Bumpy Landing

The Moral Bankruptcy of Julian Assange

Julian Assange's arrest in London has brought forth predictable howls of outrage from those who view him as a hero of press freedom, from perennial anti-American propagandist John Pilger to indifferent actress turned semi-coherent political activist Pamela Anderson.  But is the Wikileaks founder the saint they make him out to be?

Wikileaks was certainly founded on a moral principle: the belief that governments use their control of information to lie to, deceive and manipulate their own people, and that ordinary people should have the opportunity to see this information and know what their government is hiding from them.  A noble idea, though somewhat marred by the fact that the most repressive governments - like those of Russia and China - tend to spawn the fewest whistleblowers, meaning that in practice most of the secrets exposed by Wikileaks come from relatively open societies - in particular the United States of America.

When it came to the 2016 Presidential election in America, Wikileaks got hold of a large cache of emails from parties related to Hillary Clinton's campaign.  What we now know from the Mueller investigation and other sources is that Assange released these in stages in a way calculated to hurt Hillary's campaign and get the odious Donald Trump into the White House.  In other words, Assange was doing exactly what Wikileaks purports to be campaigning against - using his privileged access to information to manipulate political outcomes.  In the process, he helped to elect the worst President in American history - but even if he had thrown his influence the other way, he would still be not a hero, but a hypocrite.

Unholy Land

Aftermath

You have to wonder what kind of dining took place before the restaurant posted this notice!

The Dunkirk Spirit

Put Brexit out of its misery

Just sign it.

Carrie On Getting It Wrong

Advice from a Fool

He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
        - Groucho Marx

Everything old is new again

It appears that "Where innovation meets tradition" is developer-speak for "Where we pull down an old building and replace it with a new one".  Hmm.

Dr Johnson's Prescription

Look up the spelling in the dictionary, stupid!

Democracy Inaction

The art of failure

Pressing On

Question for Christians: could there be a more convincing advert for atheism than "liar says God wanted an even bigger liar to be President"?

And since the White House Press Secretary's main job is to give regular press briefings, and Sarah Sanders hardly ever does so, why is she still receiving her salary?  Just another Trumpian snout in the taxpayer-funded trough.

Who Goes There

A Break in the Wall

A Day Is a Long Time in Politics

Holding the nation to ransom

Down in the Mud

One Country, Two Languages

Predictably, following Eddie Chu's contentious disqualification from a village election, pro-Beijing forces are now suggesting that he should also be stripped of his LegCo seat. What is interesting about this is not their typically fatuous arguments, but how mainlandization is infiltrating the language of politics in Hong Kong. DAB leader Stalin, sorry Starry, Lee is quoted as saying:

“We wanted the Legislative Council to be more harmonious as there is only around a year left for this term. But there is a new development and we have to discuss it.”

"Harmonious", in this sense, is pure mainland-speak, meaning purged of opposition voices.  In standard English, the correct word for this is "unrepresentative" or "undemocratic".  George Orwell, thou shouldst be living at this hour!


And a postscript: after writing this post, I came across another example of how "harmony" apparently has a different meaning in the mainland - in this case the toleration of threats and violence:

                ‘Preserve family harmony’: Chinese courts give domestic abusers a pass

Elections Hong Kong Style

"Permanent residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall have the right to vote and the right to stand for election in accordance with law."

--Basic Law, 1997

"...unless we don't let them."

--Basic Law, 2018 


Good luck, Eddie!


UPDATE - 3 December 2018

Having asked Eddie Chu the same question several times over in different ways in the hope of eliciting an answer he can use as an excuse, the Returning Officer has finally kowtowed to the Liaison Office's wishes by disqualifying Chu - the most popular candidate in any constituency at the last Legislative Council election - from running for the post of village representative.  Unjustified, ridiculous, and legally questionable, but not unexpected in today's political climate, where every promise of genuine autonomy and democracy for Hong Kong is being systematically shredded.  What really irritates me is the way the government insults our intelligence each time it further restricts the limits of allowable political discourse by insisting that:

“There is no question of any political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech, or deprivation of the right to stand for elections as alleged by some members of the community.”

Do they think we're totally brainless?  Or are they too stupid to realise this is a blatant lie?

Brexit Noir

If you are British, probably the best way not to be driven crazy by the ever more chaotic nonsense of Brexit is to treat the whole sorry saga as a black comedy.  It is, after all, full of delicious ironies, beginning with the fact that then Prime Minister David Cameron originally called the referendum in a bid to unite the Tory Party (how's that been working out for you, Dave?)

