Political Pornography

According to the South China Morning Post:

"The honorary president of the pro-government Federation of Trade Unions [and Executive Councillor], Cheng Yiu-tong, has expressed support for a screening mechanism to be introduced for future chief executive elections.

Mr Cheng said otherwise, when universal suffrage is introduced, the people of Hong Kong might end up electing a 'porn star' to the territory's top job.

He said that had happened overseas but it was something that Hong Kong people don't want to see here."



Well if they don't want to see it here, they won't vote for one, will they?  Duh!  That's how democracy works.


Mind you, some porn stars could probably do a better job than our current bunch of politicians...

Take your rubbish with you when you go

Now here's an idea.  It occurs to me the the 46 million annual mainland visitors to Hong Kong must be responsible for generating a substantial proportion of the SAR's 6.4 million tons of waste swamping our overburdened landfills each year.  So why not introduce a new policy: anyone who wants to visit Hong Kong has to take a 20 kg bag of rubbish back across the border with them when they leave.  This would remove nearly a million tons from the local waste stream, significantly extending the life of our landfills.

For most people, the impact of this flood of visitors is largely negative - overcrowding; luxury goods stores forcing out affordable local shops and restaurants and pushing up rents, causing a general rise in prices - so this way we could ensure that every visitor makes at least one positive contribution to our welfare.  And if it discouraged them from coming, well, only big landlords and luxury goods retailers would be greatly saddened.

A Love Too Far

So let me see: I have to Love Hong Kong - no problem, but becoming increasingly difficult as more and more of the Hong Kong I love is under threat or disappearing.  Love China - hmmm, let's see.  It's not my motherland, but I do appreciate the great architecture, art, food and magnificent scenery.  Not so fond of the repressive government, environmental degradation, adulterated milk, secret prisons, corruption, and censorship.  I find it easier to Love Democracy ("the love that dare not speak its name" as far as the Chinese government is concerned).

Now it seems I have to Respect and love the elders as well.  Isn't this taking the whole love thing a bit too far?  I hope I treat everyone with the respect they deserve, but do I really have to share my limited supply of love with every cantankerous old wrinkly in Hong Kong?

Mickey Mouse Government, 1997-2013 (updated)

The more things change, the more they remain the same...

Whicker way to go

Interesting that the BBC news obituary of the late journalist Alan Whicker (famously parodied by Mony Python) should include this photo:

 - though one does wonder from the sloping horizon and lack of focus whether the photographer was drunk!

Consenseless

it is not uncommon for me to splutter with indignation when watching the news, but last night brought an even bigger splutter than usual.  Chief Executive CY Leung told LegCo yesterday that Hong Kong is not yet ready for public consultation on political reform (i.e. the arrangements for the CE election in 2017) because "it is necessary to listen to different views before starting the consultation", and "there is still no consensus" on the issue.  The whole purpose of having public consultation is to give members of the community a chance to express different views on an issue - so does that mean the government needs to consult the public before it can consult the public?!

And as for consensus, there isn't and probably never will be a real consensus on the issue of democracy.  There are simply two fundamentally opposed camps - those (the majority) who think democracy is long overdue, and those who just think what Beijing tells them to (or worse, what they think Beijing wants them to).  The closest we can get to consensus will be a political framework that gives Hong Kong people as much say in their own future as possible, while reassuring Beijing that Long Hair will never be elected CE.  Achieving that would be greatly helped if the Rita Fans and Maria Tams of this world would spend less time telling us what Beijing won't let us have, and more time using their close links with the Chinese leaders to let them know their fears are unfounded.  But then, nobody ever earned a Grand Bauhinia Star or whatever it's called by speaking truth to power, so I don't see much chance of that.

Another piece of vintage political BS came from DAB leader Tam Yiu-chung a few days ago.  Commenting on several proposals for a political framework put forward by The Alliance for True Democracy, he said "the DAB fears the proposals may not be acceptable to Beijing because the different sectors of the community may not all be represented".  Now since the DAB has never shown much interest in inclusiveness, I think we can take it that he wasn't overly concerned that transgender vegetarian unmarried mothers who ride bicycles would not be fairly represented.  What he really means is that the proposals would destroy the current rigged system whereby pro-Beijing groups and other conservative forces such as the property and banking sectors and the NT Mafia are grossly over-represented in Hong Kong's political structures.  Which is exactly the point, of course.

