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Milton J. Madison - An American Refugee Now Living in China, Where Liberty is Ascending

Federalism, Free Markets and the Liberty To Let One's Mind Wander. I Am Very Worried About the Fate of Liberty in the USA, Where Government is Taking people's Lives ____________________________________________________________________________________________ "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue." -Barry Goldwater-

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

What I Like About Hua Hin.....

I have been to Hua Hin, Thailand somewhere around 7 or 8 times. I guess you can say that I like it. Just got back tonight.

I enjoy going with my family to Swensen's to get ice cream without having to pay a month's salary for the privilege like one would have to here in Hong Kong. The kids just love it and its always fun to whip up the enthusiasm during the day. My daughter loves everything pink, so she orders pink [strawberry] ice cream every time with colorful sprinkles.

One can walk nearly anywhere and they have a great night market. A tuk-tuk costs 60 Baht to get around if one isn't inclined to walk.

The Sofitel there is a 1920's style railroad hotel where they serve a reasonably priced afternoon tea. During the high season they have a buffet every day but only on weekends during the off-season.



The kind of place that one may have found Somerset Maugham when he was wandering around these parts.

I like walking on the uncrowded beach with the kids. Splashing in the water and howling with laughter when the mini-waves get our clothes wet.

I like the fact that the King lives there and that has keep the sleazy honky-tonk so pervasive in some parts in Thailand to a minimum. No touts offering ladies and naked body massages on every corner.

I like eating the Pad Thai in the street stalls for 30 Baht [HK$6=US$0.80].

I enjoyed listening to my son singing the verses of Springtime for Hitler in Germany, from the play The Producers while walking on the beach. He saw the movie of the Broderick-Lane version and just loved it.
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Rhineland's a fine land once more!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Watch out, Europe
We're going on tour!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany...
CHORUS:
Look, it's springtime
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
Winter for Poland and France
CHORUS AND STORMTROOPER:
Springtime for Hitler and Germany!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Why Do They Hate Us So Much?

This is a question that a fellow American asked me a couple of years back. My question to him, was why do they hate the people of Bali so much? Yes, they killed Aussies but they seem to be intent on destroying the economy and livlihoods of the Balinese. And we can also ask why do they hate the Spanish, British, Filipinos, etc. Its not just us that they hate but something more.

The natural reaction by thinkers in the West is to ask 'why do they hate us?' as if we are the ones to blame and there is some fault of ours so heinous that they have a justifiable reason to try to kill us. Brain Terminal has a good piece on this and puts some interesting thoughts into words. But I have my own thoughts.

Well, its not just the jihadists that hate us. In my travels to Europe, as of late, the legions of hate include the Germans, French, Dutch, UN employees and some Brits. I think that lots of this hate from our former European allies comes from the fact that their great social experiment is failing. After using the US to stand toe-to-toe with the Russians and defend their liberty and lives against Soviet expansionism, they had the opportunity to indulge in creating a nihilistic philosophy so very European they now are flailing around trying to find their way. Their economics have failed them and their godless social structure has left them so little to believe in. They just cannot fathom that Americans with their simple life of believing in God, hard work, stricture moral structure and seemingly foolish and innocent approach to life actually works. Unable to defend themselves against the jihadists they prefer to blame the US for the problem than to grapple with it headon. Its so much easier to blame the US for all their problems than to risk infuriating some maniac Muslim to kill some of their citizens. Europe has already capitulated.

Liberal Americans [remember liberalism=Laziness]find it much more convenient to blame everything on one man, George Bush, as if all of this hate is justifiable because of him. Of course, they hated him before he was elected, hated him after he was elected, hated him for allowing 9/11 to happen, hated him for invading Afghanistan, hated him for invading Iraq, hate him for not immediately solving the problems in Iran and North Korea and will continue to hate him no matter what happens. The way I figure it, its so much easier to hate and blame him than to face up to the risks that we face today. A jihadist may try to kill you, but GWB will not. So if you push back against the frothing at the mouth Muslim fanatic, he may slice your throat. Liberals react to this by pushing back at GWB since they know that GWB won't capriciously kill them. Its laziness.

And why do the jihadists and Muslims hate us so much? Again, its like the lazy liberals. Its more convenient to blame someone else than to look inward at their failings and shortcoming. Just the fact that there are a billion or so moronic Muslims yapping about the tiny state of Israel just shows how incredibly silly they have become. Portraying the root of their problem being some vast Jewish conspiracy fomented by 5 million Jews in Israel and another 10 million worldwide is mystifying. How incredibly weak and helpless they are in the face of the onslaught. So they have to figure that the evil Jews must be getting assistance from the powerful US. So, for this gigantic conspiracy I have to award all the Muslims around the world my tinfoil hat award....

Diet Sodas With Alcohol Makes One Drunker...

For those interested in a deeper and quicker buzz...
Alcoholic drinks made with artificial sweeteners lead to a high rate of alcohol absorption, resulting in a greater blood alcohol peak and concentration than from drinks made with sugar-based mixers.

The reason, Australian investigators told attendees here at Digestive Disease Week 2006, is the accelerated emptying of the stomach caused by artificial sweetening agents.
I think that I will stick with beer.

Bad News On The Bird Flu Front....

Bloomberg recently reported...
All seven people infected with bird flu in a cluster of Indonesian cases can be linked to other patients, according to disease trackers investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus.

A team of international experts has been unable to find animals that might have infected the people, the World Health Organization said in a statement today. In one case, a 10-year- old boy who caught the virus from his aunt may have passed it to his father, the first time officials have seen evidence of a three-person chain of infection, an agency spokeswoman said. Six of the seven people have died.
Wow, six of the seven. But if it has in fact become human transmissible, then many more have been exposed without symptoms. It would be interesting to test those with casual contact for antibodies.

These People And Their "Marriage" Just Makes Me Sick To My Stomach...

Please, we have had enough of this boring "General Hospital" soap opera. The mouthpiece for the Democratic party had this sickening front page story today. Yea, yea, I know everyone wants to hearken back to the days when we weren't worried about some biological or nuclear attack by some frothing at the mouth Muslim fanatics when all we had to chatter about was who was blowing Bill Clinton and how Hillary bitch slapped him after she found out. White trash in the Whitehouse.