But perhaps the finest piece of dark humour to come out of Brexit is this:

The idea that extreme nationalism may deprive the country of its national flag carrier just points up the ridiculousness of the entire isolationist Brexit concept in a globally connected world.  Priceless!

Comrades in Harm

Hong Kong's pan-democrats shoot themselves in the foot - again.

Yeah, that sounds like a good excuse...

From Yes Minister to Spitting Image

When I began this blog, in addition to some serious analysis (which I have sadly little time for these days), my intention was to poke gentle fun at those in public life who deserved a bit of mockery.  Unfortunately these are no longer gentle times.  We have a rabid dog in the White House, a murderous thug in the Kremlin, and a genocidal goon in Zhongnanhai, plus a general resurgence of fascism, a global decline in human rights, and a planet well on its way to unchecked environmental disaster. So though I still label it humour, most of my satire these days is far too serious to be funny - like Trump's response to the Khashoggi killing, which represents a new low even for him (only days after you thought he'd already reached the bottom by mocking a victim of sexual assault after placing her alleged assailant on the highest court in the land).  Hold on tight, things can only get worse from here.

The Con Way

A&E – the difference between

In British slang, it is commonly said of an ignorant person that he "doesn't know his arse from his elbow".  However, one would expect medically-trained individuals to have a somewhat more accurate grasp of basic human anatomy.  Sadly, an elderly patient in Queen Elizabeth Hospital recently found herself the victim of incompetent radiology staff who don't appear to know the arse from the other nearby orifice. As one medical specialist drily commented, "it should not have happened because there were usually no difficulties locating the vagina and anus" – something most of us learn quite early in life.

A nation of crybabies

Quick - call Guinness World Records!  Just by talking, one mild-mannered young man in Hong Kong has succeeded in making 1.4 billion people cry, which must be some sort of record.

Except, like most CCP propaganda, it isn't true.  "Hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" is one of those stock phrases, like "foreign interference in China's affairs", which the Party Pavlovically [is that a word?] trots out in response to certain stimuli as a substitute for genuine thought.  But if you actually asked all 1.4 billion Chinese if Andy Chan's FCC speech had hurt their feelings, 99.99% of them would reply "Andy who?"

The reality is that China's highly efficient censorship machine shields most of the country's citizens from being exposed to anything that might challenge the official, albeit fictional, narrative of universal national unity and social harmony under the benign guidance of the all-knowing Party.  And you can hardly have your feelings hurt by something you aren't even allowed to be aware of.

But never mind, China, in addition to "largest population", which you hold already, there are still plenty of other categories you can claim a record in.  How about "largest number of Muslims forcibly detained for so-called re-education"?  Or you could try "biggest area of ocean claimed on the basis of dubious historical evidence" - that's a popular one.

CY's Lost Marbles

My immediate reaction to this headline was that Hong Kong's former Chief Executive - apart from confirming Godwin's Law - has lost his marbles.  Reading the article only confirmed this.  There are several layers of irony here - one being that the hysterical over-reaction of pro-Beijing forces in Hong Kong, and CY in particular, has done more to bring the ideas of Andy Chan and other independence advocates to public attention than they could ever have achieved unaided.

Another irony is that if you are seeking a genuine contemporary equivalent to Nazism, the current mass roundup, incarceration and brainwashing of Muslims in concentration camps in China's northwest would provide a much closer analogy than one young man freely expressing his opinion in the FCC.  But that is being done by the very government for which CY is such an ardent apologist, so we won't hear a word from him about this particular egregious abuse of human rights.

A third irony is that the pro-China camp's heavy-handed attempts to derail Andy Chan's planned speech reinforce his assertion that Hong Kong can only enjoy true freedom outside the suffocating embrace of the motherland.  While most of us don't regard Hong Kong independence as either likely or practical, those most determined to prevent it are inadvertently strengthening the case in support of it.

A home on the rolling deep

The last thing the critically endangered Chinese white dolphin population in the Pearl River Estuary needs is thoughtless politicians advocating yet more development in their territory.  See here and here.

