Running Out of Ideas

It seems appropriate that it should be raining on the day of Hong Kong's Olympic torch relay, which is kicking off as I write. Leaving aside the issue of human rights in China, public interest in the event has already been severely dampened by the yawn-inspiring selection of 120 runners chosen to carry the torch.

While no one would dispute the right of first and last runners Lee Lai-Shan and Wong Kam-Po to participate, some of the others between them are odd choices indeed. Sports people get less than half the slots, with past medal winners for Hong Kong in the Asian Games and (before 1997) Commonwealth Games being left out in favour of an ill-assorted bunch of clapped-out pop singers (apparently representing "culture", the other half of HK Olympic boss Timothy Fok's LegCo constituency), big company bosses and never-clapped-in politicians. It's rumoured that even the Donald wanted to take part, but his advisers warned him (correctly) that this would be seen as one ego-trip too far.

Imagine you have trained your butt off to do your best for Hong Kong in your chosen sport, then find the Olympic torch being carried instead by the likes of grumpy old man Tsang Hin-Chi, whose only known exercise routine is to open his mouth to say "Yes" to Beijing and chide as unpatriotic those who disagree with him.

The reason given for selecting all these non-sporting figures is apparently to "represent the various sectors of the community". Apart from the glaring omission of major sections of the public (any trade union leaders? any democrats?), if the government really wanted to involve the community, they would have staged the relay yesterday when the community was on holiday and people could come out to show their support, not today when they're all back at work.

"Bah, humbug!" is the only appropriate response to this whole mismanaged event.

The Way You Do the Things You Do

Immediately following the horrific train accident in China a couple of days ago, Chinese authorities immediately dismissed two senior officials of the railway, then announced that an inquiry would be held to determine the cause of the crash.

Wouldn't it make more sense to hold the inquiry first to determine who was at fault before taking action against anyone? And if they already have a scapegoat to carry the can, why do they need an inquiry?

Meanwhile, following today's disastrous bus crash which saw (at last count) 18 people on their way to church here in Hong Kong come face to face with God sooner than they expected, transport officials insisted the road is safe because they've put up plenty of warning signs telling motorists not to exceed the speed limit. Yeah, knowing Hong Kong drivers, that would really stop them speeding ...

Made in China

You may think this is exaggerated, but as so often in life, reality outstrips fiction: the BBC reports that Tibetan flags used by anti-Olympic protesters may have been made in China.

Most Olympic protests have focused on Tibet, but the South Korean leg of the torch relay highlighted another stain on China's grubby human rights record - the forcible return of thousands of refugees who have fled repression and starvation in North Korea to a regime which is known to imprison and even execute them on their return.

Suffer Little Children

"What does it mean to speak of child protection", asked Pope Benedict on his recent US visit, "when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?"

It means that millions of people worldwide, unlike an alarmingly high percentage of Catholic priests, are able to enjoy erotica without being inspired to sexually abuse young children. The Church is supposed to aspire to higher standards, not blame its failings on society's temptations.

Stealing from the slightly richer to give to the poor

Trailer on TV for a coming current affairs programme (maybe the Pearl Report, but I wasn't really paying that much attention; this is from memory):

"Hong Kong's health system is breaking down under the pressures of an aging population and the rising cost of new medical technology. Who will pay to reform it, if not the middle classes?"

Er, the rich?

Uh-oh, what am I saying, forget I said that, don't even think about it.
This is Hong Kong.

China: a free country?

Other bloggers such as Spike have already criticised the Standard's absurd piece by one Mary Ma attacking plans for protests against the Hong Kong leg of the Olympic torch relay. Leaving aside the missing apostrophes throughout, starting with the heading, (which could be blamed on the paper being unable to afford a competent sub-editor), what does Ms Ma have to say?

In an article that could have (and possibly did) come straight out of the Chinese government's propaganda machine, Ms Ma come up with some classic lines:

"The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China ... is selfishly promoting its cause at the expense of an event treasured by everyone."

How selfish to put the rights of a billion people ahead of those of a few hundred people running and tossing balls around!

"Has anyone in the alliance stopped to consider other peoples [she really doesn't like apostrophes much, does she?] right to being treated with dignity?"

Like giving people sentenced to death the dignity of a fair trial first? Or giving 22 million people in Taiwan the dignity of being allowed to choose their own future without having missiles pointed at them by bullies who claim to be their own kin? Or giving Tibetan monks the dignity of being allowed to carry pictures of their respected religious leader without being arrested? Or giving journalists the dignity of being able to perform their job (as guaranteed by the Chinese constitution) without government interference or arrest? Or,going back a bit, giving unarmed protesters in 1989 the dignity of being able to demonstrate peacefully without being brutally attacked and killed by their own country's troops?

Yet perhaps it is too easy to snipe at China's numerous blatant human rights abuses (and no, I am not pretending that the West is perfect by comparison, as my past comments here on other matters show). Despite all this, the fact is that the majority of Chinese people today enjoy greater freedom than at any time in their country's history. China, after all, emerged from feudalism as recently as 1911, only to go through decades of warlordism, foreign invasion, civil war and Maoist dictatorship, culminating in the madness of the Cultural Revolution.

At the dawn of the 1980s, Chinese people had few choices in anything - perhaps they could choose to wear identical outfits in either grey or blue. They could not choose what to buy - there was almost nothing in the shops anyway. They could not even choose to marry without permission from their work unit (which they also did not choose).

Deng's Open Door policy changed all that. Today Chinese people are free to choose their own job, start a business, decide what to wear, what and where to study, travel or study overseas, marry whom and when they choose. They can make money and decide how to spend it. They can build or buy their own home. While not everyone has yet benefited from the changes, it is easy to forget how much things have been transformed in China in a single generation.

Chinese people still do not enjoy many of the freedoms taken for granted elsewhere: the right to plan their family; to practice their religion freely; free access to information. Yet there has truly been a quiet revolution in China over the past thirty years. The problem is how to ensure that this process continues on the right path. China saw hosting the Olympics as part of that path to modernity; facing criticism and protest also comes with the territory.

Living on the edge

As well as the UK, my recent trip took me to Prague for several days. Prague is amazing - simply one of the world's most beautiful cities anywhere. Many cities have attractive old centres, from Stockholm to Nara (and not forgetting our near neighbour Macau), but nowhere else have I seen such a massive concentration of beautifully preserved historic buildings over so large an area. Every corner you turn brings you to another architectural gem, some Gothic but most baroque in style.


The city has a lot more to offer visitors than just great architecture: numerous classical concerts every day; an array of museums varying from the xublime (Mozart Museum) to the ridiculous (Museum of Sex Machines), from the educational (Museum of Communism) to the disgusting (Museum of Mediaeval Torture Devices); some good restaurants; and of course, some of the world's finest beer, from the people who invented pilsner.

One thing I found interesting was that, being British, I had grown up during the Cold War thinking of everything east of the former Iron Curtain as "Eastern Europe", and therefore out of the mainstream of European life. The Czechs, however, do not view themselves as East Europeans at all, but as living in Middle Europe, at the very heart of European civilisation - which, both geographically and historically, they are:



Now, apart from being an interesting study in varying perceptions, what significance does this have to us here in Hong Kong? Only that, while we see ourselves as being in a pivotal position within the dynamic Asia Pacific Region, from the perspective of Beijing, far to the north, we probably appear to be way out on the southern fringes, and therefore relatively unimportant in the greater scheme of things.

I'm Dreaming of a White Easter

No posts recently as I've been on a trip to the UK. It should be the beginning of spring there, but I woke up on Easter Day to this:


As spring approaches, a reminder to English girls: midriff-baring fashions and a beer belly are not a good combination.
P.S. If you think I'm exaggerating, read this. (Thanks, Fumier.)

For Queen and Country

Proving that Gordon Brown is as much in love with superficial gestures as his predecessor, the latest daft idea to come out of Britain's New Labour image factory is for teenagers to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country. While citizens of more conformist nations such as the USA may enjoy such exercises, I have always regarded it as one of the great benefits of being British that one is free to decide one's own allegiances, including total opposition to the monarchy if one so wishes.

