Modified Suzuki vans

This one shows how small they are (that's a Mini next to it)


pics are from 無題

Droopy.

We Need This Like We Need a Hole in the Head

The U.N. thinks about tomorrow's cyberspace by Declan McCullagh

In a series of speeches over the last year, Zhao has suggested that the ITU could become involved in everything from security and spam to managing how Internet Protocol addresses are assigned. The ITU also is looking into some aspects of voice over Internet Protocol--VoIP--communications, another potential area for expansion.

"Countering spam is just one of many elements of protecting the Internet that include availability during emergencies and supporting public safety and law enforcement officials," Zhao wrote in December. Also, he wrote, the ITU "would take care of other work, such as work on Internet exchange points, Internet interconnection charging regimes, and methods to provide authenticated directories that meet national privacy regimes."

Via Instapundit, who titles it, U.N.'S AMBITION TO REGULATE THE INTERNET. Surely it's also of interest that Houlin Zhao 赵厚麟, the official who wants to get his grubby hands on the internet is from China, a country that loves to interfere in its people's internal affairs, all the while complaining when other countries are interfere in its internal affairs when they complain about the lack of human rights in China.

Made Out Of Meat

B.F. Skinner, Revisited by DAVID P. BARASH

"We recognize a person's dignity or worth," writes Skinner, "when we give him credit for what he has done. The amount we give is inversely proportional to the conspicuousness of the causes of his behavior. If we do not know why a person acts as he does, we attribute his behavior to him. We try to gain additional credit for ourselves by concealing the reasons why we behave in given ways or by claiming to have acted for less powerful reasons." Ironically, there is something flattering and legitimizing in actions or thoughts that spring unbidden from our "self" -- whatever that may be -- and that aren't otherwise explicable. By the same token, the more our actions are caused, the less are we credited for them.

Skinner, again: "Any evidence that a person's behavior may be attributed to external circumstances seems to threaten his dignity or worth. We are not inclined to give a person credit for achievements which are in fact due to forces over which he has no control. We tolerate a certain amount of such evidence, as we accept without alarm some evidence that a man is not free. No one is greatly disturbed when important details of works of art and literature, political careers, and scientific discoveries are attributed to 'influences' in the lives of artists, writers, statesmen, and scientists respectively. But as an analysis of behavior adds further evidence, the achievements for which a person himself is to be given credit seem to approach zero, and both the evidence and the science which produces it are then challenged." And not only achievements: The quotidian events of normal living also qualify....

Francis Crick's important book, The Astonishing Hypothesis: "You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it, 'You're nothing but a pack of neurons.'"

(She said, "You're nothing but a pack of cards!") The article goes on to refer to Terry Bisson's They're Made Out Of Meat, but not by title.

AARP's Conflict of Interest

AARP Leads With Wallet In Fight Over Social Security by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum:

AARP can afford it. The association took in $350 million last year from a variety of royalty-producing enterprises, including insurance, prescription drugs and mutual funds.

AARP is facing criticism of its mutual fund business because that kind of investment would probably be a feature of the accounts the president is pushing. Scudder Investments Inc., a unit of Deutsche Bank AG, handles 600,000 mutual fund accounts of AARP members, with $10.5 billion in assets. AARP helped develop those accounts and earns a small percentage of the management fee that Scudder charges. Last year, the association earned about $7 million from those fees and is working with Scudder to develop more funds, AARP officials said.

"It is ironic that they would make such a fuss about risky investments in Social Security when they actually promote investments in mutual funds," McCrery said. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), an AARP sympathizer, agreed: "AARP needs to take care that when it's in the policy realm, it declares any conflicts of interest."...

AARP was started in 1958 as a nonprofit organization that also had a business purpose. Its founder, retired educator Ethel Percy Andrus, wanted not only to advance the interests of older Americans but also to create a market large enough to sustain the sale of health insurance to them. That dual role led to accusations of self-serving motives during the Medicare drug debate. Critics asked how AARP could be impartial on prescription subsidies when it made money from a mail-order pharmacy.

Tsk, tsk

Will Wilkinson mispells ceteris paribus. That's what happuns when you show off.

Delusional

The evolutionary revolutionary by Drake Bennett includes a passage from Robert Trivers' introduction to Richard Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene."

If deceit, he wrote, "is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray-by the subtle signs of self-knowledge-the deception being practiced." Thus, the idea that the brain evolved to produce "ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution." We've evolved, in other words, to delude ourselves so as better to fool others-all in the service of the great game of propagating our genes.

Via aldaily. Will Wilkinson mentions him, too.

Drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it

Eugene Volokh mentions paralipsis and apophasis; the latter gets more google hits and merits a definition in The American Heritage® Dictionary:

Allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned, as in I will not bring up my opponent's questionable financial dealings.