Making It Better:
Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society
WWF Hong Kong

A Posh Prat Predicts

Compare and Contrast

It’s Good News Week! (and blame the ref for the bad news)

Watching the news these days is usually a depressing experience, as Donald Trump continues to insult America’s friends and embrace its enemies, the UK continues to lurch like a lame lemming towards the fecal morass of Brexit, and human rights are increasingly under threat everywhere from Venezuela to Vladivostok – via Hong Kong.  However, the last week or two has been unusual in that there have actually been a few items of good news for a change.  For one, Liu Xia was finally released from house arrest in China and allowed to leave the country.

Meanwhile in Thailand the 12 young lads and their football coach trapped in a flooded cave complex were all safely rescued.  What made this case particularly heartwarming was that experts came from all over the world to contribute to the complex but finally successful operation to save the boys.  In a world full of division and strife, it is refreshing to see people cooperating across national borders to help others – that’s the way the world should work.

And until the semi-final, the unexpectedly successful run of England’s football team in the World Cup was – if you’re English – another cause for celebration.  Then they had the misfortune to come up against not just the mighty Croatian team but the Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir, who provided some of the worst refereeing I’ve ever witnessed in a major tournament.  In the early stages of the game, Croatian players went on an orgy of pushing, shoving, tripping, obstruction, elbowing and shirt-grabbing, much of it directed at England captain Harry Kane, and all of it ignored by the ref.  If he had stamped his authority on the game at this stage, who knows how much more Kane could have achieved with more room to move, rather than being hemmed in by a string of fouls?

When Cakir did eventually get around to booking a Croatian player, the commentator was convinced that he’d picked the wrong one (though the correct one picked up a yellow card later).  And if the ref’s objective was to keep the game flowing by ignoring minor transgressions, then why did he stop play for one foul on an England player when England still had possession and were charging forward, instead of applying the advantage rule?

But perhaps Cakir’s worst error was to give Croatia a goal kick when video coverage clearly showed that England should have been awarded a corner.  A quick look at the VAR would have made this obvious, yet Cakir was oblivious – as he generally was throughout the game – to all pleas, entreaties and complaints.  A truly shoddy performance which has rightly attracted heavy criticism (and accusations of bias) online.

None of which is to say that England would necessarily have won under a better official – it’s too easy to blame the referee for a loss.  England certainly made mistakes, and when not testing the limits of the rulebook the Croatian team – especially Luka Modric – played some magnificent football.  Yet England’s young team, under the superb management of Gareth Southgate, went far further in this tournament than anyone expected, playing intelligent football with passion, commitment to the very last minute of the game, and strong team spirit without a trace of a superstar ego.  They are still maturing, and I look forward to seeing them do better in future tournaments – under a different referee.

Leaving from the front

The Great Leap Forward, UK style.

Exactly according to the script

See yesterday's post for the script.  Only one question remains: is Trump really the naive total idiot he appears to be, or a very cleverly disguised covert Russian agent?

P.S. On second thoughts, "cleverly" is giving Trump too much credit.  Replace that with "thinly".

Sticking to the script

You may have assumed from Donald Trump's tendency to veer wildly off-topic and to make up his own facts as he goes along that his speeches are entirely spontaneous utterances.  In fact, everything he says is carefully scripted.  As proof of this, I received the following draft from a White House source who found it, in Trump's own distinctive handwriting, on a scrap of paper discarded in an Oval Office wastebin.  It appears to be part of Trump's preparations for his lovefest today with his puppetmaster Vladimir Putin.

Trump: What's all this about Russia interfering in the US Presidential election?
Putin: Nothing to do with us - that's FAKE NEWS.
Trump: Great!  So that's all right then.

Ministry of Truth

Story here.  It's good to see her free at last.

Alternative facts are such convenient things

Donald Trump is notorious for inventing his own "facts" to support his arguments - such as the record-breaking crowds of invisible people at his inauguration, or the thousands of dead centenarians who begged him to bring back their sons' remains from North Korea.  It appears that his supporters share this tendency towards fiction - last night's TVB news contained a vox pop snippet from a lady called Tina Whittington, who asserted that: "The majority of Americans voted Trump in on his promise that he would elect [sic] and nominate a pro-life Supreme Court justice, and that's what he's done tonight."

On the face of it (leaving aside the irony - surely deserving of an in-depth psychological study - that Americans who identify themselves as "pro-life" are more likely to support capital punishment and oppose gun control) this is a plausible democratic argument.  The only problem is that the majority of Americans didn't vote Trump in - they voted for Hillary Clinton.   While the archaic quirks of the American political system put Trump in the White House, in reality he has no popular mandate for anything.