But I do remember, prior to the Monica Lewinski scandal, when they were in town and everyone was wondering if Slick Willie was out at Wanchai tasting some of the local "cuisine." These people really don't fool us unless we really want to be fooled.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Cut And Pasted From Instapundit....

I hate when people do this. I think that it is crap blogging, but so many do it these days, and it is not called for what it is.... just lazy junk. But I am being lazy and since the birdbrain at Peking Duck seems to think it is alright to cut, paste and pinch the whole loaf of some droopy liberal dreck op-ed from the "Pinch" Sulzberger inspired whiners and complainers at the tin-foil hat brigade


at the New York Times, so that all his bootlicking brownnoser fawning duck wanna-bees fall over all over themselves to agree to every little leftist anti-Bush comment that he posts,why shouldn't I feel it is ok, or even compelled to do it too! And since it is wine expo week here in Hong Kong and I have had [tonight] and will continue to consume more than my share of great and satisfying wines, here it is....
LOU DOLINAR HAS BEEN LOOKING INTO THE MEDIA FAILURES DURING KATRINA:
Remember the dozens, maybe hundreds, of rapes, murders, stabbings and deaths resulting from official neglect at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? The ones that never happened, as even the national media later admitted?

Sure, we all remember the original reporting, if not the back-pedaling.

Here's another one: Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?

Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media portrayed as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest places to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there. . . .

I initially heard about the Dome headquarters from Maj. John T. Dressler, who serves with the National Guard Bureau in Washington D.C, an organization that coordinates efforts of State Guard units which serve under their respective governors. Dressler was present in the command tent there and pulled together after-action reports for the Guard as a whole from its fifty-plus individual state commands. His account was so far at variance with the picture the media portrayed that I suspected a hoax, as did my RCP editor. As it turns out, various Guard documents, personal memories, and sworn testimony support his story, which in Louisiana is no great secret. It's just the rest of the country that's been kept in the dark.
Read the whole thing. The Katrina reporting represented a massive media failure, one that they've never really admitted.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Parker emails:
It's only a failure if their goal was to report the news.

It was a raging success if you believe their goal was to diminish Bush.

Given how proud of their Katrina coverage the press remains to this day, it seems like the latter is the most likely.
It's certainly true that they have nothing to be proud of. Indeed, their mis-reporting hampered rescue efforts and may well have cost lives.
The American media has a job to do and that is to keep the American public informed. It is not to promote an agenda or yellow-journaistic news creation al-a William Randolph Hurst turn-of-the-century. The 'Rosebud' anachronism of that strategy is that now people actually can check your facts and also check the color and picture that you are painting. It is shit journalism and has no place in today's world.

Do as I say, not as I do!

Standup Seats On Airplanes Just A Myth....

[Via Barcepundit] The geniuses at the New York Times, corrected an article that stated that Airbus was quietly approaching Asian carriers with the idea of offering standup seats in economy class. The theory is that more passengers can be squeezed onto a plane if they are standing, generating more revenue to offset some of the increases in fuel prices.
Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal. But its not like standing room tickets available at the Opera boys and girls. New York Times writers live in their own little tiny world!
Of course, this was Airbus that was doing this, but the writer wrote about increases in configurations and how they would impact the number of passengers on Boeing planes.
The result is an additional 6 seats on a typical Boeing 737, for a total of 156, and as many as 12 new seats on a Boeing 757, for a total of 200.
I wonder if Airbus provided the NYTs with the Boeing configuration info or maybe it was just made up. But they did mention the increase in capacity associated with the new A380 superjumbo...
With a typical configuration, the A380 will accommodate about 500 passengers. But with standing-room-only seats, the same plane could conceivably fit in 853 passengers, the maximum it would be permitted to carry.
Perfect for going to Thailand for Chinese New Year, I think.

I once flew a Tupulov Russian aircraft but so many of the seats were broken that some of us had to stand during the flight. We cantilevered ourselves over our broken seats during takeoff and landing holding onto the broken seatbelts to steady ourselves.

Of course coming back to the New York Times, maybe this is what they had in mind for their flying busses in Asia...



So, the unhinged hard-left tin-foil brigade at the New York Times and their shitty reporting has bleed from their anti-Republican themes to other material such as the above. Maybe this has been excreted from the top, "Pinch" Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times had this to say at the commencement graduation at SUNY New Paltz, near where I grew up...
As keynote commencement speaker, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger "apologized" to graduates at the State University of New York at New Paltz on Sunday for the failure of his generation to stop the Iraq War and to sufficiently promote "fundamental human rights" like abortion, immigration, and gay marriage.
Apologized? And "fundamental human rights" like abortion, immigration and gay marriage? What the heck is this fellow talking about? How about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Well this rich-boy clown, that directs the editorial policy of the fast becoming hard-left tinfoil hat brigade, The New York Times, is a modern liberal and not a classic liberal and his consternation with his failure maybe due to his own Liberalism=Laziness problem.

Despite The Poor Polls....



The huge advantage that Republicans have is that they are running against Democrats!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Huh?

Skype, Tom and internet censorship in China. I just don't understand it.

Headline...

No shocker here....
French are rudest, most boring people on earth
Could have told you that!
A decisive 46 percent of the 6,000 people surveyed by travellers' website Where Are You Now (WAYN) said the French were the most unfriendly nation people on the planet, British newspapers reported.

The Germans have no to reason to celebrate the damning verdict. They came second on all three counts.
Could have told you that the Germans aren't much better. Whereas the French are rude and aloof, Germans tell you unbelievably rude things right to your face.

And of course, this makes me proud...
while the United States was named the most unstylish with the worst food.

A Lesson.....

A junior manager, a senior manager and their boss are on their way to a meeting. On their way through a park, they come across a wonder lamp. They rub the lamp and a ghost appears. The ghost says, "Normally, one is granted three wishes but as you are three, I will allow one wish each"

So the eager senior manager shouted, "I want the first wish. I want to be in the Bahamas, on a fast boat and have no worries." Pfufffff. and he was gone.

Then the junior manager could not keep quiet and shouted "I want to be In Florida with beautiful girls, plenty of food and cocktails." Pfufffff. and he was also gone.