In addition, paralipsis is defined as:

• A pretended or apparent omission; a figure by which a speaker artfully pretends to pass by what he really mentions; as, for example, if an orator should say, "I do not speak of my adversary's scandalous venality and rapacity, his brutal conduct, his treachery and malice."
• suggesting by deliberately concise treatment that much of significance is omitted

A Short-sighted Strategy?

Drew Thompson writes on China's Global Strategy for Energy, Security and Diplomacy

Chinese oil, construction and telecom companies are increasingly demonstrating that they seek economic as well as political returns on investments that further Chinese foreign policy goals. Unlike Western public companies, Chinese corporations seek more than just profit for their shareholders. These Chinese companies, backed by senior political leaders, government financing and foreign aid, are willing to invest in countries with high political risk. Many of the agreements announced by Chinese firms are judged economically questionable by many international analysts. Politically, the Chinese government considers these investments a vital diversification of supply to ensure that their energy needs for the next several decades will be met as demand increases and domestic production declines....

The United States, preoccupied with the global war on terrorism, is also becoming concerned that Chinese diplomatic advances, particularly in Asia and the Americas, could marginalize the U.S. presence in these regions where it has traditionally taken the lead.

China's typical approach to diplomatic relations refuses to address governance, human rights and other political issues in relationships with other nations. This has led some to argue that China is an obstacle to promoting more responsible behavior from countries such as Iran, Sudan, Libya and Angola. China's myopic approach to locking up barrels through commercial and diplomatic relations (while ignoring corruption and human rights abuses) frustrates efforts of donor nations and organizations that are working to instill good governance, accountability and transparency. But China's no-strings-attached assistance and opaque commercial transactions which do little to encourage these countries to improve their governance systems might be a short-sighted strategy. Encouraging good governance and stability with trading partners will benefit China in the long-term by building more durable societies and economies that will someday become better markets for Chinese consumer products, and by fostering governments that contribute to global and regional security. The latter being ultimately linked to China's most fundamental core interest: economic growth and domestic stability at home.

Emphasis mine. Of course, I used to hear the same about US foreign policy, and for a long time, it didn't make a lot of difference.

Lost Frog

Lost Frog

So We Should Care What You Think About the US?

This was before the anti-succession law, but still...

China's influence seen positive

In total, 48% of people polled in 22 countries said China's role was mainly positive. Only 30% saw it as mainly negative....

In 17 of the 22 nations polled, more people thought China had a positive influence than a negative influence.

China came out favourably when the results were compared with similar questions looking at the global influence of Russia and the US.

An average of 38% of respondents saw the US as having a positive influence, with just 36% saying the same for Russia.

Too Early to Celebrate

In Taiwanese Protest Chinese Anti-Secession Law, NPR's Rob Gifford ("in Beijing") interviews Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴; DPP Legislator, and yes, she's in Taiwan) about China's stupid law:

Hsiao Bi-khim: This march is a response to China's passage of the so-called anti-secession law. The vast majority of the people here in Taiwan are against this law. They feel insulted by the law and threatened by the law. And this march is a demonstration of the Taiwanese people's will and opinion and our persistence in maintaining the peace and democracy in Taiwan.

Gifford: For the mainland Chinese, this whole debate is all about territory and ethnicity. Taiwanese people are Chinese, they say, and Taiwan itself used to belong to China before the two were separated at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. All of this is about restoring what is rightfully Chinese. For many Taiwanese, on the other hand, political system trumps ethnicity every time. Even those Taiwanese who are conciliatory to the mainland say they've fought for 50 years to overthrow the dictatorship in Taiwan and there's no way they're going to accept being ruled again by a one-party state. As a condition of even holding talks between the two sides. Beijing says Taiwan must recognize it is part of One China. Hsiao Bi-khim says it's not just her traditionally pro-independence party that opposes that.

Hsiao Bi-khim: The political conditions of One China, of China governing Taiwan, this is something that we who have worked for many years to achieve democracy cannot accept at this point. This position is promoted not only by the DPP; the other political parties in Taiwan also agree that Taiwan, the Republic of China, is already an independent country.

Gifford: Those are words that Beijing does not want to hear, though there's little the Chinese Communist Party can do unless Taiwan actually stands up and declares that it's not just de facto but officially independent. Meanwhile, as China continues to breathe fire, Philip Yong of National Taiwan University says Beijing is succeeding in changing the mood in Taiwan and alienating even those who previously thought of reunification as a possibility.

WHAT? "there's little the Chinese Communist Party can do unless Taiwan actually stands up and declares that it's not just de facto but officially independent"?? Since when can the Chinese Communist Party be expected to respect its own laws? Since never! As far as the demonstration goes, remember they were opposed to a referendum that was merely going to demand that China renounce the use of force against Taiwan and immediately withdraw all ballistic missiles aimed at the island. The Communists dislike democracy and shoot their own people when they demonstrate. While they obviously did something self-defeating by passing the new law, despite the celebratory crowing of Instapundit et al., et al., a demonstration is hardly going to sway them.