Well I never

Well, I never made it to the democracy march yesterday - other obligations intervened - but I was glad to see a good turnout despite the rain.  But how good exactly?  I have written before about the vast gulf between the organisers' estimates of the number attending protests and the official police estimates.  Now it seems the police have a new tactic for underestimating the level of discontent in Hong Kong - they now give figures for a protest "at its peak".  Yesterday their figure for this was 66,000.  While I treat the organisers' attendance estimate of 430,000 with some scepticism, the police figure is essentially meaningless.  Since it was reported that people were still pouring into Victoria Park to begin the march when the first ranks had already reached the end point at the Central Government offices, the peak figure tells us nothing about how many people actually participated, which is what really matters.  You might as well estimate the number of people having lunch in a 100-seat restaurant as "100 at its peak" without taking any account of turnover - completely ignoring the fact that each table could be occupied by 2 or 3 consecutive groups of diners during the lunch period.

How much longer?

Weather permitting, I will as usual be on tomorrow's democracy march, unseduced by the many supposedly tempting alternative events arranged by the Voice of Pretending to Love Hong Kong and the other pro-Beijing puppet organisations that seem to be springing up everywhere like poisonous weeds.  But isn't it sad that the march has become an annual tradition?  How many more years do we have to protest before we get what the Basic Law supposedly promises us?

Make up your mind!

SCMP website today:

1. WikiLeaks plane ‘ready’ to bring Snowden to Iceland
2. Offer to fly Edward Snowden to Iceland denied by company's owner

And speaking of ignorant fools in the government..,.

... no reader has yet claimed the prize for decoding Financial Secretary John Tsang's claim that Hong Kong's competitiveness declined because of internal economic growth.

Another recent survey also pronounced that Hong Kong has become less competitive compared with other Chinese cities.  However, since the same survey declared Macau the second most trustworthy city in China (yeah, that Macau - you know, the one with all the casinos and the current high-profile corruption trial), ahead of Hong Kong, I think we can be justified in having a few doubts about its methodology.

Who's Fooling Who?

Rabid pro-Beijing propagandist Lau Nai-keung gives us another of his trademark rants (it would be excessively complimentary to classify them as journalism) in the China Daily.  Lau is worried that Trade Development Council Chairman Jack So has reassured the American business community that the planned Occupy Central movement will be just another peaceful expression of views, and unlikely to disturb "business as usual" in Hong Kong.  In Lau's eyes, this is an unforgivable departure from the official party line, as expressed by Chief Executive CY Leung a couple of days earlier, that the mild-mannered academics spearheading Occupy Central are planning mayhem, violence, rioting in the streets and general Armageddon.

'Even if Hong Kong has the "rule of law" and so forth, investors will still flee if our top officials are all ignorant fools' spouts Lau.  It only takes one look at the current government line-up to disprove this hypothesis - if Lau were correct, there would be nary a foreign investor left here already.  Still, credit to Jack So for being an exception to the rule and displaying a measure of calm reason amid the general hysteria.

Who wants yesterday's papers?

Hong Kong's mass media do seem to take an awful long time to catch up with what's going on in the world.  Usually their readers are far ahead of them.  For the first few days of Edward Snowden's presence in Hong Kong, the Pro-China Morning Post was reprinting Guardian articles about him - and only got round to interviewing the man who was right under their noses when he approached them.

Now it's TVB's turn.  Last night's news led with an exposé of the fact that many overseas domestic helpers in Discovery Bay are living in the village just south of DB rather than with their employers as required by their contract. Since this has been going on for 25 years or so, it's hardly news.  Nor is it exactly "shock horror" material - while technically illegal, it suits both parties - the employers because they get more privacy in their limited living space at night, and the helpers because they probably prefer the opportunity to socialise with their counterparts rather than share a bedroom with a mewling baby.  So why the fuss?  Surely there are more important - and timely - issues to report on?

Gobbledegookonomics

A small prize to anyone who can make sense of this report from last night's TVB news:

In regards to the decline in Hong Kong's competitiveness ranking, the Financial Secretary said this was due to internal economic growth.

That wasn't the only economic bollocks John Tsang was spouting in LegCo yesterday.  Following his claim that he was glad to see property prices had cooled down - "after rolling out the [government's market cooling] measures we see that they are effective" - it was, surprisingly, not the usual suspects who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes, but the usually pro-government Abraham Shek, who as representative of the Real Estate sector might be assumed to be not entirely averse to high property prices.