If the British government really wants Britons to be proud of their country, they could start by taking their collective head out of George W. Bush's backside and standing up for traditional British decency against the Bush regime's illegal wars and use of torture and kidnapping.

Don't forget to tune in for tomorrow's exciting episode...

Whenever there is a firework show in Hong Kong, which seems to be about three times a year these days, both local Chinese channels carry it live. No complaints about that - not everyone can get out to see it in person - but why the hell do they need to have several halfwit local presenters sitting there adding an inane unnecessary commentary? Especially as the show is already coordinated with a selection of music which makes a perfectly acceptable soundtrack by itself.

What is there to say about a firework show anyway? Oh look, there'a red one! Now a green one! Now a big bunch of sparkly whirly things! Just shut up and give our ears a rest!

I've had a go at ATV's professionaliusm recently, so it's TVB's turn today. On one of their innumerable Chinese period costume drama series last week, one episode ended with a man picking up a rock and standing over another man lying asleep, evidently with the intention of dropping the rock on him to crush his skull. Cut to credits...

Now the cliffhanger ending is a staple device of drama, from the old cowboy Saturday movie serials to Doctor Who. The idea obviously is to get the audience intrigued enough that they will tune in next time to see what happens to the character left facing imminent doom.

Well, that's the idea everywhere except Hong Kong. So what do TVB do next? Immediately follow up with a trailer for the following episode. An opportunity to ratchet up the drama level further? Well, no - they show the would-be killer changing his mind, dropping the rock on the ground and walking away. So, no need to watch that episode then. Idiots!

Post-Primary Plurality

I caught a brief excerpt on TV yesterday of Hillary Clinton speaking after her apparent comeback in the latest Democratic party primaries (though closer examination of the statistics shows that she has very little chance of beating Barack Obama to the party momination). In it, she said, "...at the end of the day we're going to be the nominee."

I'm puzzled by her use of the plural here. Is that a royal we, I wonder, from one who sometimes appears to see herself as the anointed future Queen of America? Or a "Bill and I" we? Or a "me and my team" we?

The Huffington Post points to a survey showing that either Clinton or Obama could beat John McBush (I call McCain that because he wants to perpetuate many of Bush's mistakes, especially the tragic and illegal war in Iraq), but by winning a different set of states. However, they don't examine the scenario of a joint Obama/Clinton ticket, which cannot be ruled out. After all, as this BBC headline from 27 February - "Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attack each other's campaign tactics in their latest debate" - suggests, their differences are more over style (and conflicting egos) than policies.

Hello My Bai Ling

Another South China Morning Post headline:

Actress Bai Ling fined for disturbing peace
12:15pm Actress Bai Ling, arrested last month on suspicion of shoplifting at Los Angeles International Airport, was fined US$200 (HK$1,557) on Wednesday after pleading guilty to disturbing the peace.

AP has the story here.

I am puzzled by the media's regular use of the word "actress" to describe Bai Ling. Has anyone ever actually seen her act in anything, except a provocative manner designed to draw attention to herself?

What took you so long?

That's the only possible response to this news in today's South China Morning Post:

"Timely rethink on urban renewal strategy
The Urban Renewal Authority is considering giving residents a say in the fate of their old neighbourhoods, rather than dictating a redevelopment plan to them."

One can only hope they apply this to existing projects, not just to future ones, before every last remnant of this city's soul is eradicated.

All the world's a stage...

After a decade of so-called "reality television", it seems it's no longer possible to tell where the real world ends and showbiz begins. Excite.com has this story listed under "Entertainment News".

Incidentally, how sweet of sleazeball Matt Drudge to expose Prince Harry's presence in Afghanistan, thereby making him a Taliban target. What a nice guy.

Joined Up Government, or does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

Two recent stories from the South China Morning Post website:

• 23 February - "Hotel sites likely to be on offer in next land-sale list
  The former home for juveniles in Kowloon Tong and new hotel sites in North Point and Hung Hom were expected to be available on the upcoming land-sale list, government and property industry sources said."
• 1 March - "Hotel development given priority on land sales list
  Hotel sites will be offered at lower trigger prices than commercial sites in the government's new land application list as a means of encouraging hotel development, the government said yesterday."

Perhaps I'm missing something, but if Hong Kong is so short of hotel rooms, how come we keep seeing perfectly serviceable existing hotels redeveloped for other purposes? Does it make any sense that the system allows the Furama, Hyatt Regency, Ritz Carlton etc. to be decommissioned when there is apparently such a hotel shortage that the government has to give incentives to encourage the building of more? Or am I being too logical?

Budget Blow-out

John Tsang's first budget as Hong Kong's new Financial Secretary appears to have something for everyone, though it does nothing to solve the longer term structural problem of financing pensions and health care for an aging population.

Many young people arrived from the Mainland in the 1950s and 60s and worked hard to lay the foundations of the prosperity Hong Kong enjoys today. Times were hard in those days, and many earned only enough to provide for their immediate needs, with no opportunity to lay something aside for the future.

As Hong Kong became a major economic force, most of its people were lifted out of poverty. But lower income earners were hard hit by the migration of Hong Kong manufacturing to the Mainland in the 1980s. Those with limited education and few skills were stuck in low paying jobs, if they could find work at all. As this age group becomes too old to work, those without supportive relatives face a precarious old age, and will inceasingly rely on government support to survive. What was once a youthful population has changed owing to low birth rates and the world's highest life expectancy.

Meanwhile, one feature of the budget that will benefit me personally is the removal of duty on beer and wine, both of which I enjoy. But in its eagerness to promote Hong Kong as a centre for wine trading in Asia, I wonder if the government has considered the possible consequences of making booze more affordable to young people? Anyone who has seen how some urban areas in Britain are taken over by packs of drunken yobboes at weekends, leaving a trail of vomit and broken glass, will not want to see the binge-drinking youth culture spread to Hong Kong (nor the obesity to which it contributes).

Memo to ATV News: the government does not "give away" money to taxpayers. The correct term is "give back" - it is our money in the first place.

English is a funny language

Just thinking:

• If people from Burma are Burmese, why aren't people from Rome Romese? And people from India Indiese?
• If Javanese come from Java, why don't Japanese come from Japa?
• If Finns come from Finland, why don't Ires come from Ireland? And Ices from Iceland?

Crazy language, huh?

P.S. Does anyone know why bullet points appear correctly in a preview of Blogger posts, but not in the final post?

Save Water, Waste Paper

I received my water bill last night. And my water bill. Both the fresh water and flushing water bills, each mailed in a separate envelope, enclosed two A4 size circulars - one in Chinese (I don't know what it's about, but it didn't look important so I put it out for recycling) and one containing the Water Supplies Department's performance pledges for 2007/2008. On the front of the latter in large letters were the words:

"Save Water for the Future
Every Drop Counts"

I have a suggestion for the Water Supplies Department (a branch of the Hong Kong Government):

"Save Trees
Every Sheet of Paper Counts"

Not to mention:

"Save Taxpayers' Money
Every Cent Counts"

Even electricity company CLP, hardly a model of environmental rectitude (in fact one of Hong Kong's biggest polluters) offers electronic billing as an alternative to paper. The WSD plans to introduce this in stages, but only starting in 2009. Meanwhile it is sending out 7.2 million water bills a year on paper (complete with unwanted and unnecessarily duplicated enclosures).

So, here are some suggested performance pledges for 2008/2009 for the Water Department

1. Send out each year's performance pledges to customers during that year, not almost a year later. In 2008 we should be reading about your 2007 achievements, not those of 2006.
2. Combine fresh and flush water billing to save paper.
3. If this is not possible, at least send the two bills out in the same envelope to save on paper and postage.
4. Speed up the introduction of electronic billing as an alternative to paper billing.

Making It Better:

Water Aid

Whose Heritage?

"Who funds the Heritage Foundation?" asks Fumier, in response to an earlier post here. A good question, so I set out to find out. Some of the answers are here and here.