The boss calmly said, "I want these two idiots back in the office after lunch at 12.35pm."

MORAL OF THE STORY IS: "ALWAYS ALLOW THE BOSS TO SPEAK FIRST"

Sunday, May 21, 2006

The Drop In Birth Rates....



There has been some recent chatter by several bloggers on the drop in birth rates in Western countries, particularly those in Europe. In a population, a woman needs to produce 2.1 babies in order for that population to maintain itself. Obviously producing a replacement for the husband [we know that happens], themselves and also to produce for those that are barren and those that die before producing. Some European countries as-well-as Japan have been experiencing birthrates in the low single digits and a fall in total population will be the expected outcome. Donald Sensing comments on Glenn Reynolds' article in Technorati on this phenomenon.

Freshman year in college, 1977, I remember attending a class by my microeconomics professor, Steven Klepper, where he theorized that having children was an economic good and that the production of this good can be measured by measuring the marginal cost [MC] and the marginal utility [MB], also known as marginal benefit of this good. As the above chart implies, as the marginal cost [MC] rises-the rising line shifts to the left- The equilibrium point [E] shifts left and the number produced falls. When the value of children changes, the marginal utility [MB]- the falling line shifts, say, upwards- the equilibrium point [E] shifts right and number of children rises.

So, economic theory tells us that as the value [marginal utility-benefit] of children changes, then the number of children produced will change and as the cost [marginal cost] changes, this too will change the number produced.

Of course, this illustration when offered to us in the class caused quite an uproar since all of us youngsters, just children ourselves at the age of 18, didn't figure that were just an economic good!

As the above articles postulate, there have been many changes in the marginal costs and benefits of producing children [widgets in economic terms] and this has caused a change in birthrates.

Several large marginal benefit factors such as the shift from agricultural to city-living where children are not needed to work the fields have impacted production of widgets. Additionally, with the rise of pensions and savings, there is no need to produce children to support old folks in their later years. So the marginal benefits of producing the widgets has declined.

Marginal cost have also risen. The absolute costs may have risen relative to incomes when the high cost of real-estate and higher education are taken into account in such places as Hong Kong. An apartment here can cost upwards of US$1,000 per square foot and adding children takes more space. If each child consumes 150 square feet, then that costs US$150,000.

Donald Sensing theorizes that other social factors have impacted the production of widgets by increasing the marginal costs or benefits to production. These factors include environmentalism, feminism and the stigma or 'non-coolness' of having widgets. However, I think that for wealthy societies, these factors can largely be explained as indulgences given the rise in wealth, more-so than social factors that have arisen out of the clear blue sky.

So, I am going to take the hard-line on this debate and state that it is purely economic factors that determine the number of children produced and that social factors cited are largely driven from the same economic factors.

Lazy Ramadi.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Da Vinci Code Blasphemous?

In church on Sunday, the preacher said that the Da Vinci Code was blasphemy. Now, he didn't use this as a fire and brimstone comment, but almost as an off-the-cuff remark. He was speaking of Jesus as one without sin and the sin represented in the Da Vinci Code was impossible. That got me thinking, what is....
Blasphemy is the defamation of the name of God. These may include using sacred names as stress expletives without intention to pray or speak of sacred matters. Sometimes blasphemy is used loosely to mean any profane language, for example in "With much hammering and blasphemy, the locomotive's replacement spring was finally fitted.".

In this broader sense the term is used by Sir Francis Bacon in the Advancement of Learning, when he speaks of "blasphemy against learning". Many cultures disapprove of speech or writing which defames the God or gods of their established religions, and these restrictions have the force of law in some countries.
There are two thoughts I have:
1. Is is really blasphemy
2. Who cares?
Firstly, yes, it can be considered disturbing to people where their beliefs are shredded into fictional idiocy such as that expressed in The Da Vinci Codes. And people are allowed to be disturbed by this and they are. So, it is blasphemous to some.

But then I ask, "Who cares?" I never allow people's speech to disturb me particularly when it comes to matters of the heart and faith. My faith and my belief in the strength of Jesus and what he stands for can never be challenged so why should anything anyone says disturb me? He, by definition, cleanses our sins and also cleans the stains created by the fiction of The Da Vinci Code. He is so much stronger than anything that some simple mortal can say against him. So, I really don't care about The Da Vinci Code, its amusing in plot and imagination.

Now, this also leads me to think about what people will do? Will there be rioting, killings, mayhem and destruction by Christians such as that that we experience when the woefully weak hearted Moslems get a dose of modern reality? Gateway Pundit chronicals the protests. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Will Christians issue the Christian equivalent of fatwas [there isn't a Christian equivalent] for the death of Tom Hanks or Director Ron Howard? Surely not.

Who cares what the people of little faith think? But if we can't learn to behave in the face of what some may consider adversity, then it is our problem. Muslims have proven how weak their religion and beliefs are to something as innocuous as the Danish Muhammad cartoons with over-the-top reactions that included killings and, rioting and deadly threats.

As the early philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke wrote, people have to be tolerant of other religions and this tolerance, I suppose, also has to extend to those that are non-believers. In order to have a civil society, tolerance has be fundamental to the functioning of that society.

Just a little note, tolerance is not a one way street either. When I attended church with my folks last summer, we went to a church where my father used to preach. The minister asked that people go with him to visit local Muslims to offer our support. I suppose that he was concerned that people may turn on Muslims in the community in retribution for the horrific violence unleashed by Muslims extremists earlier that week when they slaughtered innocent people on London mass transit.

I think that was a fine display of what he considers tolerance on his part and an olive branch was offered to Muslims despite the horrific violence perpetrated by their 'brothers.' This misguided effort, however, is not the tolerance that Hobbes and Locke is talking about. They are arguing that the Muslims have to be tolerant of us and not going around indiscriminately slaughtering people in the name of God or their religion. WE are not required to be tolerate of them murdering us.

Soon afterward, the preacher mocked southern Christians for their 'intolerance.' I wonder what he means? Does he think that these southern Christians kill others in the name of God? No, I do not think so. Maybe southern Christians do not think that gays should be allowed to marry or maybe do not support the social and economic agendas promoted by north-east liberal preachers such as himself. Is this intolerance or is this just political reality?