"Prices did not come down" admonished Shek, asking "What kind of success is that?"  Indeed.

Washroom Weirdness

I was in a washroom the other day and noticed that there were eight wash basins but only one warm air hand dryer, one of the old slow type.  Now it seems obvious to me that, since it takes far longer to dry your hands with one of those than it does to wash them (even when you follow all six steps of the Hong Kong government's helpful instructions - if my grandmother was still alive, they'd probably have a poster teaching her to suck eggs), the number of dryers should be greater than the number of wash basins.  Since all public washrooms seem to be set up that way, I just wonder why the people who design these places have never noticed this.

By George

I dreamed I saw George Takei last night.

Actually it was the night before last, but that line has a nice ring to it, resonant of the song about Joe Hill. In the dream, my wife and I were sitting near the front of a large square-shaped restaurant - Chinese, I think it was.  I looked around the restaurant, and George was seated at a table in the back corner.  He saw me and waved to me.

In real life, I don't know George personally, but I have been a Star Trek fan for decades.  Not a Trekkie - I don't attend conventions dressed up as a Ferengi, converse in Klingon, or collect scale models of the starship Enterprise - just someone who has seen and enjoyed most episodes of The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Enterprise - and would probably also enjoy Voyager and Deep Space Nine if Hong Kong's useless TV stations could be bothered to find room for them among the rubbish they usually churn out.

As is generally known, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry insisted on a multiracial cast at a time when US TV programmes were wall-to-wall vanilla, figuring that by the 24th century the human race might have grown up.  Much has been made of Nichelle Nichols' position as the first black woman to hold a major role in a major series, but it has been less often noted that, until Takei appeared in The Original Series, few Asian faces made it to prime time TV either.

Anyway, all this is by way of an excuse for passing on the fun picture above, which comes from Takei's Facebook page - generally a witty and entertaining read.  Enjoy!

Camp followers

"Mick Jagger will camp when Rolling Stones play Glastonbury [Festival]"

says The Sun.  Most of us thought he'd been camping for years already.

Nonsense of Direction

According to Facebook, Tai Po is near the airport on Lantau island, more or less diagonally opposite its real location..  I can only assume they get their maps from Apple, not Google.  Still, that should make it quicker to get home from the airport next time I land there!

Young gifted and cracked

We are seeing a bizarre proliferation recently of ever more pro-Beijing organisations seemingly dedicated to telling us that we are too stupid to choose our own leaders.  It appears to be a rule that these should have as long and unwieldy a name as possible.  Last night's news reported on a public forum organised by the Love China-Hong Kong Alliance of Youth Cultural Societies.  The main "youth" speaking at this appeared to be long-time Beijing lackey Ho Sai-chu (born 1937).  Of the other three youth representatives on the platform, one had grey hair, one was balding, and even the youngest-looking didn't appear to be less than 40.  From the brief shot we saw of what seemed to be a minuscule audience, few of them appeared to be younger than 80.  (Many old folks in Hong Kong treat these kind of public forums as free entertainment.)

So no youth there, and not much sign of Love either.  Are we really supposed to take these pathetic organisations seriously?

Diddums

Did you see the mainland tourist on last night's news blubbing like a baby just because his tour bus was delayed by an hour?  Apparently this puerile display of over-the-top emotion was in support of his claim for compensation of RMB3,000 per head for the delay (the amount they paid for the entire 5-day tour to Hong Kong).  On that basis, New World First Bus owes me $750 for the agonising 15-minute wait I had to endure in Hennessy Road on Wednesday.

Song of the day here.

Politician Gets Hands Dirty Shock

Good to see Hong Kong's politicians doing some honest work for a change!

Videos here and here.

The Trinity of Reverse Evolution

Further proof of the decline of the South China Morning Post

From their website today:

Syria dismisses US, UK chemical weapons claims as lie

The 46-year-old, one of the European Union’s youngest prime ministers, is then expected to unveil his programme in a parliamentary session on Monday, before the government is put to a confidence...

10:44AM

Does anyone at the paper actually read what they put out?

Sharing the Love

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me

With Chinese officials constantly emphasising the importance of Hong Kong showing love for the Motherland, the latest earthquake in Sichuan Province has thrown up some interesting developments.