Is that how it's speld?

"Jettison Held" says the Doctor Who soundtrack.  Unfortunately someone in the BBC Props Department seems to need spelling lessons!

Everything Old Is New Again

Theresa May knows very well the claim that Brexit will release substantial funding for the NHS was discredited by just about every economist within days of the referendum result.  Apparently she is too desperate to care.  As another leading idiot would say: sad.

Leading from Behind

As if he has no responsibility for the outcome of his own actions.

Moral authority

Elderness

Who knew that being old and decrepit was now a lifestyle?

Improvements for the Worse

As I have noted before, the MTR has a history of unneeded "improvements" which actually make things worse.  Well, they're at it again.

Getting a train at Tai Po Market station the other day, I found that the familiar display signs - which show the destinations and timings of the next couple of trains in big red glowing letters - had been replaced by TV-type screens.  This, says the MTR, is to give us "even more information".

Well, I don't want "even more information" (which probably means intrusive advertising anyway).  What I want is to see when the next train is coming.  And whereas the old signs were clearly legible from a substantial distance along the platform, the new ones can only be read easily if you're close to them.  From further away they just appear as a vague blue blob.

This is not the only stupidity the MTR is inflicting on us.  It was announced this week that when the new Shatin-Central Link opens, trains on the existing Eastrail line will be reduced from 12 cars to 9.  Fine, if the line only went from Shatin to Central - but what about all the stations between Lo Wu and Tai Wai, where the new line starts?  Quite often the train will already be filled to capacity with border crossers when it leaves Lo Wu, and at peak times in the morning, every carriage is jammed with commuters..  Do the people who make these decisions ever travel on the trains they run?

Disconnected thinking

Typically Trumpian

Donald Trump's response to the fire in his eponymous New York building displays all the gracelessness and lack of human warmth we so detest in him.  No mention of sympathy for those injured, one of whom later died.  The condescending parentheses around "and women", as if female firefighters counted for less than men.  Instead the braggart seizes on a tragedy as yet another excuse to blow his own tarnished trumpet.  A masterpiece of bad taste!

Manpower Crisis

Daylight Robbery

Unity Mitford is alive and well and living in Hong Kong

The past week has seen much grave news, from Donald Trump appointing a notorious torturer as CIA head to attempted murders in Britain possibly perpetrated by the Russian government.  But among all these, the piece above was possibly the most sickmaking story of the week.

This kind of gushing praise might be appropriate from a 10-year-old attending her first Justin Bieber concert.  From a married middle-aged head of government, it is most unseemly.  One expects serious leaders to display a certain degree of gravitas, not to enthuse publicly about a schoolgirl crush.  And it is particularly insensitive at a time when most intelligent people around the world - certainly those in Hong Kong - are deeply concerned about Xi's accumulation of unchecked power.  Not that one expects much awareness from someone who doesn't even know where ordinary people buy toilet paper.

Race to Nowhere

Another own goal from the Hong Kong government's publicity arm.  This well-intentioned poster is intended to promote racial harmony, so presumably the people depicted are supposed to represent the racial diversity of Hong Kong.  Well, the young woman on the left wearing a Muslim headscarf is presumably one of Hong Kong's 150,000-strong army of Indonesian domestic helpers, though fewer than half of these wear the headscarf when in Hong Kong.  The boy on the right is supposedly Chinese.  As for the other three, they appear to be Humpty Dumpty (with a baby in a pouch, kangaroo-style), a skinny scarecrow, and a green-haired alien from Mars - all with white faces.  No representation of Hong Kong's sizable South Asian population (here since even before British colonial rule), or its smaller contingent of African descent.  WTF seems the only appropriate response to this nonsense.

Is it just me, or...?

Am I the only one who wants the kid to take that one extra step into oblivion whenever I see this TV commercial for baby milk?  I guess I'm just a nasty person.

A lovely day for an election

If you're eligible to vote in today's LegCo by-election, there's still time.  Go and send the government a message - that elections should be decided by the voters, not faceless bureaucrats disqualifying candidates.

Rotten to the Core

Freedom of Speech Hong Kong style:

Text - Article 27 
Hong Kong residents shall have freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike.   [Basic Law of Hong Kong]

Subtext - so long as they only say what we like.

By the way, did KMB read that last part?

Permeability