peeps in Bangkok
———————————————————————- [Read more…]
commuting in Bangkok
Chinese internet
Social network sites, western google, ability to post to blogs, etc., all available in Kuala Lumpur. Our last couple hours in Guangzhou, China we had no facebook or twitter, and no ability to post to blogs or upload email.
China Daily opinion of March 20-21, 2010 wrote it this way:
Google in wrong game
Chinese netizens did not expect the Google issue to snowball into a political minefield and become a tool in the hands of vested interests abroad to attack China under the pretext of internet freedom.
China’s regulation to censor the content that Google provides to Chinese Internet users has become interpreted as a breach to freedom in the virtual world. In some extreme cases, the vested interests have described the legitimate right of the Chinese government to regulate companies and control pornographic and related content as “spying” on its own people.
The magnitude of this absurdity is beyond comprehension and the motivated attacks, intolerable.
The attacks cannot be justified even if seen from Western perspective. Many countries censor the Internet to protect the interests of innocent users. Also, it goes without saying that a foreign company should abide by the laws and regulations of the country that it is operating and making a profit in.
The Chinese are enjoying unprecedented freedom in the country’s more than 5,000 years of history. All the country’s newly found wealth has been created by the hands of the ordinary Chinese. The country would not have been able to perform an economic miracle if its people were unhappy with their administration and the social and political conditions.
So if the vested interests’ accusation that the Chinese government censors the Internet to spy on its own people does not originate from ignorance then it is a white lie and a malicious attack.
It will not do any good to Google either. And by linking its exit from China with political issues, Google will certainly lose its credibility in a country that has the largest number of netizens.
With the many assorted fallacies in this analysis, I find it not at all persuasive.
game change?
The Obama media blitz to sell government health insurance to the American people, as if “sales” is an appropriate metaphor for coercion at the point of a gun, and as if the sales job ever paused for a moment, only deepens the tragic farce national politics under the left have become. At the moment you thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, the propaganda freight train finds a still lower gear to shift into without a breath of hesitation. The nightmare that was the American dream keeps devolving as we try to pinch ourselves awake.
The tea partyers had better have their electoral fun now because, come November, if they do anything other than to join a monolithic block to unseat these batty leftists currently in power, all the building anger against the destructive left will shift to them.
Shanghai, Xiamen, Guangzhou
We’re incredibly lucky to see these sights and spend time with our gracious hosts.
BTW, add revaluing the Yuan to make Chinese goods more expensive for Americans in order to spur investment in American jobs to the list of idiotic and naive ideas to come out of the Obama administration. Yeah, let’s have Americans pay artificially high prices for foreign goods to remove marginal capital from their pockets, while we increase their taxes to pay for the socialized health care we shove down their throats, so they feel like becoming entrepreneurs to create jobs that the feds can regulate to death and suck out more funding for the welfare state. Just who’s going to buy these proposed American goods that are expected to cost more? Let’s see, in Obamanomics, comparative advantage means the privilege of paying more for less. I guess we’re all supposed to feel so good about our new socialism that we’ll just overlook our own impoverishment.
While that sinks in, here’s some more pics to ponder:
—————————————————————————————–
Shanghai
—————————————————————————————— [Read more…]
internet will find a way
Lots of grab-shot images to upload when time permits. Shanghai environs have changed drastically in two years. Factories of every sort of fabrication, assembly and manufacture of every item imaginable saturate the land. We’re either getting used to the frenetic manner of Chinese driving, or perhaps Chinese drivers are settling down a bit. Still lots of horns, lights, random intersection crossings, near head-on collisions between cycles and cars and various other flirtations with disaster, but the overriding traffic law here seems to be, “No harm, no foul.” The second law of the Chinese model traffic code would go something like, “Flashing lights and honking horns are simply data and do not carry an emotional message, regardless of how insistently they are employed.” Twitter and Facebook appear to be blocked at this location in Shanghai though I think they were available in Shenzhen and certainly were in Hong Kong. Google US is available though the news (CNN) said that Google will pull out of China next month. I think that refers to the Chinese language Google.cn which I’ve read that the Chinese don’t use much anyway. I hope English speakers can still access US Google though if US Google is no longer maintained for Chinese references, it would seem to become less relevant over time for English speakers over here. Conclusion: Mandarin lessons are in order. Headed to Xiamen this afternoon for a day/night then on to Kuala Lumpur. Not much time this trip to smell the roses though we’re accomplishing the mission and everyone’s healthy.