Hong Kong people have traditionally been quick to donate generously to victims of past natural disasters in China.  However, the government's proposal to repeat its massive donation of local taxpayers' money following the previous Sichuan earthquake was not so readily accepted this time around.  Having seen how much of their hard-earned cash ended up in the pockets of corrupt local officials last time - most notoriously, a school built with HK$2 million of our money was soon afterwards demolished to make way for a commercial development - Hong Kong people want guarantees that the money will reach those who really need it.

Ever eager to score brownie points in Beijing, the government perhaps did not stop to think that putting this donation on LegCo's agenda for approval would give the Council an opportunity to air complaints of corruption on the mainland, a sensitive topic which would usually be out of bounds for discussion.  Naturally the pan-democrats seized that opportunity in yesterday's Finance Committee meeting, leaving the DAB with the awkward choice of either seeming to show a lack of love for the Motherland by rejecting the donation proposal, or seeming to condone corruption there by accepting it unconditionally.  In the end no vote was taken and the issue remains unresolved.

However, also as usual, the pan-dems missed an opportunity to do better.  If they were smarter, they would have painted their objections as showing their strong support for President Xi Jinping's recent calls for a determined fight against corruption in the Party, thereby casting anyone who disagreed as an enemy of the Beijing leadership.  But perhaps that was too imaginative for them.

In fact, the pan-democrats seem to be letting the pro-Beijing parties hijack the mantle of "love" by default., like the "Voice of Loving Hong Kong" group which first came to public notice by lovingly trying to silence any other voices at a public forum on democracy.  Again the pan-dems need more imagination.  Instead of "The Alliance for True Democracy", why not call their new united(?) front group "Love Hong Kong, Love China, Love Democracy"?  Don't give those who are trying to ruin Hong Kong a monopoly on claiming to love it.

Song for today.

My Country Wrong or Wrong

The surprising thing about today's SCMP poll question - "Do you agree with judge Kemal Bokhary that critics of Beijing can also be patriots of China?" = is not that 93% answered yes, but that as many as 7% were stupid enough to answer No.  Does the CCP really have that many readers of the English-language media in its ranks?

The simple fact is that if you love your country (whichever one it is), you want it to improve.  This can only happen if people point out where it's going wrong, so the errors can be corrected.  And if you seriously think that any country is so perfect that it's above criticism, then you need an urgent  reality transplant.

The Finish Line

Do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.

--Jeremiah 22:3

Anyone who kills children for any cause (assuming the Boston Marathon bombings were some kind of political act) amply demonstrates that their cause is not worthy of support.

Yesterday when I heard the news, my first thought was for a close friend who is visiting the city, where her daughter, son-in-law and grandchild live.  Thankfully they are all safe.  This boy, Martin Richard, was not so lucky.  Rest in peace, little one.  And rot in hell, whoever did this.

Confusion All Round

Last night's TVB news, talking about a case of burd flu in China:

"The girl's mother also developed a fever, but her temperature has come down and is in good condition."

I'm glad the temperature is in good condition - I wonder how the mother is?

Also reported last night was the case of "W", a male-to-female transsexual in Hong Kong who is seeking the legal right to marry her boyfriend.  W has had gender reassignment surgery and both her Hong Kong ID card and passport now specify her sex as female.  Yet despite officially recognising her as a woman for most purposes, the government is arguing that she is still a man for the purpose of marriage.

One of its arguments in the Court of Appeal yesterday was apparently that "a criterion of marriage is to produce the next generation".  There may be valid reasons for not letting W marry a man (though I can't think of any), but this is certainly not one of them.  If it applied this logic consistently, the government would also have to consider the inability to procreate an impediment to marriage for infertile couples and post-menopausal women.  Not even the Catholic Church would go that far!

The Institute of Trite Observations

According to a Chinese University study, Hong Kong people experience excessive anxiety as a result of inflation, with those who have a household income below HK$10,000 a month being 8 times more likely to suffer from it.  This is hardly news - Professor Wilkins Micawber of the Dickens Academy made a remarkably similar observation in his groundbreaking economic study of 1850.

According to the director of the CUHK Hong Kong Mood Disorders Centre, Lee Sing, people with anxiety symptoms should seek treatment as soon as possible.  I would have thought seeking better-paid work might be more useful, but what do I know?

