing, or fishing in the ponds.
5. Sunning clothing or other articles.
6. Fighting or otherwise harming public order.
7. Arguing, making loud noises, or disturbing the peace.
8. Behavior harming public decency such as gambling.
9. Picking flowers, harming the grasses or other park facilities.
10. Bringing in dangerous objects.
11. Bringing in animals.
12. Writing or posting bills on park facilities.
13. Bringing in vehicles without permission or parking in violation of regulations.
14. Using the facilities against the regulations in an unsafe manner.
15. Remaining in the park after closing.
16. Other behaviors as stipulated by the management.

"Park" and "stop" are the same word in Chinese.
Left: I wish they had these signs in Kaohsiung.
Right: note the arrow.

George Leslie Mackay came to Tamsui as a member of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission from Oxford County, Ontario, setting up a medical clinic, a school, and a church. Pictured: the original building in which he had his church and school, bearing over its portal the name of Oxford College (see inset).

Path next to the Tamsui river in Tamsui.

Mangrove nature preserve (紅樹林, next to station of the same name), Tamsui.

Mangrove nature preserve.

Mangrove nature preserve--not as wild as it looks.

High tension wires going through the preserve, with a solar panel at the bottom (see inset).

I didn't manage to take any good pictures of the Little Egret 小白鷺 (Egretta garzetta) in the preserve; this picture is from here.

Yangmingshan ferns.

Yangmingshan bamboo.

Teens Who Beheaded Chickens Convicted of Animal Cruelty

Seven teenagers who beheaded two chickens because they were curious whether the birds would run around with their heads cut off will soon learn a lot more about the birds.

A judge ordered the five young men and two young women -- ages 17 to 19 -- to clean chicken coops and read a book about animals' feelings as part of their sentence...

The chickens "sort of ran a very short distance, and they sort of flopped over," said defense attorney Garland Moore, who attributed the teenagers' behavior to youthful curiosity...

Moore criticized the state for initially charging the teenagers with the deaths of eight chickens, not two, on the premise the other six died because of the stress of itnessing the beheadings.

Gee, somebody round up all the chicken butchers in Asia! Anyway, I'm glad to know the results of the experiment. And I'm intruiged that chickens are such sensitive souls that they drop dead on seeing their brethren killed. Here in Kaohsiung, they don't seem to mind.

China General Threatens War if Taiwan Targets Dam By Benjamin Kang Lim:

A Chinese general denounced an idea that Taiwan's military could threaten China's Three Gorges dam and said Wednesday that any strike on the world's biggest hydropower project would lead to war.

In its annual report to the U.S. Congress on China's military power, the Pentagon said proponents of strikes against China "apparently hope" that merely establishing places like the Three Gorges dam as targets would deter Chinese military coercion.

China will "be seriously on guard against threats from 'Taiwan independence terrorists,"' People's Liberation Army (PLA) Lieutenant General Liu Yuan said in a commentary in the official China Youth Daily, warning against such a move.

"(It) will not be able to stop war...it will have the exact opposite of the desired effect," Liu said.

"It will provoke retaliation that will 'blot out the sky and cover up the earth'," he said, quoting a Chinese idiom...

"Since Taipei cannot match Beijing's ability to field offensive systems, proponents of strikes against the mainland apparently hope that merely presenting credible threats to China's urban population or high-value targets, such as the Three Gorges Dam, will deter Chinese military coercion," it said.

Yeah, I think the communist dictatorship will feel free to attack the freely elected Taiwan government. Anyway, what about the part that the commies will retaliate by targeting US dams?

Missing mural ignites Mexico's imagination By Hugh Dellios. Diego Rivera's "Nightmare of War, Dream of Peace", which portrayed Mao Tse-tung and Josef Stalin "as peace-loving figures confronting a war-mongering Uncle Sam" has long been missing. The dolt of a museum director says, "The theme of the mural, which is peace, would never be seen as an embarrassment". Yeah, and Mao and Stalin are both great guys, right?

By the way, despite the picture below, I don't find Zhang Ziyi to be the best-looking Chinese actress around, although she's way ahead of Lucy Liu.