According to Wikipedia, the influential Foundation was set up with funding from Joseph Coors of the Coors brewing family. Today it states that its funding comes from "the financial contributions of the gemeral public: individuals, foundations and corporations," and that it accepts no government funds. While corporations apparently account for less than 10% of its total funding of around US$30 million a year, they appear to have a strong influence on its pro-big business policies. Donors include many of the usual suspects: Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical Company, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, American International Group (AIG), Novartis, ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil. Some money comes from overseas, including Korean sources and the Margaret Thatcher Foundation in Britain.

Tobacco money is naturally represented among this crowd, with Altria Group among the donors (known as Philip Morris until their reputation for killing their customers forced them to change their name); in exchange for their support, they are rewarded with such egregious pieces of propaganda as this. Notice two ingenious arguments here: tobacco tax should not be increased because "with the number of smokers already declining, a tobacco tax would further reduce the number of smokers, thereby eroding the funding source" (isn't reducing the number of smokers a key objective of such increases?); and "young adults are ... disproportionately impacted by the tobacco tax"(doesn't the tobacco industry always say that it wishes to discourage young people from smoking?)

According to Wikipedia, the Heritage Foundation is associated with the Hong Kong consulting firm Belle Haven Consultants, which lobbies in Washington on behalf of Malaysian interests.

Would you buy a used policy from these guys?

Creedence Clearwater Retitle

According to a DJ on one of RTHK's Chinese radio channels, the song Proud Mary was written and performed by John Forgetty. Funny I don't remember that.

Then there was the ATV newsreader who announced recently that Herbie Hancock had won a Grammy for River: the Johnny Letters. Er - that would be Johnny Mitchell, the well known male singer?

Another classic from ATV news last night: "Lydia Shum was born in Shanghai in 1945 and got her first big break in 1960 at the tender age of 13". As our transatlantic cousins like to say, you do the math.

Do these presenters consider themselves professionals, I wonder?

I Can See Clearly Now

"I got new eyes
Everything looks far away"
--Bob Dylan, Highlands

Just in case anyone is wondering why I haven't posted here for weeks, I've been recovering from eye surgery. Thanks to Dr Cheung and the team at St Paul's Hospital Eye Centre, especially the nurse who asked me if I can speak Cantonese, then laughingly replied "siu siu" for me before I could say it myself.

I've posted occasional comments on other blogs, but nothing here as I was limiting my time online to avoid eyestrain. Meanwhile, lots of blogworthy things seem to have happened in the past few weeks, and I'll catch up with some of them soon. Keep watching!

Ghost Destinations

Every day, hundreds of minibuses on Hong Kong Island travel to a destination that doesn't exist. For years, red minibuses terminated at the Daimaru department store in Great George Street, Causeway Bay (the terminus is now in nearby Sugar Street). The store closed in 1998, but a decade later, the minibuses still advertise it as their destination. Locals know where they mean, but it must confuse the hell out of tourists (maybe that's the intention...).

Meanwhile up in Taipo, green minibus passengers still request to be let off at "Kah Si Bah", though the Carlsberg Brewery in the Taipo Industrial Estate closed in 1999, and the local market is now supplied from Carlsberg's mainland breweries.

Does anyone know of any other ghost destinations in Hong Kong that linger on in this way?

Spam, Spam, Spam, Stupidity and Spam

Message in a Yahoo group I belong to (dated 17 January) promoting "replica" (i.e. fake) watches and the like:

"We sure, that you are looking for Christmas gifts.

Hurry up! The best gifts and huge price break only in our Christmas store!"

Well, doesn't everyone do their Christmas shopping in January?

Two sides to every freedom

For the 14th year running, Hong Kong has been named the world's freest economy, ahead of Singapore in second place. This title is bestowed by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing US-based organisation.

The Foundation warns, however, that Singapore is closing the gap. But before we all panic that Hong Kong is no longer competitive, let's look at some of the Foundation's criticisms and translate them into plain English:

• The Scheme of Control regulation of electricity prices (translation - let the two power monopolies rip off consumers with uncontrolled prices)
• The regulation of prices for public transport (translation - let transport operators rip off consumers with uncontrolled prices)
• The regulation of some residential rents (translation - let Hong Kong's greedy landlords charge the SAR's poorest people, mostly elderly, even more for tiny cages in rat-infested pre-war slums)
• "Restrictive" pharmaceuticals regulation (translation - forget about protecting the consumer from dodgy fake drugs)
• Market access restrictions for legal services (don't know about that one)
• Limited import licensing (to the best of my knowledge, Hong Kong has fewer import restrictions than almost anywhere in the world, and most of those that do exist are intended to ensure food safety)
• Issues involving intellectual property rights that add to the cost of trade (not sure what they mean by this one)

Here's a question: if Hong Kong's economy is so free, how come we only have two big supermarket chains?

When big business calls for deregulation, what they really mean is usually dismantling worker protection, dismantling environmental protection, and dismantling consumer protection so they can enlarge their already bloated profits. Do we really want to be more "free" in this sense?

As for comparisons with Singapore, the Heritage Foundation says nothing about political freedoms. Even without democracy, we are streets ahead of the Lion City in terms of freedom of expression.

The rise of the machines

Am I the only one who, on seeing people walking around with Bluetooth mobile phone headsets seemingly permanently attached to their ears, is irresistibly reminded of the Borg in the later Star Trek series?

How far will man/machine hybrids go? We already have thousands of people walking around with artificial pacemakers and plastic hip joints. That's fine, but now there are proposals to insert a computer chip into convicted criminals (as we already do to dogs). And you would have to be very naive indeed to think that governments will be content with only chipping criminals - all in the interest of preserving our freedom by destroying it, of course. Welcome to 1984.

Sound familiar?

I was watching an old episode of "Cheers" last night in which Frasier Crane persuades likable but slow-witted bartender Woody to run for the City Council for a bet. Briefing Woody before a debate with his opponent, Frasier concludes his advice with, "... if that doesn't work, just say the word 'change' about a hundred times".

Now, does that remind you of anyone?

Blinding us with(out) science

The Times of London (once a highly respected paper of record, but nowadays owned by Rupert Murdoch) discloses that controversial billionaire George Soros, an opponent of the Iraq War, partially funded the 2006 study that estimated the number of deaths attributable to the war as 650,000. The accuracy of this figure was fiercely criticised at the time, and a more recent study puts the number of dead at "only" 151,000 (still 151,000 too many).

The Times article quotes Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, as saying "The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research". This only shows that "many people", including Spagat, are stupid.

The source of funding of a scientific study, though it may warn us to be wary of a possible hidden agenda, says nothing in itself about the validity of the study's results. If the survey is conducted honestly and the methodology used makes sense, why should the fact that person A rather than person B paid for it make any difference? Apart from which, who is going to fund such studies apart from opponents of the war? The war criminals in Washington, London and Canberra who started the war have done their best to avoid and obfuscate the whole issue of the resulting death toll. Soros deserves credit for helping to bring the historical facts into the open.

Unable Seamen

Last night's crash between two Macau ferries should never have happened. Sure it was foggy, but a) those vessels carry radar; b) there are well-established rules of navigation designed to avoid collisions; and c) common sense says that if you can't see far ahead, you should slow down. Conclusion: unless the Marine Department investigation turns up something surprising, the most likely reason that 140 people were injured is either incompetence, carelessness, or both on the part of one or both crews.

That was not the only accident in local waters yesterday. Hong Kong's loony drivers are dangerous enough; it would be nice to be able to take a ferry to Macau without worrying that there may be an idiot at the helm, or steering another vessel in the vicinity.

None of the Above

The government has given the go-ahead for construction of the Donald Tsang's Ego Memorial Complex on the Tamar site, which will cost us more than HK$5 billion of our money. While the design has some interesting features, it is apparently not the one that was preferred by a majority of respondents to the public consultation exercise, which presented four options. No surprise there - when did planning in Hong Kong ever give priority to the needs and preferences of ordinary people over those of the big property developers?