 

What I do want to know is this: how much anxiety is "excessive" when you can't afford to eat?  And how can I get the government to give me loadsamoney for stating the obvious?

Song for today here.

Pecuniary Incentive (Shock Horror!)

The NTSCMP's parody of it led me to a Standard article on the dangers young women allegedly face by going out drinking.  Among the other horrifying statistics there was this shocker from a social worker: "As for those who work in bars, we believe that money is the main motivation." 

As opposed, presumably, to social workers, lawyers, dockers, toilet attendants, shop assistants, accountants, civil servants, journalists, cleaners and construction workers, who all go to work purely for the love of the job.  With srticles of this quality, one wonders if a parody is really necessary.

Singapore girl, you're a great way to hop

It appears from this picture that a missing foot is no impediment to employment as a Singapore Airlines stewardess.  Some may think this is carrying equal opportunity employment a bit too far!

Richard Li, hijacker

I was planning to start the day with some remarks on the obnoxious Margaret Thatcher, who died yesterday - an obituary I've ben writing in my head for several years.  But when I opened Firefox to get into Blogger this morning, instead of my usual home page - set to Google - I was greeted by the Chinese version of this:

After my initial WTF reaction, I tried opening my other two browsers, Chrome and IE, only to find the same thing - appropriately labelled "PCCW Force Portal" - in all of them.  Attempts to bypass it by closing and reopening, and by opening new tabs, proved fruitless, with each new tab just popping up another copy of the same screen.

Finally I was forced to respond to the offer from PCCW (declining it, of course - I am not giving these clowns any additional opportunity to mess with my system; in fact I didn't even read the details of whatever scheme they were trying to push, I just wanted them off my screen) in order to get rid of the damn thing, and eventually got a screen graciously permitting me to go about my usual online business:

So why did this happen?  PCCW's subsidiary Netvigator is my Internet Service Provider, and while others have good cause to hate them, I've generally found their service OK.  But I don't recall ever signing anything that gave PCCW boss Richard Li the right to override my system settings and hijack all three browsers on my system with his unsolicited advertising.  If PCCW want to contact me, they have my email address.  This is outrageous - contrary to all the rules of netiquette and totally unacceptable - in fact I shall look into making a formal complaint to OFTA about it.

And while I'm bashing PCCW, I received a letter from them recently (they know where I live, too, if they want to contact me) using all the standard meaningless PR buzzwords: "Thank you for choosing HKT as your telecommunications partner [i.e. phone company]. We constantly strive to provide the best customer experience through service excellence." before going on to say: "In order to cope with increasing costs and continue to offer high standards of service quality, we would like to inform you that the monthly service fee for Local Business telephone Services will have to be adjusted with effect from May 1, 2013."

Why can't businesses (not just PCCW) just be honest and say they are "raising" their fees, instead of always using the weasel word "adjusted".  When was the last time you saw a fee adjusted downward?

Stupid is as stupid does

Elsie Leung warns against 'stupid' votes in 2017 chief executive race

If Hongkongers are "stupid enough" to vote for a chief executive candidate who does not meet Beijing's criteria of "loving the country and loving Hong Kong", they should not blame Beijing for the consequences ...

and blah blah blah, says the former Secretary for Justice and vice-chairwoman of the Basic Law Committee of the NPC, though she does at least go on to admit that this eventuality is unlikely - in which case, why all the insistence on screening out candidates who do not (in the eyes of Leung and her cohorts) meet these criteria? ..

I am sure I am not the only one who is getting extremely tired of old Beijing lackeys like Elsie Leung and Maria Tam insulting the people of Hong Kong by implying they're so stupid they have to be told who to vote for.  Who is being stupid here?  Hong Kongers are well aware that whoever they elect as CE will have to work in close cooperation with the central government, and will use their vote accordingly.  Can we have an end to this pathetic scare-mongering?

Perhaps, like Hemlock, I should take to wrapping up my posts with a song.

The Dark Side of the Farce

Beijing-loyalist Maria Tam says the right to be elected is not universal.

So says the South China Morning Post today.

Imagine if the last US election had given voters a right to choose only between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton excluded from aspiring to the presidency.  That is effectively the scenario now being proposed for Hong Kong by the small clique of Beijing loyalists that has undue influence in such matters.  Their idea is that we will all have an equal vote for who runs Hong Kong, but anyone who might actually stand up for Hong Kong's rights instead of kowtowing to the central government will be unable to run for Chief Executive.