My own opinion is that modern liberalism is incapable of dealing with or tolerating the opinions of others since it has become an issue of faith more-so than a social contract issue or one that is workable within a civilized society. Modern liberalism has adopted much more than classical liberalism
in that they believe that lack of economic opportunity, education, health-care, and so on can be considered to be threats to their conception of liberty.
So if one does not believe what the modern liberal believes, then that one is the agent of intolerance not a person with a different set of values. So, it looks to me as if this preacher appears to be a modern liberal that cannot tolerate the 'intolerance' of non-believers in modern liberalism despite the fact that they read the same bible and are similar in faith. Modern liberalism has become so brittle.

Democrats, Again, Play The Race Card....

Of course, since DemNOcrats have so little positive to add to any debate these days they feel compelled to take shots at Republicans by again playing race politics. Harry Reid, in a Senate speech, on the vote on symbolically making English the language of the United States, called the bill racist....
Such proposals enjoy overwhelming support among American voters.

A poll by Zogby International earlier this year found that 84 percent of Americans say English should be the official language of government operations. The same poll found that 77 percent of Hispanics agree.

And it's a bipartisan issue, according to the poll, which found that 92 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats approve making English the country's official language.
I suppose that having the Eagle being the symbol of the US is also 'racist' against all other birds.

I would like Harry Reid to be called to task to explain exactly how speaking English, or requiring people to speak English or symbolically calling English the national language in the functioning of official duties is racist. The French have required that French be used for all official duties and government functions and even have defined what words are to be officially adopted for use. I, for one, do not think that we have to go that far, since the French are trying to protect their dying language. But it makes sense that people understand that English IS the language that should be used in the US for its citizens.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Fishing.....

Using an RPG in Afghanistan.

I Am Sure That You Have Not Heard Anything About This.....

US military recruiting has met its goals as of late despite the hammering on this issue a while back. The press was screaming, that due to the Iraq war, the military was having a difficult time recruiting since parents and the kids themselves were afraid of dying. Additionally, they were floating the trial balloon of reinstituting a draft....
But the biggest asset in the recruiting effort has been the world-of-mouth from the troops themselves. They believe in what they are doing, and accomplishing. They believe they are well equipped, trained and led to do it. This angle has not gotten much press coverage, probably because so few members of the press know troops personally. The army recruits largely from the middle classes and non-urban areas. Just the kinds of places and people where you won't find journalists and pundits. When the media does address the recruiting situation, it is dismissed as not relevant. The troops are described as not "getting the big picture," or worse.
The knee-jerk retro-1960's liberal reaction to everything that we get in the press insures that readers will not be kept abreast of the issues of the day, but will be kept abreast of all the garbage that the press wants to throw at us. How about reporting the news and leave the decisions to us?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

It Looks As If Its Going To Miss Us...

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Ernst & Young Eats Crow....

The E&Y report released last week that argued that China's NPLs would top US$900 billion was ceremoniously withdrawn with a terse and lacking in substance statement [Found via Simon World].

Unfortunately, I cannot locate any copies of the original report "Global Non-performing Loan Report 2006" that I understand included China as a review and estimates of global non-performing loans. Here is the retraction.

Knowing what I do of the Chinese banking industry, it does not surprise me that the auditor of 2 of the largest 4 banks in China estimates that NPLs are either much higher than officially stated or expect them to rise dramatically over the near-term. Basically, Chinese banks haven't a clue how to make loans and they do very little follow-up after they are made. So, how many loans are being classified as performing when in fact they are just a roll-over of a customer that will ultimately be unable to pay? We cannot rely upon the party accomplices that run these organizations to give us an honest answer, the Central Bank doesn't want to tell the truth before selling another stake to unwitting foreign investors and the Chinese themselves do not want to hear that their hard earned savings as deposits in the institutions could potentially be at risk!

And of course, China, rather than dealing directly with the problem, have been dragging their feet with fake reforms and half-assed procedural changes. That is because the banks are still a an arm of the State with senior managers being appointed not by ability but by affiliation with CCP leaders. All of this in the context of a booming economy. What will happen there when the economy slows down marginally? That is when we WILL see $900 billion in NPLs. I trust E&Y's original report not their brown-nosing ass kissing withdrawal.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Test Your Geography Knowledge....

I didn't do as well as I thought, maybe because I am American! I had trouble with the 'stans and some of the countries in Africa. Play it here.

Spike, How Effective Is Communicating Online?

An interesting article here on the effectiveness of communicating through email. I think that all the shortcomings/problems with email can also be found in online chatting since the same situations prevail.
Though e-mail is a powerful and convenient medium, researchers have identified three major problems. First and foremost, e-mail lacks cues like facial expression and tone of voice. That makes it difficult for recipients to decode meaning well. Second, the prospect of instantaneous communication creates an urgency that pressures e-mailers to think and write quickly, which can lead to carelessness. Finally, the inability to develop personal rapport over e-mail makes relationships fragile in the face of conflict.

In effect, e-mail cannot adequately convey emotion. A recent study by Profs. Justin Kruger of New York University and Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago focused on how well sarcasm is detected in electronic messages. Their conclusion: Not only do e-mail senders overestimate their ability to communicate feelings, but e-mail recipients also overestimate their ability to correctly decode those feelings.
Additionally, talking on the phone also lacks the advantage of facial expressions and body language, although some of this does come through, somehow. That is why face-to-face communication is always preferable to electronic medium when discussing difficult or emotional issues.

I Just Don't Get It....

In relationships, men just have it easier than women....

HER DIARY:
I asked him what was wrong - he said, "Nothing." I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry.

On the way home I told him that I loved him, he simply smiled and kept driving. I can't explain his behavior; I don't know why he didn't say, "I love you, too."

When we got home I felt as if I had lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there and watched TV. He seemed distant and absent.

Finally I decided to go to bed. About 10 minutes later he came to bed. I decided that I could not take it anymore, so I decided to confront him with the situation but he had fallen asleep. I started crying and cried until I too fell asleep. I
don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone
else.

My life is a disaster.