Spoiler

From the moonie paper, but nevertheless...
China, U.S. interests conflict by Barton W. Marcois and Leland R. Miller:

In fact, China's agenda is so different that it threatens to seriously undermine American initiatives in the Middle East....

In the new millennium, China's Middle Eastern strategy has shifted again, from part-time arms salesman to outright energy diplomacy. Under China's current Five-Year Plan, which publicly introduced the concept of energy security, China unveiled its "Twenty-first Century Oil Strategy" in February 2003. While this $100 billion program has a variety of domestic components, priority one is the securing of new energy sources abroad....

As China's support for the rogue regimes in Iran and Sudan has made clear, moral constraints and human-rights considerations are not pillars of Beijing's foreign-policy calculus. While Tehran threatens to go nuclear and Khartoum continues its genocide in Darfur, Beijing has used its clout (and U.N. veto) to shield these regimes from international sanctions. In return, it receives entree into two important energy markets.

Furthermore, unlike private Western oil companies who are beholden to shareholders and profit margins, Chinese state-owned oil-traders have been given the mandate to secure long-term energy relationships by offering hugely discounted rates, production-sharing arrangements and technical know-how. The fact that China has overpaid for recent ventures in Oman, Sudan and elsewhere is telling. Rather than investing in money-makers, China is buying footholds throughout the Middle East.

...two observations can be made: First, China is now a major regional player — and one that clearly does not share the American vision of a free and democratic Middle East. Second, China's Middle East agenda is quickly shaping up to be a direct challenge to that of the United States'. In addition to remaining a strategic competitor for resources, China's leverage may become increasingly dependent on its ability to undercut U.S. initiatives.

If China has indeed adopted the role of spoiler, as its recent actions in Iran and Sudan seem to indicate, then Chinese intransigence — not Islamic extremism — may prove to be the X factor in the 21st century Middle East.

"Natural" Pollutants

Nature Mimics Industry by Jack W. Dini

Who's to blame for carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, persistent dioxins, PCBs, vinyl chloride, perchlorates, elevated concentrations of nitrates in stream water throughout the world, and unusual fish kills? The initial knee-jerk reaction is to lay the blame on present-day humans (read: ourselves), endlessly accused of fouling our own nest, and there's some truth to this. No doubt we humans are responsible for many egregious environmental actions, but here's something new. Recent research has shown that some of the pollutants heretofore blamed on industrial activities can now also be laid at the doorstep of Mother Nature.

For example

• Dioxins from Burning Wood and Biomass

• Ozone from Boreal Coniferous Forests

• Vinyl Chloride from the Earth, Nitrates from the Sea

• Perchlorate from "Natural" Processes

• Flame-retardants from "Natural" Sources

Exit Strategy in Iraq

But wait; it's not the US' exit strategy but that of the Sunni Arab "insurgents". See Iraq's insurgents 'seek exit strategy' by Steve Negus.

Kyrgyzstan in the People's Daily

Main page of the People's Daily shows demonstration in Kyrgyzstan. See the pics and captions below.

Akayev has left the building

3月24日，在吉尔吉斯斯坦首都比什凯克市街头，数千名反对派支持者举行示威游行。吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派抗议者当日冲进位于吉首都比什凯克市中心的政府大楼，总统阿卡耶夫已撤离政府大楼。

On March 24th, on the streets of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, several thousand opposition supporters demonstrated. The Kyrgyzstan opposition protestors rushed into the government building located in center of the capital Bishkek; President Akayev had already left the building.

Should we shoot to kill, like the Chinese?

3月24日，在吉尔吉斯斯坦首都比什凯克市街头，防暴警察面对参加游行的反对派支持者严阵以待。吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派抗议者当日冲进位于吉首都比什凯克市中心的政府大楼，总统阿卡耶夫已撤离政府大楼。

On March 24th, On March 24th, on the streets of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, anti-riot police stand arrayed facing opposition supporters participating in the demonstration. The Kyrgyzstan opposition protestors rushed into the government building located in center of the capital Bishkek; President Akayev had already left the building.

College Profs Denounce Western Culture, Move to Caves

I, too, am a victim of white male Eurocentric western culture.

Creepy Syncronicity

In "Eating Dung by Mistake" 誤嚐糞 from 子不語, a story that I just came across, the characters are eating blowfish, and one of them falls to the ground, foaming at the mouth, and thinking he's been poisoned by they feed him liquid manure to cure him. As he lies there the rest of them drink it, too, afraid of being poisoned. The guy finally comes to, explaining he's got epilepsy. They all wash out their mouths, vomiting and laughing at the same time.

Ruth Levy Guyer is laughing at me. It's as if I've drunk her liquid manure.