There is of course a fifth option which was never offered to the public: none of the above. The use of the Tamar site was rammed through by the government despite considerable sentiment suggesting better alternative uses for it.

Since the Legislative Council will move to the new site, the question arises of how the existing Legislative Council building - originally the Supreme Court - will be used in future. Dare we hope for some real public consultation on this? Or will it be yet another decision made behind closed doors?

And if you think the Tamar project is expensive, wait till you see the cost (if they ever dare to reveal it) of the Hu Jintao's Ego Memorial Bridge to Macau.

DaDa Dali and the Surreal Swimmers

I passed a van this morning with an ad on the side for an amateur swimming club with the domain name daliswim.com.hk - now that conjures up some intriguing visions! My wife (ever practical) said it's probably just an abbreviation for "daily swim", but I prefer my version. Now, where did I put my floppy watch...

And while we're on the subject of Hong Kong websites, how come the South China Morning Post website was down for a couple of hours earlier this morning?

Nothing to my name - well, maybe a little

Interesting to see a lengthy interview (in English) with veteran Beijing rocker Cui Jian on CCTV-9 over the weekend. According to his Wikipedia entry, he is no longer blacklisted by the authorities in China; however, he did say during the interview "China has not changed" and "I will be a troublemaker forever".

Jumping to Conclusions

According to last night's ATV news, the Hospital Authority would make a full investigation into the contaminated blood transfusion received by a patient in Tuen Mum Hospital (who has subsequently died), but was satisfied that hospital staff were not to blame.

Perhaps someone should tell them that it is a good idea to conduct the inquiry first and announce the conclusions afterwards; otherwise you run the risk of coming across like the Pakistani government, which within the space of a few days announced that Benazir Bhutto had been shot; then that she had been killed by shrapnel; then that she had fractured her skull on the sunroof of her car while ducking to escape a suicide bombing; then that it didn't matter how she died, only who killed her; then suggesting that she should be dug up again to establish the cause of death for sure. Now they have apparently come back to the original gunshot theory (after two videos emerged showing men brandishing guns in the crowd around her).

The Hong Kong incident also produced an early entry in the "stupid statements of 2008" file, when a hospital spokesman was reported as saying that the bacterium concerned, Pseudomonas Fluorescen, would do little harm to a healthy person. Since blood transfusions are not generally given to healthy people, this falls into the category of totally useless information. Once can only assume the intent was to make a serious situation seem more trivial in a feeble attempt to dilute criticism for it.

Is this any way to run a business?

Quote from tonight's financial news on ATV:

"Ford is selling these units [Jaguar and Land Rover] to concentrate on its unprofitable US business."

Er.. wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on your profitable businesses and dump the loss-making ones instead?

Meanwhile, the main news reported that Western Harbour Tunnel fees, already the highest among the three tunnels, will rise by $5 or more depending on the type of vehicle. Since many drivers already go out of their way (literally) to use the $20 Cross-Harbour Tunnel rather than the (currently) $40 Western Tunnel, this can only drive even more vehicles away from the tunnel, which has run at a loss since it opened.

Conventional economic wisdom suggests that where there are alternatives in the market, the best way to attract more business is to lower prices, not to raise them. Do the tunnel's owners know something we don't?

Hong Kong - Ignoring the Sky

Looking at a list of the world's tallest skyscrapers, I find that Hong Kong has several entries in the top 100, including a couple I've never even heard of! My lack of awareness could either indicate how much we now take skyscrapers for granted here, or reflect the fact that we don't often notice how tall our buildings are because Hong Kong's appalling pall of smog hides the upper half of them from our sight.

Another reason may be that, unlike those almost everywhere else in the world, Hong Kong's skyscrapers do not incorporate public observation platforms. In a city that seeks to attract tourists, this seems daft to me, but I suspect the reasons are driven by financial considerations like most things here. Perhaps revenue from tourist admissions can't outweigh the exorbitant rents that high floors can command.

For the record, Hong Kong's entries are:
7. IFC Two
11. Central Plaza
12. Bank of China Tower
17. The Center
27. Nina Tower I
55. Cheung Kong Centre
68. The Cullinan I
69. The Cullinan II
90. Hotel Panorama

Hong Kong therefore accounts for 9% of the world's 100 tallest buildings, with another 7 entries in the next 100. Note that the list counts twin towers as two separate entries; if you prefer to count Petronas Towers (ranked 3 and 4) as a single building, then Hong Kong has two in the top ten.

China is well represented overall, with Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanning and Guangzhou all in the top 100, as well as our neighbour Shenzhen at number 9. Taipei 101 heads the list, with Shanghai's new World Financial Centre just behind. Remarkably New York's majestic Empire State Building - the first of the world's great skyscrapers, dating back to 1931 - remains in the top ten today, thanks to al-Qaeda. Not for much longer, however - Dubai is now constructing a new building expected to top the list when completed.

Height rankings vary between lists depending on how they define a building - most lists exclude communications towers such as Toronto's CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing man-made structure (North Dakota's even taller KVLY-TV Mast is supported by cables); how they measure masts, antennae and other twiddly bits on top of the buildings - see here; and when they regard a building as completed. You can find other lists here, here and here.

The Most Dangerous Country in the World

Whatever your view of Benazir Bhutto, her murder yesterday can only further destabilize the already chaotic situation in Pakistan. Forget George Bush's obsessions, potential nuclear powers North Korea and Iran; one misstep in Pakistan now could deliver existing nuclear weapons into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. And if that doesn't scare you, nothing will.

AMAtwilightZONe

Even if you regularly use Amazon.com to buy books and CDs, you may not be aware that you can also order a diverse array of such exotic items as an internally fully carpeted armoured vehicle with built-in stereo system (a snip at only US$20,000), a UFO detector, a can of uranium ore, a fresh whole rabbit (dead) or a vaginal speculum.

If some of these sound like self-parodies (as do other Amazon items like the book "What Would Jesus Eat?"), what makes them even more enjoyable is that many people are now posting spoof reviews of them (as I learned from BoingBoing via I'm Learning to Share!) Take for example the reader who offers the helpful hint that using uranium ore as a facial scrub will give your skin a beautiful glow...

Read these reviews and enjoy before Amazon tracks them down (possibly with the aid of the UFO detector?) and exterminates them.

Private Beach's "People of the Year" Award

Time Magazine has named Russia's president, the "steely and determined" ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin, as its Person of the Year for "imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it" (didn't some guy named Adolf get praised for doing the same thing in Germany back in the 1930s?)

Time is at pains to point out that its designation is a reflection of Putin's historical significance, not an endorsement of his placing "stability before freedom". Here at Private Beach we have a different approach - it is not enough to change the world, our person of the year must reflect this blog's values as well.


Private Beach's first annual "People of the Year" award this year therefore goes to the courageous monks of Burma for doing the exact opposite of Putin: putting freedom before stability, even at the cost of their own lives. Their brave nonviolent stand against one of the world's ugliest regimes - a military dictatorship that has maintained "stability" for decades through repression, murder, torture, forced labour, rape and genocide - is in the finest traditions of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and though unsuccessful in the short term, has reawakened world awareness of their country's woes and placed Burma's rulers on the defensive. One day the country's people will be free.

[Picture by "Forest of Orchids", found on Flickr; I hope he/she doesn't mind me using it in a good cause.]

Delusion of the Week

"I go around spreading good will and talking about the importance of spreading freedom and peace".

--President George W. Bush

Reality and George have never been close friends, but now they seem to be drifting even further apart. Unless, that is, you think that illegal wars, torture, kidnapping, secret prisons and spying on your own people are conducive to good will, freedom and peace.

Author, Heal Thyself

The publication of a book on parenting by Lynne Spears, mother of role model Britney Spears, has been postponed indefinitely after it was announced that Britney's younger sister, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, is pregnant.