HIS DIARY:
Today Man U lost to Arsenal. DAMN IT.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Rothko....

I took my 2 months shy of 3 years old daughter to a special showing this past Thursday of the Rothko exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. She is a budding artist and has expressed her thoughts on the canvass of our walls, couch and other assundry household items as of late. Additionally, she loves drawing on her hands, arms and legs and has ink, paints and other colors under her fingernails, like an artist would!

Rothko...



Sometimes, I wonder how these guys get so popular. Somebody thought that he was important enough to buy his paintings or a curator of some world-class museum show his works while he was still producing. I wonder if success at art is true talent, good salemanship, stupid luck, or something more complex and indefinable. His work is not something that would "wow" me if I was to see them someplace out of the institutionalized factories of intellectualism that modern museums are these days. In fact, when I worked across the street from the Four Season's Restaurant, we used to occasionally go there for after work drinks, I do not recall seeing his pieces there, and they may have been hanging in the place since 1959. However, I do recall the curtains and that the place was designed by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. So, I guess that I should go back and have a look.

Rothko...
Among the founders of the New York School, his work concentrated on basic emotions, often filling the canvas with very few, but intense colours, using little immediately-apparent detail. In this respect, he can also be considered to presage the Color Field painters, such as Helen Frankenthaler. However, "Rothko repeatedly protested, 'I'm not interested in color' and 'I'm not a colorist.' Color, he explained, was nothing more than an 'instrument' for expressing something larger: the all important 'subjects' of his pictures" (Chave 1989).
A couple of interesting quotes from the fellow....
"I am not an abstract painter. I am not interested in the relationship between form and colour. The only thing I care about is the expression of man's basic emotions: tragedy, ecstacy, destiny."
Square blocks of color expressing the complex emotions of people? I just don't get this comment.

And this one is particularly ballsie...
"The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions.. the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships then you miss the point."
I have to tell you, if I paid multimillions for these things, I may have cried too if I saw this...



But some of his earlier works reminded me of Klee and Kandinsky from the Bauhaus School of art and architecture. It kind of has a doodling quality of Kandinsky and his later work the seriousness of Klee and the complexity of his colors.



I suppose, that seeing his work and spending time actually looking at it has caused me to think about these big blocks and blobs of rough color for these past several days. It has got me wondering and thinking about what he thought the purpose of his paintings are. How he thought about engaging you when you looked upon these pieces and what he was attempting to do. Did he just put on paper his emotions and his vision or did he try to draw out thoughts and emotions from you by playing with these shapes and colors?

His grave. Paul Klee. Wassily Kandinsky.

And for fun, Gary Cooper's grave. And Yul Brenner's grave.

Dead or Alive...

Hours of fun.

New Star Ferry Terminal....



Scheduled to open in July, I wonder if the mini-buses that run to the old terminal will now be rerouted to the new one? And this will also make the traffic by the post office much worse during the evening rush-hour. I like to take the ferry when I have extra time but it looks as if it will not be very convenient to Central.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Confusion....



I get very confused when I see Jack Black and Philip Seymour Hoffman. For some reason I think that they look very similar. In these photos they do not look like each other but when I see them in movies, I get quite confused.

Yea, yea, I know, all white people look the same.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

War!!!!!

U.S. Declares War on Smurfs, Hundreds Dead in "Shock and Awe" Style Carpet-Bombing Campaign....



The crying baby Smurf just broke my heart. How can the US do this unilateral kind of aggression again? It is to control the smurf oil?
When footage of the bombing raid on the Smurf Village was televised in Belgium, images of dead and dying Smurfs, including a badly burned Baby Smurf, caused an immediate condemnation of America, the 543rd such condemnation from a European country this week, but only the 18th from anywhere other than France. The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF, soon began using the footage in a new anti-war fund-raising campaign.

Left-wing bloggers were quickly flooding the Internet with their take on the reasons for the attack. Many of those theories centered on the United States' aversion to the Smurfs' well-documented Marxist lifestyle; widespread rumors about Smurf Satan-Worshiping tendencies that had first spread throughout Latin America in the early 1980's; President Bush's personal objection to homosexuality, which was believed to be rampant among the nearly-all male Smurf population; or moral objections to cloning, which many believed to be their only effective method of reproduction. The most popular theory by far, however, had to do with Haliburton and the Smurfs' rich deposits of mushroom oil.
Yes, it is the oil!

And of course, there is also a racial angle to the attack...
Rev. Jesse Jackson was among those who were quick to condemn the White House, "This is clearly nothing more than another attack on people of color, in this case blue," said Rev. Jackson, who badly bruised his left knee while tripping over himself in a rush to find the nearest television camera.

Country Going in the Right Direction/Wrong Direction....

In Iraq [Jan. 2006]...
Overall, 64% of Iraqis say that Iraq is heading in the right direction, while just 36% say it is heading in the wrong direction. This represents a sharp upward movement from when the International Republican Institute asked this question in November 2005 and just 49% said that Iraq was headed in the right direction and 36% said the wrong direction. The only other time that IRI has found such a high number expressing such optimism was in April 2005 -also just after an election- when 67% said the country was headed in the right direction and 20% the wrong direction.
In the USA, RealClear Politics publishes averages and they say that R/W is 31%/61%.

Now these numbers seem a little confusing to me. If things are going so badly in Iraq as I have been reading so much about in the popular press, then why are the poll numbers there so good? And are things that bad in the US/ Wages are rising, unemployment is falling and the Dow Jones is near an all-time high [seems like a preferable direction to me] are things so bad in the US?

I suppose the reason why people are feeling so gloomy is that the Republicans, that control both houses of congress and the Whitehouse, are at risk of possibly losing one the chambers in Congress or maybe both in the mid-term elections November 2006. If the Democrats win, this would mean that Democrats would be proposing all kinds of silly new taxes and other useless and wasteful programs and there will be hell to pay. Can one imagine the unhinged socialist Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House? I shudder just thinking of such a crime. But Tradesports has GOP control of the Senate at 80% probability and the House at a little over 50%.

Last Survivor of the Titanic Disaster Dies at Age 99....