Noted item from today’s Shanghai Daily, pg. A9:
“The health care reform program would affect nearly every American and remake one-sixth of the US economy. For the first time, Americans would have health insurance.”
That sort of misinformation is just not helpful.
April ECR breakfast
first impressions
The day began today in China (for us) with……Fox News! and the O’Reilly Factor–which works well as a morning talk show!
Fox News. Communist China. Go figure. Maybe it has something to do with Obama and Napolitano both on Fox today? Nice to see the left venturing outside their comfort zones on CNN and MSNBC.
(Update: Over in Shenzhen this afternoon–crossing the border from Hong Kong to China, we said goodbye to Fox News. 13 years into the 100 year merger of Hong Kong and China, looks like China proper will have to wait a little longer for Fox News.)
We read some illuminating articles in the China Daily (state) newspaper in transit. In a story about closing down ubiquitous unlicensed health clinics in China, the China Daily noted, “More than half of the rural population of China does not have adequate medical insurance.” The rural population is around 800 million. And migrant workers are not reimbursed for health care because people only get insurance reimbursement for fees incurred in the region they are from, not fees incurred in the region where they live and work. So, the government is trying to shut down market health care alternatives while also using health insurance as a tool to control migration.
On the next page of the 3/16/10 China Daily (page 9), an editorial says, “In the United States, the epitome of Western culture, it is difficult for a person without health insurance or enough money to get medical treatment. Visitors to the US, especially from poorer countries may be refused access to healthcare.” Well, this is simply misinformation. EMTALA guarantees health care to the point of stabilization to anyone who walks into a hospital emergency room. Moreover, it’s an unfunded mandate. Hospitals don’t get reimbursed for care provided under EMTALA.
It would be more productive for China to focus on health care provision for its uninsured and insured people than to obfuscate their own problems with straw man allegations about the U.S. system, which, though imperfect, is pretty good.
sunrise south of sfo
1 more week
ECR Breakfast 3/13/10
——————————————————————————————–
Speeches
State Representative Cindy Acree
Candidate for Secretary of State Scott Gessler
Candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Wiens
Candidate for Governor Scott McInnis
Candidate for Sheriff Brian Wiess
Candidate for U.S. Senate Ken Buck
Note: After his speech I privately asked Candidate Buck about the strong advertising against Norton that recently began and he said he wasn’t aware of it. I don’t know whether the report of the Declaration Alliance’s support of Buck is true, however, the negative ad campaign exists on both TV and radio and the candidate’s response to my question did not make sense to me.
cartoons have layers
spring forward
taxes have consequences
Bill Ritter Kills Online Business In Colorado
March 8, 2010 – 7:00am – by Rocky Mountain Right
Amazon.com sent out the following notice to small businesspeople using their online-affilliate program last night:
Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:
We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.
We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.
Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010.
We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.
Best Regards,The Amazon Associates Team
high tech parenting
Middle school was a different time. We didn’t know it then, but we had the luxury to think about scholastic challenges with our boy. Learning, performing, honing skills, in general a constructive set of challenges–the kind that leave everyone (student/teacher/parent/bystander) better off for trying, these were on the table. It was the calm before the storm.
High school came in like a lamb and quickly morphed into a lion. The steady girlfriend was announced a couple of weeks into it and nothing has been the same since. Grades have gone into the dumper. Cell texting and computer chatting consumes all time and destroys most continuity of independent teenage thought. We parents have become the other, the enemy, the loathed murderers of love.
Our peaceful life in the country is fraying under the stress of a tech savvy 14 year old female predator obsessed with marrying our 15 year old son and having his children. I’ll admit, I’ve used hyperbole on occasion. I wish this was hyperbole. And this. And this. The smiley emoticons are cute, but they lose some of their charm when it’s you they’re talking about burying.
The girl pursues him relentlessly every waking moment through texting, sexting, chatting, email, and as a last resort, actual voice phone calls. The boy, raised as an innocent and to not be a victim, thinks this obsession feels wonderful. He’s in love and the rest of life has become a distraction he would rid himself of if he could.
The girl uses her own cell phone, her mother’s cell phone, her father’s cell phone when she can get it, and of course her computer to text and email the boy roughly about once every minute or so of waking time–many hundreds of contacts each day. Her parents don’t seem to exert any control over her electronic obsessions. She uses various online chat clients like facebook and yahoo messenger in addition to email from a variety of sources–cell phone texts, cell phone email, regular isp email, facebook email, etc.