However, other new books expected soon will appear as planned, including:
- Staying Sober by Amy Winehouse
- Monogamy by Elizabeth Taylor
- Peacemaking by George W. Bush
- How to Be Nice to Everyone by Simon Cowell
- The Fast Road to Democracy by Donald Tsang

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

Great birthday yesterday - spent most of the day at home with a throat infection, feeling crappy. Not the best birthday I've ever had.

Some changes coming in my life. Not sure I want to blog about them. (Damn, I'm starting to sound like another local blogger...)

Some good news for a change

Amid all the news of war and torture and bombings around the world, every so often civilisation takes a small step forward for a change. In July 2007 Rwanda became the 14th African country to abolish the death penalty, while in Europe only Belarus now retains it. Now New Jersey is becoming the first US state to abolish the death penalty since the Supreme Court reinstated its use in 1976. Good for them!

The number of executions in other US states is also decreasing, as is the number worldwide, although the USA still ranks sixth behind those other great champions of human rights, China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan, in the use of capital punishment. Between them, these six countries accounted for 91% of all known executions in 2006.

Incidentally, there is something I never understand: why is it that many of those who define themselves as "pro-life" are often strongly in favour of capital punishment? It seems they value unborn lives more highly than born ones. There is an interesting debate on the religious ethics of this here.

Making It Better:
Amnesty International

Sinister Dexterity

On further thought about my post of yesterday, a better analogy to Giulani's deliberately ambiguous statement would be, "It's OK to be left-handed so long as you only use your right hand". Being gay, like being left-handed or having ginger hair or blue eyes, is part of the hand dealt to some people in life - an innate characteristic, not a choice. For many years, left-handed people were forced to use their right hand; today we know better.

Giulani wants it both ways

In his latest convoluted attempt to gain votes from both sides of the fence, US presidential hopeful and serial publicity-seeker Rudolph Giulani is quoted as saying that homosexuality is not aberrant. "The way somebody leads their life isn't sinful. It's the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the orientation that they have."

If this makes any sense at all, I think it's saying that it's OK to be gay so long as you don't act on it. Which is a bit like saying that it's OK to be a carnivore so long as you don't eat meat. Or maybe that it's OK to be black so long as you don't have dark skin. But I guess what he's really saying is, "I want both gays and the religious right to vote for me, so I'll try to please both sides by talking nonsense and hope each side interprets it as agreeing with them".

A Tale of Two Cities - and Two Hygiene Standards

Hong Kong, December 2007
In McDonald's at City One Shatin, the manager is walking around overseeing the staff and helping out during a busy lunchtime session, when he covers his mouth with his hand to cough. Knowing the poor general level of food hygiene in Hong Kong, I was pleasantly surprised to see him immediately walk over to the antiseptic handwipe dispenser and disinfect his hands.

Quite a contrast to another scene I was reminded of:

Shanghai, December 2001
A girl in a glass-fronted kitchen in the old town area near the Yuyuan Garden is energetically picking her nose, in between assembling hand-made Shanghai dumplings with the same unwashed finger. Needless to say, we chose to eat elsewhere.

Hmmm - I never thought I'd be comparing McDonald's favourably with anywhere else!

Rude and Ignorant

The verbal personal attack on newly-elected Anson Chan by Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing in yesterday's Legislative Council meeting was not only gratuitously ill-mannered, but also revealing of Tsang's political ignorance.

In describing Mrs Chan as a "sudden supporter for livelihood" who had not displayed such concern during her past service as Chief Secretary under British rule, Tsang appeared not to understand the difference between Chan's past and present roles. As a legislator, she now has a responsibility to speak out on policy matters; as a senior civil servant before, she was expected to implement whatever policy the government decided, not to express her own views on it. Neither we nor Tsang have the right to assume that Chan did not care about these matters before, but it would have been unprofessional of her then to say what she thought personally - and Mrs Chan has never been less than professional in her work.

If Tsang, once praised for his "profound and sensitive grasp of Hong Kong and mainland affairs", does not understand such simple distinctions, is he really qualified to hold a top government post?

Sitting on a barbed wire fence

It is apparent to anyone with half a brain that the Bush regime in the USA generally wants to have everything both ways. They control more weapons of mass destruction than any other power on earth, but insist that other countries should not be allowed to acquire or hold such weapons.

They insist that they are fighting a "War on Terror", but refuse to give their captured enemies in that war (many of them kidnapped from third countries in defiance of international law) the internationally recognised status of prisoners of war. Now, facing yet another attempt to gain some legal rights for these unfortunates, the government once again undermines its own case by self-contradiction.

The US Supreme Court will today hear appeals from two detainees in the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp arguing that the 2006 US law removing their habeas corpus rights (following an earlier Supreme Court judgement upholding them) is unconstitutional. To quote the BBC report, the prisoners "say that habeas corpus does extend to Guantanamo Bay because, even though the territory is not under formal US sovereignty, it is under US control", to which "US government lawyers have responded by saying in their brief that the US does not own Guantanamo Bay and therefore the writ of habeas corpus does not run there".

Now pardon me if I'm too dense to understand the subtleties of the argument here, but if the US doesn't own Guantanamo Bay, which is a corner of Cuba that the US clung on to after Castro's Cuban revolution, then it must be either international territory, in which case international law should apply (as it does, for example, to ships outside territorial waters), or it must be Cuban territory held illegally by the USA (since the Cubans certainly didn't lease it to them, unlike say Diego Garcia which the US leased from Britain). There are other types of territory - for example, territories under a UN mandate pending resolution of their status - but Guantanamo Bay is not in any of these categories.

What this means is that the US is effectively arguing that it has no right to Guantanamo Bay, in which case the US prison there cannot be a legal establishment. So what they are saying is that the Guantanamo prisoners have no legal rights because they are being held in an illegal prison in the first place. Or am I missing something?


P.S. In case we forget we are dealing with human beings here, not just legal principles, here are the stories of the two men concerned.

Defeating the machine

Anson Chan's decisive victory in yesterday's LegCo by-election is the more creditable because her main opponent, Regina Ip, enjoyed the benefit of the pro-Beijing camp's powerful electoral machine. This works in three ways:

1. the DAB uses its strong grassroots organisation at local level to get its supporters out to the polls;
   
2. China-owned businesses in Hong Kong instruct all their employees to vote for Beijing's favoured candidate; and
   
3. Hong Kong owners of businesses in China come under varying degrees of pressure to vote Beijing's way, with hints that failure to comply will be found out and may impede their future operations in the mainland.
   

Chan's victory indicates that the majority of Hong Kong people still want early democracy, but ironically it may have the opposite effect. I suspect that Beijing would feel more comfortable with letting Hong Kong people choose their own administration if they could be confident that a pro-Beijing result on the scale of that in the recent District Council elections was a near certainty.

Chan and Ip were both strong candidates: intelligent and articulate women with a long record of public service in Hong Kong and a deep inside knowledge of how the local political system works. The other six candidates were a very mixed bunch indeed: several seemed to represent the "Give Me My 15 Minutes of Fame Party", while one stood for the "Shouting Loudly in Putonghua Party", and another for the "Look at My Nice Black Silk Robe Party". The "Special Favours for the Transport Sector and Waving Big Yellow Hands Party" candidate did best, coming third.

Fourth placed Ho Loy, another intelligent and articulate female candidate, was the only minor candidate who could really be taken seriously. Standing on a single issue, heritage preservation, she never had a hope of winning, but her issue is an important one to which she succeeded in drawing more attention. The remaining female candidate, Cecilia Ling, proposed improving welfare provision for the elderly poor; however, she also opposed the introduction of a minimum wage, thereby helping to ensure that another generation would be unable to earn enough during their working lives to provide for their retirement.

I saw Anson Chan out campaigning in Causeway Bay a few weeks ago - in person, the woman is tiny! Why do public figures (Yao Ming excepted, of course) so often look much taller on television than in real life?

Raising the Vote

Apparently some candidates in Thailand's forthcoming parliamentary election are handing out Viagra in exchange for votes (a tactic also reported from Brazil).