Lillian Gertrud Asplund(1907-2006)
She was 5 when the Titanic went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg on April 15, 1912. Her father and three brothers died in the disaster, along with some 1,500 others.
Its strange, last Thursday night I went to my friend's house and he put a Titanic DVD on. I fell asleep before it was over, but the next day it got me thinking, it all happened in 1912, 94 years ago and it must be that all or most of the survivors have died or are very elderly. Well, I see in the news today, that my thoughts were correct.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Chinese Economic Miracle....

As reported in [story found via Barcepundit]this The Australian article, China's economic miracle may be somewhat less than meets the eye.
ESTIMATES of the growing pile of non-performing loans (NPLs) in China appear to have caught many by surprise, especially because Beijing's efforts to clean up its rickety state-owned banks were thought to have greatly reduced NPLs and the risk of a full-blown financial crisis.

According to Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, bad loans in the Chinese financial system have reached a staggering $US911 billion ($1.18 trillion), including $US225 billion in potential future NPLs in the four largest state-owned banks.
Even with all the lip service being paid to getting the banking system in order and the governance systems being put into place, NPLs continue to grow at an astonishing pace. The high level of NPLs are a sign of bad lending practices and an allocation of resources to inefficient or ineffective projects. Wasteful spending is a short-term prop for an economy and the World Bank estimates wasteful spending accounted for about a third of all fixed asset investment in the 1990's.

The growing NPL problem is confounding efforts to stem the tide of losses. As mentioned in the article, continued political patronage seems to be at the heart of the problem...
Government figures show that, in 2003, 5.3 million party officials held executive positions in SOEs [state owned enterprises]. The party appoints about 80 per cent of the chief executives in SOEs and 56 per cent of all senior corporate executives. Recent corporate governance reforms, Western-style on paper but not in substance, have made no difference. At 70 per cent of the large and medium-sized SOEs ostensibly restructured into Western-style companies, members of party committees were appointed to the boards. Painful restructuring appears to have spared this elite. China has shed more than 30 million industrial jobs since the late 1990s but few party officials have become jobless.
China has some other big problems to contend with too. In addition to being unable to allocate resources efficiently through financial intermediaries, China's troubles will be aggravated by an aging population, a very high tax rate and the continued need to create jobs to move people out of agrarian jobs into other sustainable employment. On the plus side, China has a large, educated and a population that is willing to work and economies of scale and support for manufacturing operations that would be difficult to replicate elsewhere in a short period of time.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Milton J. Madison Exclusive...

MJM has received a copy of the letter from Iran's crazy leader, Ahmadinejad, to George W. Bush. Find it here.

Liberalism = Laziness...

The above should read:
Modern Liberalism=Laziness
Classical Liberalism:
Classical liberalism is a philosophy that supports natural individual rights, private property, a laissez-faire economic policy, measures to prevent the concentration of private wealth,a government that exists to protect the liberty of each individual from others, and a constitution that protects individual autonomy from governmental power. Many elements of this ideology developed in the 17th and 18th centuries. As such, it is often seen as being the natural ideology of the industrial revolution and its subsequent capitalist system.
Modern Liberalism [also known as social liberalism]
Like all liberals, social liberals believe in individual freedom as a central objective. However, they are unique in comparison to other liberals in that they believe that lack of economic opportunity, education, health-care, and so on can be considered to be threats to their conception of liberty. Social liberals are outspoken defenders of human rights and civil liberties, and combine this with support for a mixed economy, with a state providing public services that social liberals intend to ensure that people's social rights as well as their civil liberties are upheld
And this passage sums up some of the issues....
Modern liberalism may not be quite the correct name for what I have in mind. I use the phrase to mean the latest stage of the liberalism that has been growing in the West for at least two and a half centuries, and probably longer. Nor does this suggest that I think liberalism was always a bad idea. So long as it was tempered by opposing authorities and traditions, it was a splendid idea. It is the collapse of those tempering forces that has brought us to a triumphant modern liberalism with all the cultural and social degradation that follows in its wake. If you do not think "modern liberalism" an appropriate name, substitute "radical liberalism" or "sentimental liberalism" or even, save us, post- liberalism." Whatever name is used, most readers will recognize the species. The defining characteristics of modern liberalism are radical egalitarianism (the equality of outcomes rather than of opportunities) and radical individualism (the drastic reduction of limits to personal gratification). These may seem an odd pair, for individualism means liberty and liberty produces inequality, while equality of outcomes means coercion and coercion destroys liberty. If they are to operate simultaneously, radical egalitarianism and radical individualism, where they would compete, must be kept apart, must operate in different areas of life. That is precisely what we see in today's culture.

Modern liberalism is very different in content from the liberalism of, say, the 1940s or 1950s, and certainly different from the liberalism of the last century. The sentiments and beliefs that drive it, however, are the same: the ideals of liberty and equality. These ideals produced the great political, social, and cultural achievements of Western civilization, but no ideal, however worthy, can be pressed forever without turning into something else, turning in fact into its opposite. This is what is happening now. Not a single American institution, from popular music to higher education to science, has remained untouched.

(Robert H. Bork, Slouching Toward Gomorrah, pp. 4, 5, 6.)
I find the real central theme revolves around the line found above...
These may seem an odd pair, for individualism means liberty and liberty produces inequality, while equality of outcomes means coercion and coercion destroys liberty.
So can you argue that we have a choice, liberty and inequality or equality where our liberty is eroded to achieve that equality. I argue that we reduce our liberty through the forms of equlity that we choose to pursue as I discuss below.

But also, the above piece mentions "radical individualism and radical egalitarianism." Yes, radical in the sense that I argue that neither individualism is unlimited nor is egalitarianism achievable. But lets leave all this for a while and explore some of the background.

There is an old saying that I have heard many times,
Life is not fair.
Marxism was an attempt on making "Life fair" from an economic perspective. The concept of Marxism was a radical departure from the norms of the times. Its desire to create some kind of utopia was in response to the hardships of the times. However, the failure of Marxism and the communist ideology, although founded in fairness, equality and egalitarianism is that it was impossible to implement. The radical departure from the social/economic norms of the time, in Russia and China led to severe dislocations and led to the rises of political elite and a gross misallocation of resources. Human nature dictates that one achieves for ourselves and our families. To replace the state with the natural human desires was impossible to achieve. Therefore, political elites took the reigns and bastardized the philosophy. Used it for their own political ends.