It is of course farcical to claim this as any sort of democracy - but then Maria Tam, Rita Fan and the other Hong Kongers who sit on the NPC and NPPCC are not interested in democracy.  Their main discernible talent has been worming themselves to the top of a system where a small self-appointed elite claims to represent Hong Kong with no popular mandate whatever - first under British rule, and then as sudden patriots, under Beijing rule after 1997..

If it were not so serious, the last NPPCC "election" would have been quite amusing.  China declared that members would be required to display high moral standards, then demonstrated their sincerity by giving Henry Tang - failed CE candidate, self-confessed adulterer and owner of an illegal basement below his house three times the size of the average Hong Kong family's total living space - a seat.

As Hong Kong people have grown in political awareness and self-confidence, elements of democracy have gradually chipped away at this old cozy system, but those who benefit from it are not willing to lose their influence without a struggle.  The problem is that Beijing actually listens to these people and takes their advice on Hong Kong matters as if they were representative of anything more than their own self-interest - which probably helps account for its gross misreading of the public mood on such matters as Article 23 and "National and Moral Education" (the coupling of the two is a dead giveaway - the subtext being "if you don't love the nation [as we define it] you are an immoral person").

If the central government understood that in a democracy, an opponent is not automatically an enemy, they might talk to articulate moderate democrats (Audrey Eu would be a good choice, for example) to get a better understanding of Hong Kong, instead of just being told what they want to hear.  Until then we will have to suffer mad old bats selling out the rights we are supposed to enjoy under the Basic Law.

Poll Dancing

Another unanswerable poll question from the South China Morning Post: Do you believe some Hongkongers might resort to violence to fight for universal suffrage?

Do I believe a few hotheaded demonstrators might scuffle with police at a protest march?  Almost certainly - which is probably what the 72& who answered "Yes" have in mind.  Do I believe  we're going to see pitched mass battles in the street and suicide bombings?  No way.  If you're going to ask a question like that, define what you mean by "violence" first.

The previous day's question was equally hard to answer: Do you support the 'Occupy Central' movement?

Morally, absolutely.  Strategically - it depends.

Let one flower bloom, let one school of thought contend

Headline story in toda's South China Morning Post:

No consultation on political reform until conditions met, Beijing official says

Consultation on electoral reform should not begin until most Hongkongers agree that those who confront the central government should not rule the city, a top Beijing official has said.

Which essentially means "We're not going to ask you what you want until you agree with our view of what you should have"

But if they don't ask, how will they know whether Hong Kong people have fallen for their bullshit or not? Not that they care what we think anyway.

Racing to come second

To normal people, the fuss over Sebastian Vettel's win in the Malaysian Grand Prix will seem bizarre.  Vettel apologised to team-mate Mark Webber for overtaking him to win the race, contrary to their team's instructions.

I always thought the idea of a race was that the fastest competitor comes in first.  Apparently in the weird world of Formula 1, that's not the case.  Then what is the point of racing?  In any other sport, fixing the result would get you disqualified.

The Upper Hand

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during US President Obama's visit "We extend our hands in peace and in friendship to the Palestinian people", surely he meant "hand" in the singular?  The other one is still busy grabbing Palestinian land.

OK, my comment is a little facetious, and this map is dramatic, but as a pro-Israeli website points out, an over-simplification.  Then in debunking it as a supposed lie, it introduces new inaccuracies into the picture.

• The first map, it says, is incorrect because much of the land shown in green was not privately owned, but held by the government, and therefore "when the state of Israel was established, it became legally Israel's".  This assumes of course that the population of the new state recognised its legitimacy, and glosses over the fact that the Arab (then) majority of its residents did not, and that many of them were forcibly dispossessed of land they may not have technically owned but had lived on and farmed for generations.
• Map 2, it says, is incorrect because the Arabs never accepted the proposed partition plan.  Fair enough - though why should they, in the circumstances of the time?
• Map 3, it argues, is incorrect because the "Palestinian" areas were not part of a Palestinian territory but held and administered by neighbouring countries, Egypt and Jordan.  What is omitted here is that those countries never accepted the Palestinians as part of their own nations, but continued to regard them as a separate people - just as the many Palestinians in Lebanon today are still treated as refugees.

