It's not a question of human rights

If you can believe the AP, mug shots of litterers

are posted on the Taipei government's Web site, along with an appeal to the public for help in identifying the messy offenders.

So far, four people are in the gallery of shame. There's an elderly man in brown-framed glasses and a blazer. A laughing man in his 30's who appears to show no contrition. And a man in his 20s who seems to be fleeing. All are guilty of flicking their cigarette butts on the ground, the city says.

Police snapped their photos because they refused to provide ID so that tickets could be issued, according to the Department of Environmental Protection's Web site.

But some think the city's policy, which began in May, is heavy handed.

"It's an obvious invasion of human rights," activist Wu Hau-jen told the Apple Daily newspaper. "I wonder which idiot came up with the idea."

I can't find the pictures, but this kind of reaction is typical selfish Taiwanese crap. It seems as if anytime you ask a Taiwanese to be public-spirited, they whine about human rights. Is the right to litter a basic human right? Oh, wait, that's in simplified characters, and anyway, it's from the UN, to which Taiwan doesn't belong. I'm sure if the commies let them in, Taiwanese conditions would be just as good as China's. (That's a joke, by the way. Despite its problems, Taiwan is a better place to live than China.)