So, now we have Marxism light, socialism, manifested in utopian distribution of some parts of the spectrum of wealth. Particularly prevalent in the declining European economies and a drag on American wealth creation, socialism of the 1950s varied has mutated in the horrible political correctness we see today. Why is that? Because even the socialist tendencies founded on utopian wealth redistribution have not created the social and economic harmony that it desired. The high tax states have not created the wealth necessary to compete with the low tax states and have not kept up with rising living standards. Western Europe economies have grown, on average 3/4 of a percent less than the US over the last 25 years and have seen their per capita GDP fall behind by nearly 50%. Even in France, the nation with the highest tax burden on earth, has attempted to liberalize their moribund economy by lowering taxes and cutting restrictions on business. Much of these changes, however, have met with fierce resistance as the populace tries to fight off the ultimate day where they have to face reality.

So, why do I argue that [modern] liberalism is laziness? It is a philosophy seeking a mission. Now we are still saddled not only with the vestiges of utopian economic equality but the yoke of political correctness and the Escher-like map of social engineering. Liberalism is like trying to convince water to flow up hill since "its the right thing to do." Seems like a silly thing to try and yet, it is tried every day.

In the US, trillions of dollars have been spent on the fight against poverty and there is yet no agreement or signs that this money has been well spent. Where has all the money gone? And what would have happened if the money was never spent that way? So, we can argue, unconvincingly, that the plight of the poor would have been worse with out the flood of monetary assistance. In fact, it appears as if economic growth has done much more in alleviating poverty than socially directed spending. In China, 100s of millions have seen their fortunes improve not due to profligate central government spending priorities but by the unshackling of the economy held down by years of mis-directed communist priorities.

And political correctness now sweeping the times...
Political correctness (also politically correct, P.C. or PC) is a term used to describe language that appears calculated to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to the racial or cultural groups being described. The term is normally used in a pejorative or ironic sense, and is a frequent target for comedians and satirists.

The concept has been extended by conservative and some liberal (Hentoff 1992, Schlesinger 1998, Brandt 1992) commentators, particularly in the United States, to describe what they see as a larger left-wing "political correctness movement" focused on censorship, multiculturalism, identity politics, social engineering, and influencing popular culture through venues such as music, film, literature, arts and advertising.
So, we now are going through an Orwellian transformation, where we are being directed to think, act and believe a certain way. And I suppose that if we don't, then all the groups that have been affected by this non-PC behavior have an excuse for their underperformance.

A fine example of PC is when when someone that I am close to told the minister in her church that she was going to stop attending if the children sang the song "Jesus loves all the little children."
"Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world,
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world."
this ofensive material was cited as being exclusionary. I guess if one recognizes that people are of different colors, then its not PC. Or maybe some of the colors not mentioned may feel excluded. Or maybe, even that they are just children, just mentioning color without mentioning sexual orientation is the offending problem with this. But it mazes me that these PC liberal Democrats sit around analzing every day material and trying to figure out how this material is offensive or maybe could be offensive to someone, somewhere.

See, where I believe that liberalism=laziness, is that through recent times, we have provided excuse after excuse for certain groups to justify their underperformance or why they just don't feel that they don't fit in. It isn't the problem or the result of thought or behavior of the "injured" party but the fault of the rest of us that are impacting their ability to perform. By choosing these themes such as political correctness, we have chosen an impossible goal. One not founded in true human nature like the problems with Marxism. And as a result, these "affected" people don't even have to try, since they are destined to fail due the predjudice and inequality inherent in our cultures because we haven't addressed the "correctness" of what we are saying or doing.

Why work at anything if the landscape is so so stacked against one, that one is destined to fail? So, don't do anything. Demand that the government solve every problem, from healthcare to poverty, and require that "rich" people pay for it. As a liberal, one can wash one hands of the problems by demanding action from a third party. No need to get ones hands dirty actually doing something about it. And then when the government fails, say that there wasn't enough money thrown at teh problem or blam George W. Bush. He is a convenient scapegoat for lazy liberals these days in teh echo-chamber of liberalism.

I am sure that I will have much more to say on this topic.

"In matters of national security
the best politics is no politics."

Scoop Jackson

Those Damn Neo-cons....

I remember reading some material from a fellow named Skippy-san cited by Madame Chiang. But what has stuck in my mind all these months is Skippy-san's and other characterizations of neo-con's are the usage and connotations attached to the name.

Neo-cons are the oft-cited evil doers behind GWB's forays into Iraq and I suppose other things that people fail to discuss in their blathering. There is also much discussion about the supposedly former neo-con, Francis Fukuyama, that has dropped this label in favor of some other unknown label. It made big headlines just before and while he was promoting a book that he was wrote, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy." I just wonder if all this bluster was designed to promote his book. And just how much of a neo-con was this man?
Fukuyama is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Fukuyama's prophecy declares the eventual triumph of political and economic liberalism.
So an economic and political liberal but with a neo-con militaristic intervention streak?
Politically, Fukuyama has in the past been considered neoconservative. He was active in the Project for the New American Century think-tank starting in 1997, and signed the organization's letter recommending that President Bill Clinton overthrow the then-President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. He also joined in its similar letter to President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks, a letter that called for removing Saddam Hussein from power "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack".

Thereafter, however, he drifted from the neoconservative agenda, which he felt had become overly militaristic and based on muscular, unilateral armed intervention to further democratization within authoritarian regimes (particularly in the Middle East).
So even though he called for the overthrow of Saddam, he now thinks that the neo-con has become over-militaristic? Ok, lets assume for a moment that all that he claims he is and has said is true and none of his shifts were orchestrated to promote his book but are his true beliefs.

This leads us to consider what is a neo-con? As I have read in some of the modern press, it has become a catch-all phrase for those that favor military adventurism and has a somewhat negative connotation surrounding it. It seems as if the left has also distorted the meaning to include a whole range of conservative policy initiatives that have absolutely nothing to do with the neo-con philosophy. Neo-con has now been closely linked with hard-right wing thought. I have had thoughts with people that I love and care for very much that completely mis-understand the meaning of neo-con. They have seemingly removed their brains before thinking about what all of this is and means. And why is this?