The site then goes on to praise Israel for "giving up" large areas of land in exchange for peace.  Apart from the fact that it did not "give up" the largest area of land, the Sinai Peninsula, but lost it in war to Egypt, from which it had earlier seized it, it would be more correct to talk of "giving back" than "giving up",  The reality remains, however, that the Palestinian Authority has limited control over the areas nominally ceded to it, and that Israel continues to establish settlements in many of the occupied territories.  Draw your own conclusions about Israel's sincerity in making peace.

Spring Surplus

More than a month after Chinese New Year, the Park N Shop (or whichever combination of upper and lower case they use these days) Superstore in Taipo is still piled high with overstocked gift packs of cookies and overpriced candy being sold off at a discount.  Am I the only one in Hong Kong who feels a warm twinge of delight that the Li family got somnething wrong?

Happy Spring Equinox to all except tycoons!

Polls Apart

I sometimes respond to the South China Morning Post's opinion polls on its website, but I just as often find them irritatingly meaningless.  Take today's, for example: the question asked is: "Is India still a safe destination for foreign tourists?"  Pertinent, after recent widely-reported rape cases there, certainly, but totally unscientific.

First of all, note the implied assumption that India was previously safe.  Then consider the impossibility of summing up the safety level of a large and enormously diverse country of more than a billion people in one snap judgement.  Are you safe at the Taj Mahal?  Probably.  In Indian-occupied Kashmir, or the poorest slums of Kolkata - probably less so.

And what do you mean by "safe" anyway?  Likely to get raped or murdered - even with the occasional case that hits the headlines, not very.  Likely to have your pocket picked?  Much more probable - but not only in India.  Safe from your own stupidity?  Thousands of tourists die in foreign countries every year because people tend to take foolhardy risks on holiday that they would not take at home, from overdosing on drugs to riding motorcycles without a helmet to swimming in dangerous waters to eating in places with dubious hygiene standards - or even over-exerting themselves sexually!  Most Hong Kong people consider Thailand a safe destination for tourism, but apart from the country's appalling level of road safety, five foreign tourists and a Thai guide died in 2011 because of over-exposure to a pesticide used to kill bed bugs!  Who would have seen that coming?

Then there is the question of what one means by a foreign tourist.  In a tour group or travelling independently?  Male or female?  Travelling alone or with a companion?  Able to speak the local language or not?  Staying in luxury resorts or local flophouses?  All of these factors - not to mention one's visible "ethnicity", as officials like to call race these days - could affect how safe one is.  But a white female friend of mine lived for two years in India, travelling alone on a limited budget, with no problems, and loves the country.

My advice: don't let this kind of question put you off travelling except for avoiding obvious trouble spots (two other friends enjoyed a wonderful trip to Syria some years ago, but I wouldn't advise it at the moment)..  Just take sensible precautions, remember shit happens everywhere, and as they used to say in Hill Street Blues: "Be careful out there!"

Eur in trouble

The Cyprus bank deposit grab has triggered the law of unintended consequences.  It does not seem to have occurred to the wise idiots at the European Central Bank who came up with the idea of a levy on bank deposits that, far from strengthening ailing banks, it would further weaken public confidence in banks generally, with depositors in other countries rushing to keep their money safe under the mattress at home rather than leaving it where the "banksters" (as a protest placard in Cyprus called them) can grab part of it.  And ordinary Cypriots may well conclude that if troubled banks can't keep their money safe for them, then those banks do not deserve to survive anyway.

The "tax" - now rightly rejected by the country's legislature, with not a single member voting for it - was supposed to compensate those affected with shares in the worthless banks - hardly an attractive prospect.  But it was blatantly unfair, hitting those who keep their wealth in cash in the bank while not touching those whose riches are in other forms - stocks, bonds, artworks.  Maybe they should open up every safe deposit box in the banks and seize 10% of any jewellery inside?  It also aroused fierce opposition among overseas depositors, many of them Russian (which doesn't say much for their confidence in their own country's banks), who are being forced to "share the burden" of a problem that is none of their business.

You really have to wonder sometimes how stupid politicians can be.