We’ve had to become quite sophisticated in parental controls at the cell phone provider interfaces, the email provider interfaces, and even a sophisticated network router at home, to shut her electronic harassment down while keeping the various electronic tools available to my son for other uses and users. My wife handles the cell phone side of it, I do the rest. It’s taken us months to figure out how to effectively block a determined cyber stalker.
It was our mistake to expect the kids would use all of these connectivity tools responsibly. Perhaps some do, but I expect that’s the exception and that it’s more likely this kind of thing goes on without a lot of parental awareness. Judging by how complicated the remedies are, I bet a lot of parents have no idea what they’re up against.
Dangers of Technology: Cyber-bullying, stalking can have damaging effects
Almost four out of ten teens are either the bully or the victim and girls are twice as likely to do it.
“The boys have a tendency to do more of the physical bullying; face to face. The girls tend to do this social sabotage thing on Facebook, MySpace,” says Stanton.
http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/adults/cyber-bullying.aspx
divide and conquer
Rich Galen – Mullings
In Texas on Tuesday a little known woman named Debra Medina ran as the Tea Party candidate and got nearly 19 percent of the vote in the GOP primary for Governor. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison got about 30 percent and Gov. Rick Perry got 51 percent meaning Medina was far closer to Hutchison than Hutchison was to Perry. In this era of euphoria for the GOP, this result could well portend a huge problem next November.
Here’s why. Medina got about a fifth of the vote in a GOP primary. She would probably have gotten a far smaller percentage in a general election, but that’s where I’m going with this. Primary elections and other nominating processes will be pretty much done by August. A few states go into September, but not many. So, Republican and Democrat nominees will be chosen and running against each other by, for the most part, late summer. In Congressional District after Congressional District Democrats are fearing for their political lives in the face of an Obama job approval which is stuck at slightly below 50 percent. Running head-to-head against the Republican nominee is going to be a steep hill to climb – Washington experience does not appear to be a big plus this year. Most states have a process for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. It usually involves getting some number of signatures from some segment of the population in each county or some similar formula. Someone is going to figure out that being the Tea Party candidate can get you a significant percentage of the vote, if you can get on the ballot.
Debra Medina got about the same percentage of the vote as Ross Perot got in the Presidential election of 1992. Perot didn’t win any electoral votes, but he got enough popular votes to draw support away from George H.W. Bush and allowed Bill Clinton to win the state. Another example. If Ralph Nader hadn’t been on the Florida ballot no recount would have been necessary. Al Gore would have won the state fairly handily and would have been the 43rd President of the United States. If Tea Party candidates can get on the ballot in close districts, they can easily do the same thing: Siphon votes away from the GOP candidate and throw the district to the Democrat. Why would they do this? To demand that Republican candidates toe the Tea Party Line – or else. In most states independents can gain ballot access well after the primary voting period, so they can make the threat stick: Come out against an ever-encroaching Federal government or the Tea Party candidate will get on the ballot and you can go back to your day job.
If I were advising the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, I would tell them to set aside a fund of money to teach Tea Party candidates how to gain ballot access in the 30 – 40 Districts which the Ds think are in most peril. Republican challengers in Democrat districts can preempt that plot by claiming the Tea Party mantle starting, oh, tomorrow would be just about right. Republican incumbents won’t lose to Tea Party candidates. They might if they were running in a GOP primary in the Northeast, but there aren’t very many Republican incumbents in that region so there is not much low hanging fruit. The power of the Tea Baggers can be best used in weak Democratic districts where they can threaten to get on the ballot and destroy Republican chances to take back control of the U.S. House. That is a dangerous storm bearing down on GOP hopes for November.
trying to be Spring
Mount Vernon Statement
Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century
We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.
These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.
Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.
Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?
The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.
The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.
A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.
A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.
- It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
- It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
- It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
- It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
- It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.
If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose. We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.
February 17, 2010
Lincoln Day Dinner
Elbert County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner, Feb. 20, 2010
Videos:
Congressman Mike Coffman
Jon Caldara – Boulder Is An Odd Town
Jon Caldara – The Republican Brand
Jon Caldara – Compelled Health Care
Jon Caldara – Losing Parker
————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————
Notice:
Elbert County Young Republicans will have an organizational meeting at their new office above the car wash in Kiowa, Monday, March 29th, 2010. Contact Linda Wyer at lwyer95@yahoo.com