People's Power Party campaigner and local government official Sayan Nopchain is quoted as saying that a politician "is giving out Viagra to gain popularity and votes. I think this is a very bad way of vote-buying."

What would be a good way, I wonder?

Mo worse blues

The English teacher convicted in Sudan of "inciting hatred and insulting religion" was, from published accounts, clearly doing nothing of the sort, at least not intentionally. At worst, she is guilty of naivety and ignorance, as many moderate Muslims have recognised.

If Muslim fundamentalists can get so worked up over a teacher innocently letting her class name a teddy bear Muhammad, it would clearly be dangerous to attempt to initiate a rational debate with them on far more questionable aspects of their faith, like the facts that the Prophet owned slaves and married a nine-year-old girl. These are issues that many distinguished Muslim scholars have wrestled with.

Not that irrationality is exclusive to Muslims; there are many Christians who are also incapable of handling any idea that questions their beliefs (dare I mention evolution?)

Personally, I believe if there is a God, He gave us brains for a reason. Any god who demands that we abdicate our intelligence in favour of blind submission is not a god I would care to worship.

Wellcome to your first (and last) assignment

When I discussed my previous post with a friend, he told me another story about ParknFlop. A former senior manager with the company told him that they once hired a new advertising agency. At the first meeting to plan their new advertising campaign, the advertising executive turned up casually carrying a shopping bag prominently labelled with the logo of their rival Wellcome. The agency was fired before they'd even placed a single ad.

PARKnFLOP

In possibly the most humiliating commercial climbdown since the New Coke fiasco, Hong Kong's PARKnSHOP supermarket chain announced amid great fanfare that they would cease to give out free plastic bags from Wednesday 21st November, only to announce on Monday 26th (with less fanfare) that they were abandoning the scheme.

The move was widely welcomed as a significant contribution to reducing the 8.4 billion plastic bags clogging Hong Kong's landfills each year, but some legislators criticised it for its lack of transparency on how the voluntary 20 cent plastic bag fee for charity would be used.

Perhaps the idea of letting a little light into a corner of the Li empire was too much for the supermarket chain's management? At any rate, instead of fine-tuning the scheme in response to feedback, they chose to make themselves look like a bunch of idiots by reversing the policy after only a few days - and compounded stupidity with hypocrisy by saying the company was "still supportive of environmental protection on principle". This is about as meaningful as a carnivore saying that he supports vegetarianism on principle, or George W. Bush posing as a peacemaker.

It all depends on your point of view

We are all aware (or should be) that the words we use can be slanted to reflect a particular point of view. Sometimes this is obvious and deliberate, but even where one expects more neutrality, bias - possibly unconscious - can appear. Today's BBC report on Jacob Zuma's lead over President Thabo Mbeki in the race to lead South Africa's ANC describes him twice as "less business friendly than Mr Mbeki". This he may be, but why make it sound so negative - why not describe him as "more labour friendly" instead?

What goes around comes around

In his new book Day of Reckoning, right-wing nutcase and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan declares that "The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the [USA], leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico".

Not entirely inappropriate, considering that the young country effectively stole the Southwest from Mexico in the first place in 1848, following what later US President Ulysses S. Grant described as "one of the most unjust [wars] ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation". Looking at Iraq today, it seems America's treatment of weaker nations hasn't changed much in 159 years.

Bombs in the Bakery

The so-called "War on Terror" has created such a level of paranoia that just about any action now can be seen as a terrorist plot by the suspicious-minded.

A news report from The Philippines headed "Sacks of explosive chemicals seized at Manila port" announces that Philippine authorities have seized 120 sacks of sodium bicarbonate. This chemical, says the report, "is used in the manufacture of pyrotechnics and explosives".

Maybe so; but sodium bicarbonate, also known as baking soda, is a common household chemical available from any supermarket or pharmacy. It is used as a raising agent in baking, for other culinary applications, in medicine (to treat acid indigestion, for example), in toothpaste, as a deodoriser, and as a cleansing agent.

If every common substance is going to be treated as a danger, why not stop people refuelling their cars in case they use the petrol to make Molotov cocktails?

Failing to keep abreast of the times

A TV news report a couple of days ago on Hong Kong's unusually high birth rate this year showed film of the maternity unit at Baptist Hospital, with a room full of babies' cribs lined up in neat rows, nurses walking around, and not a mother in sight.

This is a sign of how far behind the times "Asia's World City" still is in some areas. Just about every more enlightened country has abandoned this practice in favour of keeping the newborn baby beside the mother - this is recognised to enhance bonding between mother and infant and to facilitate breastfeeding on demand (best for baby, say experts).

Keeping all the babies in a separate ward is done for the convenience of the hospital staff, not for the benefit of the mother and child. Wake up Hong Kong!

Fat Chance

The world's second richest man, Warren Buffett, said the other day that the super-rich like himself should pay more tax and ordinary people should pay less. Other super-rich Americans are saying the same thing. If anyone reading this happens to know Li Ka-Shing, can they please pass on the message?

Town Planning Declared Illegal

Yesterday's court decision giving Swire Properties the go-ahead for a massively inappropriate high-rise development in the overcrowded Mid-Levels is totally absurd. According to the court, the Town Planning Board's decision barring the development was unlawful, because the Board cannot legally take factors such as traffic congestion and visual considerations into account.

Unless the government appeals successfully, if this is the law, then it needs to be changed immediately. Considering the impact of factors such as traffic density and visual considerations in making planning decisions is an essential element of what town planning is all about. What the court is effectively saying is that the Town Planning Board is not allowed to perform town planning. Is that really the intent of the relevant legislation?

Spike has more on the subject.

Chill out on a hot day - or vice versa

Today is a glorious autumn day in Hong Kong: bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and the distant hills actually visible for a change, indicating that the level of air pollution is unusually low. The temperature is in the mid-20s (C), with a gentle breeze; if this was England, people would be heading for the beach.

So I come in to the office this morning, wearing light trousers and a long sleeved shirt. I get into the lift, and notice that half the people in there are all bundled up in coats and sweaters, even scarves, as if it was the middle of winter.

What is this thing with Hong Kong people about dressing by the calendar instead of the thermometer? The territory's nicest weather is often around this time of year, when the stifling summer humidity has gone but there is still a pleasant warmth in the air; yet somehow as soon as it hits September each year, half the folks here seem to think it's officially winter and start to dress for the Arctic. Is this a fashion thing, or what? I would really like to know.

Read Carefully

"Change in Moon Orbit"

read the headline in the South China Morning Post. I had immediate visions of science fiction style movie scenes of the moon looming menacingly larger and larger in the sky, while masses of people flee screaming from giant tidal waves and toppling buildings.

Then just before succumbing to total panic, I read it again more carefully, and saw that it actually said "Chang'e in moon orbit triumph", referring to China's success in placing its Chang'e spacecraft in orbit around the moon.

What a difference an apostrophe makes!

Skimping on the Puns

Both the Daily Mail newspaper and Sky News carry stories about the showing of a recently rediscovered portrait of a young Sean Connery, before his role as James Bond made him famous. Both refer to him as wearing "skimpy trunks" in the picture.
Given Connery's renowned Scottish nationalism, I'm surprised that both organs resisted the temptation to joke about him wearing a jockstrap. Whatever happened to the famous British sense of humour?

What's Up with New World Mobility?

My wife and I have been using New World Mobility's mobile phone services for several years. In the past couple of months, we have noticed an apparent deterioration of their signal quality. Increasingly often, a call will come through sounding badly distorted and faint, as though the speaker is talking under water. Has anyone else in Hong Kong noticed this, or is it just us?

According to Wikipedia, NWM is now 3/4 owned by CSL, itself owned by Telstra of Australia. New World Group retains a 1/4 shareholding.

Mind Your Language

Predictably, "radio personality" (an odd phrase when you think about it) Don Imus is returning to radio eight months after losing his job for describing a black women's university basketball team as "nappy-headed hos". Now I have no idea what is an appropriate punishment for this sort of offensive remark, nor whether Imus's reported repentance is genuine, but I do have one question: if a well known black radio presenter had called a white team a bunch of "straight-haired hookers", how long would it take him to get back on the air?