Dumping the burden

The handling of the Euro crisis is becoming ever more ridiculous.  In the latest bailout, citizens of Cyprus will have 10% of their bank deposits stolen from them by their government as part of the deal with Europe's central bank.  This is described by authorities as "sharing the burden".  Why should Cypriots be asked to share the burden of a crisis triggered by a combination of global bank greed and the Greek government's overspending?  (Cyrpus's banks are mainly in trouble because of over-exposure to Greek debt.)

Two things have been consistent throughout this crisis: one is that the policies intended to cure it will instead worsen it by choking economic growth.  The other is that the burden falls on those least able to bear it, while the fatcats responsible for the trouble in the first place survive relatively unscathed.

Politicians and bankers - ain'tcha sick of 'em?

The Luck of the Irish

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to my Irish reader(s)!

I'm Liberal but to a degree

Walking through Tai Po Plaza yesterday, I found that the Liberal Party's district office there had disappeared.  I assumed that, with no election coming up in the near future, they had decided to bugger off back to their luxurious homes on the Peak, but in fairness, I find from the party's website that they still have an office in Sheung Shui.

What is it about political parties' names?  The Liberal Party isn't; the DAB ("Democratic Action for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong", which should surely be in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's most unwieldy party name) does not support democracy and has never bettered Hong Kong; and the Chinese Communist Party long ago ceased to practise anything Karl Marx would recognise as communism.  Other countries are no better: Britain's Conservative Party has not conserved anything worthwhile for decades, though it has destroyed much of value; Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is neither liberal nor democratic; and so it goes.  In fact if a party named itself the "Bunch of Corrupt Self-Serving Shoe-Shiners" it would be so refreshingly honest people might even vote for them!

A Pope for China

Since the Chinese don't like the Dalai Lama supposedly promoting Tibetan independence, they declared his recognition of the young Panchen Lama invalid and chose their own Panchen Lama.  Since they don't like the Vatican having diplomatic relations with Taiwan, how long will it be before they declare the conclave's selection invalid and appoint their own Pope?

South China People's Daily

Catching up on Hemlock's blog from a few months back, my attention was caught by a quote from a South China People's Daily, sorry SCMP, opinion piece by one Lau Nai-Keung, who delivers this gem of either confused thinking or blatant hypocrisy, (depending on whether he is as stupid as he seems):

"The South China Sea will no longer be an issue, after China recovers the sovereignty of various rocks and islands one by one, either through peaceful means or by force. But with a tradition of a somewhat benign paternal attitude, China will refrain from bullying its neighbours despite the American absence. Instead, it will continue to push for peace and co-development in the region, if only to distinguish itself from Western hegemony."

So China will recover [sic] the chunks of rock it claims in its neighbours' backyard by force, but will "refrain from bullying and pursue peace and co-development".  Does the writer not recognise his own contradiction here?  And does no one in the CPP (to which he belongs) recognise that this sounds exactly like the kind of "peace and co-development" that Japan pursued at China's expense in the 1930s?

And I love that "if only..." clause - the implication being "we want to be violent, but we have to be peaceful to look different from the US"!

So Near and Yet So Far Away

"Coming to a store near you soon" proclaims HMV UK's latest email list of new CD and DVD releases.  Rather a strange choice of phrase when you consider that increasingly there is no HMV store near you.  Even that last-minute impulse purchase of both series of Downton Abbey on DVD as you leave the UK will no longer be possible, since all 4 stores at Heathrow Airport are on the closure list.

So far, the Hong Kong stores remain open, but who knows what's going on behind the scenes?

A recently popular twist on the old (and untrue) "home taping is killing music" slogan.  Reality is less simple...

Bread and Circuses

Whether or not a country exercises the death penalty is usually a pretty good indicator of how civilised it is - or at least, aspires to be.  When a country shows executions live on TV, you know for sure it's barbaric.  Whether it also violates the country's own law which provides that executions shall not be held in public, is a legal question I am not qualified to judge.

Making It Better
Amnesty International

"Hot Chinese Women Are Waiting to Meet You Online"

Am I the only one to notice that Norton 360's email filtering seems to have become less aggressive lately?  Message headings like the one above used to be nearly all swept neatly into my junk mail folder.  Now quite a few of them are slipping through into my Inbox.  I've had a whole bunch lately trying to interest me in a Facebook Dating App, something I don't think my wife would approve of!  I keep flagging them as junk, but Norton doesn't seem to have got the message - are the folks at Symantec losing their grip?