I think it is because the press, either through ineptitude or through bias, has transformed the word to include more than it really means. This usage and definition by the press is unfortunately very wrong and has no historical basis in fact or usage. The hard-right wing of the political spectrum are not neo-cons, [neo-conservatives] since they are the original conservatives. A strong national defense is one of the basic platforms of these people. So, the hard-right wing cannot be neo-cons, they are the paleo-cons. So, is Dick Cheney a neo-con or a conservative? Oft labeled as a neo-con, he is not. He is a true conservative.

The press has again to failed to report or define what is really going on and what a neo-con is, I suppose succumbing to their personal liberal Democratic biases. Shoddy and lazy reporting and defining of issues by the press has become a distinct and foreboding problem for people around the globe. Misrepresentation of this may-or-may not be intentional but it is dangerous and not very useful. Additionally, as a means to a political end, the Arab media promotes violence and religious intolerance, and the Western media promotes liberalism and the Democratic party. How droll.

So, what is a neo-con? I recently read a debate between proto-neo-con Richard Perle and the knuckleheaded head of the Democratic party, Howard Dean. Enjoy the read here.

What is most striking about this debate is Perle's admission that he is a life-long Democrat that worked early in his career for Scope Jackson...
Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 - September 1, 1983) was a U.S. Congressman and Senator for Washington State from 1941 until his death. As a Cold War anti-Communist Democrat, Jackson's political philosophies and positions were a forerunner for modern neoconservatism.
So, he was kind-of the father of the neo-cons...
Jackson believed that one confronted evil with power. His support for civil rights and equality at home, married to his opposition to detente, his support for human rights and democratic allies, and his firm belief that the United States could be a force for good in the world inspired a legion of loyal aides who went on to propound Jackson's philosophy as part of neoconservatism. In addition to Perle, neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Charles Horner, and Douglas Feith were former Democratic aides to Jackson who joined the Reagan administration in 1981, and are now prominent foreign policy makers in the 21st-century Bush administration. Wolfowitz has called himself a "Scoop Jackson Republican."
A Democrat. And why did these people exist and why are they important, politically to the US? Because they tempered the pacifists in the Democratic party, centered on George McGovern. The centrist neo-cons, socially liberal but non-compromising on defense formed the core of the Reagan Democrat voting block that propelled him into the Whitehouse and that shifted much of the political landscape.

I, therefore, cannot call myself a neo-con, but a conservative, or if you like, a proto-conservative. And I also think that the pacifist streak in the Democratic party still is very strong, not willing to recognize the risk with militant Islam. They are only willing to go halfway in fighting this foe. This is why I can never trust a Democrat and one of the many reasons why I canot vote for a Democratic candidate.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Stockbroker sales call.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Living Frugally In China....

This isn't the millionaire next door story, but a frightening commentary on how rich are viewed in China...
China's top billionaire lives frugally as the wealthy are oftened viewed with suspicion, writes Don Lee.

China's richest man has amassed a fortune of nearly US$2 billion (HK$15.6 billion), but lives like a frugal accountant.
And why does he live like this? Is he a Puritan or a Presbyterian? [where amassing wealth was a sign from God that he looked favorably upon you...but in no way are you allowed to enjoy it!!!] No....
In the West, Huang's rise - from high school dropout to the mainland's richest man - would be celebrated as a Horatio Alger story. But in China, where corruption is rampant, many believe the 300,000 people who became millionaires in the last two decades did it the old-fashioned way - stealing from the masses.
So its not jealousy or a thread holdover from the good ol' days of Maoism but a deep rooted feeling in the people that the rich have gained their wealth by stealing it or through connections or other means not available to your typical person.

Social progress has take a back seat to wealth creation by the elite few and it is particularly troubling in that how long will the people tolerate this kind of behavior. It could be a signal to upcoming class warfare that liberal newspapers like the asinine New York Times likes to rant about in their defense of raising taxes on people for the "good of the people." Democrats in the US never met a tax that they didn't like.

Maybe China won't be far behind, but China already has the 2nd highest tax rates in the world.

Post Birthday Comments From My Buddy In New York...

Easy getting old. Tough being old.
I’m not afraid of flying. I’m afraid of crashing.

Doctor gave a patient six months to live. He couldn’t pay the bill. Doctor gave him another six months.

For our anniversary my wife said she wanted to go someplace she hasn’t seen before. I told her to try the kitchen.

Mushroom walks into a bar. Bartender says he doesn’t serve mushrooms. Mushroom says “aw c’mon, I’m a fun-guy.”

Apes Are Human Too.....

Human rights is a hot topic around the world as it is in Europe. Of course the protection of human rights is a universal feature of Western democracy. So Spain is considering granting human rights to apes.
Great apes share 99 per cent of their genetic material with humans. Champions of their rights say they have an emotional and cultural life, intelligence and moral qualities reminiscent of those of humans. Francisco Garrido, a Green representative who belongs to the Socialist group in parliament, submitted the bill on 25 April. Garrido claims the Spanish Socialists are acting as ambassadors, as defenders and as the voice of the great apes. He hopes that Spain will become the first European country to grant them fundamental human rights.

The Spanish Socialists have been criticized for their initiative, which is the outcome of a purely materialistic view of human nature. Pamplona archbishop Fernando Sebastian called the proposal "ridiculous" Amnesty International representative Delia Padron said she was "surprised" by moves to recognize the "human rights" of apes when many humans still lacked those rights.
I wonder if in Spain, these great apes will be able to run for political office? I sure hope so. Then if we end up like this,



We will be prepared.

This probably is all just another ploy by animal lovers.



Julius: "You know the saying, 'Human see, human do.'"



And of course there is a little trouble translating all of this into French as one of my friends pointed out... In one of the scenes from "The Planet of the Apes," the head ape gets angry when the man asks him if he's a monkey. He yells, "I am not a monkey I am an ape."

So in french, it's "I'm not a "singe", I'm a "singe" since there is no separate word for monkey and ape both use the word singe.

And also, I suppose we could say that apes have more human rights in Spain than humans have in China!