P.S. Within an hour or so of posting the above, I received a comment which is clearly blatant advertising for pro-Imus propaganda, but I've allowed it (with some hesitation), because I think a few quotes from it will illustrate some of the absurdities and nastiness surrounding this case. For example:

• "Screw Al Sharpton" - this is ironic, because Sharpton, though initially critical of Imus, is one of the few black leaders who has said that Imus should be free to return to radio.
  
• "Save Free Speech" - I don't think America's Founding Fathers had gratuitous sexist and racist insults in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. If I called your mother a dirty nigger whore, for example, could I really claim that I was just exercising my right to free speech? And would that make it less offensive? Come off it.
  
• "I Love Flied Lice" - so not content with approving Imus's blatant insult to blacks, the owner of this site has to needlessly insult Asians, too? Yuk.
  

D'ye Ken Kermit's Cousin?

If I'd thought of it earlier, I would have saved my recent vampire post for Halloween today. Oh well, Happy Halloween to my readers, and let's take a look at some other creatures of interest instead.

Being lucky enough to have a garden, I get quite a range of visitors, from the welcome - birds and butterflies; the odd gecko - to the decidedly uninvited - various slugs and snails, including the horrendous giant African snail, which some deluded nutcases apparently keep as pets. Austin Coates included an entertaining anecdote about these monsters in "Myself A Mandarin", one of the essential Hong Kong books, which sadly seems to be out of print at present.

One occasional welcome visitor is the little brown tree frog, quite common in Hong Kong and easily identifiable.

One time last year a different, and larger, frog came visiting. Now, I have most of the excellent series of books published by the late lamented Urban Council in the 1980s on the natural history of Hong Kong - different volumes cover trees, fish, flowers, fungi, minerals, etc. With luck, you may still be able to find a few copies at the government bookshop; although they may not be very up-to-date, to the best of my knowledge there is no more recent convenient source for much of the information they contain.

Anyway, I dug out the Amphibians and Reptiles volume to try to identify my little friend. Among the 19 species of frog in Hong Kong, based on appearance and size, the closest I could find was the dark-spotted pond frog, also known as the three-striped pond frog, but according to the book, this species is quite rare in Hong Kong, being known from only two specimens here. However, both of these were found in the Taipo area where I live, so it can't be ruled out.

There are a couple of other frogs and toads in the book that appear to be possible candidates, but either their size or their preferred habitat or some distinguishing feature doesn't seem quite right. So, do we have any wildlife experts here who can help me identify Kermit's cousin?

It's good to see that frogs still appear to be thriving in Hong Kong, because in many parts of the world their numbers are being massively reduced by a fungus infection. Now comes a report that New Zealand scientists have taken a major step towards finding a cure which could help to preserve them. Given that many frogs eat mosquitoes and other insect pests, that's good news for humans as well as amphibians.

Here I stand; I can do no other

Martin Luther's famous words seem to make an apt heading for today's piece. Crossing the harbour by tunnel bus on Saturday, I was wedged in, unable to move, against the notice of licensed (and routinely exceeded) capacity which appears on every public bus in Hong Kong. I don't remember the actual numbers, but it was something like this:

Upper deck: 72
Lower deck: 48
Standees: 28

Being a compulsive proofreader and amateur etymologist, I fell to wondering if "standees" was the right word. If we rely on the analogy with other words such as employee (one who is employed), trainee (one who undergoes training) and payee (one who is paid), then "standee" should surely mean, not one who stands, but one who is stood upon. The correct form should perhaps be "standers", or more readably, "standing passengers".

On the other hand, considering the experience of trying to board an overcrowded bus at peak hours in Hong Kong, with other passengers stomping wildly on one's toes from every direction, perhaps "standees" is correct after all!

Fighting infection and vampires

Researchers in the UK have found that garlic is effective against the antibiotic-resistant "hospital superbug" MRSA.

It's traditionally believed to be pretty good at keeping away vampires, too; but another study suggests this confidence may be misplaced.

Watch the news, but be careful out there

Though I occasionally enjoy the unusual sensation while on holiday of not bothering to keep up with what's going on in the world, for the most part I'm a news junkie. In my university days, a few friends and I would go to the TV room in the Students' Union to watch the early evening news before hitting the bar. There we would upset more serious folks with our cynical laughter and sarcastic comments deriding the pompous political nonsense of the day.

Much has changed since then, though politicians' propensity for dishonesty, greed and hypocrisy has continued unabated, indeed intensified dramatically. But though much of today's news induces sickening feelings of disgust and despair (Iraq, Darfur, Burma, Pakistan, Israel and Palestine), there are still more rewarding feelings to be gained by newswatching. A look at a few recent stories indicates some of the varied responses that the news can evoke.

On the "disgusting" side is war criminal Dick Cheney's pronouncement that Iran can never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. What hypocritical arrogance! I don't want to see any country owning nukes (and I applaud the four that have given them up), but who gave the country with more weapons of mass destruction than any other the right to decide who else can have them? Iran is a sovereign state, not a US colony.

Some news stories merely appear to state the obvious, so one wonders what's the point of printing them: "China rulers 'silencing dissent'" (surprise, surprise); or The Standard's report that former psychiatric patients in Hong Kong do better with outreach support after being discharged, a message tragically reinforced by the murder/suicide in Tin Shui Wai a few days after the publication of that entirely predictable research finding.

Some stories make you think: while ATV News was saying something like "these are the nine men who will steer China's course for the next five years" when the new Politburo Standing Committee was wheeled out a few days ago, I was thinking not of the balance between various factions of the party, but how come with half a billion to choose from, they can't find a single representative of China's women to include?

Other stories are questionable or even deliberately misleading. The Morning Post's front page story last Sunday that Burmese monks were trained in nonviolent protest techniques by the American-backed National Endowment for Democracy could be taken as suggesting that the US government was behind the recent wave of protests in Burma - certainly the military regime will seize on the opportunity to claim this. In fact Burmese sources make it clear that, while a few monks may have attended these courses, the uprising against the vicious and corrupt dictatorship was essentially spontaneous and (sadly) uncoordinated.

Incidentally, it's interesting to observe that some news media (BBC, ATV) still use the name Burma, while others (TVB, Morning Post) have switched to Myanmar. Personally I continue to refer to the country as Burma (and its former capital as Rangoon, not Yangon), because its people were never given any choice in the change of name, any more than they were in the change of capital.

Sometimes poor choices of words can be amusing, as when ATV declared on 12 September that, following an injury to one of its players, the US team in the Women's World Cup was a man down for ten minutes. Er... there is a difference, you know.

Other mistakes are just careless: the Sloppy Morning Post on Sunday captioned a photo of a light plane crash as being in Montreal when it was actually in Richmond, BC - only 4,800 km away by road. At least they got the country right, but Canada is an awfully big country! By a happy coincidence, the same issue placed a picture of the odious Australian PM John Howard next to the caption "Teacher denies molesting boys". I had to look more closely to see that the two were unrelated!

Perhaps my favourite part of the news is the quirky little "what the..." stories that are often used as filler in the papers or closing items for the TV news. Several recent headlines on the BBC website are good examples: "J K Rowling outs Dumbledore as gay"; "Man, 24, loses 82-year-old wife", and "Monkeys kill Delhi deputy mayor". The last story itself is rather tragic, but for Hong Kongers there is something else noteworthy about it: the aggressive monkeys responsible, rhesus macaques, are the same species as those that live around Kowloon Reservoir in Hong Kong's Kam Shan Country Park. As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there".

Finally, some bloody good news!

Only this morning, I was complaining about all the bad news we've been getting recently. Finally, there is some effing good news: according to a recent study, swearing at work can help reduce stress. Remind me to try it.

Death in the Deep

I'd really like to blog about more nice happy things, but just about everything I read these days is full of more depressing news. Like this story: not content with murdering over a million Iraqis (so far), the US military (with some civilian help) are also killing off the largest creatures we share our tiny planet with.

How much longer will we tolerate having the world run by the idiots who do this sort of thing?

Making It Better:
Save the Whales Again: Stop Deadly Underwater Sounds!

Oops! There goes another 747!

If China Airlines' appalling safety record wasn't reason enough already to avoid them, this picture (taken from a spam email I received advertising their cargo services) won't do much to increase your confidence in their navigational abilities. By my reckoning, if the plane is really at the location shown here, it's about to slam into The Peak!

How to start a riot

"You Must be From Away" has an entertaining account of the policing of the Republican Party convention in Mainz (that's Germany's far right nutters, not the far right nutters in the American White House).

No fireworks there, but where riots do occur at such events, my view is that the authorities often create problems for themselves by over-zealous security measures. Protesters want to be seen and heard by those they are protesting against, to make their anger felt. So long as they can achieve this, most of them will be content to shout their slogans and wave their banners peacefully.

However, politicians are so paranoid today (not surprisingly when you consider how heavily their guilty consciences must weigh on them) that they invariably seek - as at most recent WTO conferences, for example - to have protests swept away out of sight and hearing (if not banned altogether, as in London this past Monday) to a remote "designated protest zone" miles away from the action, so they will not have to be reminded of their own culpability. Deprived of the opportunity to get their message across to the delegates and/or the public, some of the protesters will inevitably try to break through police cordons to get closer to the meeting, leading to clashes and sometimes full scale rioting. So whose fault is that?

Shame, Shame, Shame

Shame on the CIA, which seized German citizen Khaled el-Masri in Madedonia in 2004, suspecting him of al-Qaeda membership, and flew him to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was tortured for four months, before realising they'd got the wrong man and dumping him in Albania.

Shame on the US Supreme Court for refusing to hear el-Masri's case against the CIA, after the US government intervened to claim that the case should not proceed because state secrets might be revealed. As el-Masri's brief to the court says, this means that, "The privilege as asserted by the government and as construed by the court of appeals ... has permitted dismissal of these suits on the basis of a government affidavit alone—without any judicial examination of the purportedly privileged evidence. Accordingly, a broad range of executive misconduct has been shielded from judicial review after the perpetrators themselves have invoked the privilege to avoid adjudication." Or in non-legal language, the government is entitled to treat its own wrongdoing as a state secret and is therefore immune from accountability for it before the courts.

And shame on the German government for failing to protect its own citizen's rights by dropping its arrest warrants for the CIA operatives involved, after the US government indicated that it would block any extradition request.

Dirty deeds done in the dark, by countries that claim to be civilised - and then they wonder why so much of the Islamic world regards the west as morally bankrupt.

Serious Stuff

Headline of the week: "Lindsay Lohan Says Rehab Was 'Sobering'".

Er - isn't that supposed to be the point?

Former teen star Lindsay Lohan is best known for periodically declaring that she wants to be taken seriously as an actress - in between episodes of being photographed by the paparazzi without her knickers on after nights out getting drunk with Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and other equally serious(ly knickerless) celebrities.

Still, given that most popular newspapers have largely given up any pretence of covering real news, I suppose it gives the press something to fill their pages with.

SCMP: Supine Cowardly Morning Post

Text of an email I just received from Avaaz.org, organisers of the petition on Burma which has now reached 600,000 signatures:

"Dear friends,

Today, our petition to China and the UN Security Council to stop the brutal crackdown on peaceful Burmese protesters is being delivered to the world in a full page ad in the Financial Times worldwide -- but the ad was rejected by other newspapers like the South China Morning Post and the Singapore Straits Times. Our message is an invitation to China to do the right thing in Burma, not an attack -- yet even that seemed too much for media that fear Chinese reprisals."

Sadly, this will not surprise anyone in Hong Kong, where the SCMP is well known for its craven subservience to China. Nor will it be much of a surprise to Singaporeans, whose country, which has a far from free press, just happens to be one of the biggest foreign investors in Burma. Obviously money talks far louder than human decency in both places.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch - but breakfast...

It is an economic truism that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Breakfast, however, may be a different matter...

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine stopped off at a small local restaurant in Mongkok for breakfast on his way to work. After he ordered, four mainland men sat down at the next table and immediately lit up cigarettes, in contravention of Hong Kong's 2005 law banning smoking in restaurants. Not wishing to have his enjoyment of his meal spoiled by their illegal action, my friend asked the waitress to tell them to stop smoking. Perhaps fearing a confrontation, she ignored his request and did nothing.

A little while later, he asked another waitress to tell the men to stop. She also did nothing. My friend hastily finished his food, then walked over to the cash desk (it was one of those little cafes where you pay on the way out), tore up the bill in front of the cashier, informed her he was refusing to pay, and asked her to call the police.

The cashier called the manager over. After an exchange of words in which my friend continued to press his point, the manager got fed up with the whole situation and told my friend to get lost, or words to that effect - which he did.

Obviously he won't be welcome in that restaurant again, which doesn't bother him in the least. He does have one regret, however; in his words:

"If I'd known I was going to get a free meal, I would have ordered something more expensive!"

Making It Better:
Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health

Burma - You Can Help

The continuing tragedy in Burma has been much on my mind for the past week or two. I don't have time now to write all I want to say about the depressing situation there, but I do just want to get the word out to as many people as possible about the global petition to China (Burma's main trading partner and ally) and the United Nations, urging them to put more pressure on Burma's brutal military dictatorship, which is now arresting thousands of peaceful protesters and, according to reliable sources, massacring many of them, particularly monks. Half a million signatures have already been gathered - please add yours now (link below), and tell others.

Making it Better:
Avaaz.org: Stand with the Burmese protesters

Cuba Libre; America Unfree

It's very rare indeed for me to agree with anything George W. Bush says, but his recent comments at the UN General Assembly concerning the lack of human rights in Cuba deserve attention. It is well documented that there is a concentration camp on the island where hundreds of prisoners, many of them kidnapped from other countries, have been kept under armed guard in appalling conditions, often including long periods of solitary confinement, for years. They are denied internationally recognised human rights, interrogated under torture, refused legal representation, and not allowed visits from their families or friends. Some have even been driven to suicide.

All this, of course is in the US-controlled corner of the island, at Guantanamo Bay. I am sure the rest of the Cuban population are yearning to experience such "freedom" for themselves.

Meanwhile, while Bush calls for democracy around the world at the UN, he says nothing when his own military chief bluntly declares in his presence that the American people cannot vote to end the war in Iraq. Nor does he correct General Pace's blatant lie that Iraq declared war on the USA. With a democracy like this, who needs dictatorship?

I often wonder if Bush actually believes his own bullshit, or if he is conscious of his hypocrisy. At the least, he must be experiencing some degree of cognitive dissonance, which could explain the perpetual slightly puzzled look on his face, as if he can't quite understand why reality won't conform to his own perceptions of the world.

Those perceptions, of course, like those of General Pace and most of the rest of the subhuman crew in Washington, are shaped by their oft-proclaimed religious principles. Perhaps they should actually read the book they claim to live by; for Bush, I recommend Matthew 7:5 as a good starting point.

One Article, Two Stupid Quotes

Not one, but two quotes of the week this week, from the same article in The Standard - and both supreme examples of stupidity:

1. "I agree those who handled it [a letter from the then owner of King Yin Lei Mansion requesting talks with the government on its future] were not sensitive enough to realize that the public cares about these old buildings."

--Development Bureau chief Carrie Lam explaining why the government's Antiquities and Monuments Office missed an opportunity five months ago to preserve this magnificent building. This is simply not good enough - if officials whose job it is to be responsible for preserving "these old buildings" that make up our heritage don't even realise what everyone else knows from reading the newpaper, then why haven't they been fired?

The second one is presumably from a Standard journalist:

2. "The mansion was being renovated when the order to stop work was given last weekend."

In other news:

- Al-Qaeda renovates World Trade Centre
- The Taliban renovates Bamiyan Buddha statues

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" ---William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream