Ma speaking at the Dead Dictator's Tomb (Taipei Times). Looks like a Photoshop moment, but it's for real. Cries out for captioning.China Economic Review says Ma's charter flight plan commences July 4:
The National Policy Foundation, a think tank of Ma’s Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, said in a recent report that it had completed the direct weekend charter plan.
The service would begin taking passengers from the mainland for the weekend and carrying them back on Monday noon.
Chen Shih-yi, a foundation spokesman, said Ma had instructed that the service be started from July 4, and be extended to Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan for vacation after Beijing and Taipei work out an agreement.
Chen said Taiwan will open its international airports in Taoyuan in the north, Taichung in central Taiwan and Kaohsiung in the south for charter services. Flight points from the mainland will include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen.
The development is an expansion of the current system of flying on holidays, which began five years ago.
UPDATE: Taipower announces it will add ten new nuclear plant units to replace existing units. Another consequence of KMT ascendancy.
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"July 4th", eh? LOL!
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Yeah, I laughed my ass off. Thanks for the tip to the Foreigner. Several people sent the pic to me last night but I thought it was some Photoshopped thing going around... LOL.
ReplyDeleteMichael
Wait. I don't get it. So it is all worked out with the PRC and everything?
ReplyDeleteCaption contest? The real caption wasn't bad: "... Ma Ying-jeou stands between the legs of a giant Chiang Kai-shek...," but how about these?:
ReplyDelete* What a prick!
* The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) shall hump these legs forevah!
Great new avatar on the comments page, Stop Ma!
And only 10 new nuke plants for this huge country?! Why not 20? 30, even! One for every township! There must be a lot of concrete kickbacks there. D'oh!
On a more serious note, I think we already have too many nuclear plants here. Taiwan should implement more of the cleaner forms of renewable energy like wind farms, geothermal plants, solar power, tidal power, and so on, plus cultivate some interest in green architecture. I expect that the Chinese KMT will have no trouble passing such legislation and finding the money to implement it.
Tim Maddog
It's Dr. Evil and Mini-ma.
ReplyDeleteAnother consequence of KMT ascendancy.
ReplyDeleteSuch negative tone...btw for all you anti-nuclear people, please go google "French nuclear power". You will realize how many nuclear power planes they have (considering they are the snob of the Europe). To save your time, they have 59 nuclear plans and generate 79% of the power they need including exports. The new nuclear technologies are not only safe but emit 0% green house gas. In addition, these days you can recycle the nuclear waste for more fuels. The final fission waste is still somehow a problem, but these day we have several safe way to get rid of them. Don't forget the nuclear materials come from earth, and it's part of the earth geothermal source.
However, I guess after the DPP's lost, that's all you guys can talk about :). Btw, if July 4th flight plan gets done, I guess DPP is wrong again about where the direct-flight barrier lays.
Arty, the debate on nuclear power was decided back in the 1970s, when the banks pulled the plug on finance because returns were so poor, long before the public realized what a stupid idea nukes were. Nuclear power exists only because of massive and pervasive direct and hidden state subsidies.
ReplyDeleteTaiwan has a vast array of cheap, renewable energy resources that would erase our dependence on outside sources of fuel, and not provide juicy targets for an attacker, and entirely lack the need for a massive subsidy infrastructure or the risk of losing half the island in a nuke disaster.
Michael
Add in the fact that Taiwan is an unstable landmass and gets hit with several good size and hundreds of minor earthquakes every year. (I wouldn't be surprised if they named the new plants: Plant 5.4, Plant 6.7, Plant 7.4.....)
ReplyDeleteAdd in the fact that the people on Orchid Island have been promised removal of nuke waste.
What?! No one likes the "Dr. Evil and Mini-ma" caption?
ReplyDeleteMy caption suggestion:
ReplyDeleteBig shoes to fill
Arty, the debate on nuclear power was decided back in the 1970s, when the banks pulled the plug on finance because returns were so poor, long before the public realized what a stupid idea nukes were. Nuclear power exists only because of massive and pervasive direct and hidden state subsidies.
ReplyDeleteHuh? Have you checked the recent data? Since the 90s the only power generating source that is cheaper than nuclear power is the new nature gas power turbine developed in Canada. However, even when you burn nature gas cleanly, you are still generating large amount of CO2. Here is a link published in March by Australian nuclear council on cost of power by types and projections with references (could be biased)
http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
Today, everyone wants to build a nuclear plane. However, there is another problem. We can only produce four steel casing that can be used for the nuclear core a year. See I told you Japanese Samurai-Sword steel is good :). Tamahagane sounds like a candy. P.S. Yes, this is part of the new technologies to make sure the core is 100% safe with a single block construction; even with a F4 fighter jet crashes into it directly (go find the video I am too lazy i.e. youtube).
Btw, all the renewable energy cost at least 1.5-2 times more than nuclear per kilowatt. And with TODAY's technology, you will never get enough energy from them unless everyone have in their backyards, one of the biggest problem with the solar panels. Of course, if you are rich, you can always get one of these beauties (that will cost you about 66,000 dollars with return horizon of 18 years):
http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/
Perfectly fit in my back yard once I brought a foreclosed Macmansion in Santa Luz (sarcastically speaking of course).
The link that arty provided to the Uranium Information Centre is highly biased. The UIC is the leading lobby group for the nuclear industry in Australia.
ReplyDeleteTo "all you" pro-nuke people out there, can you say "Chernobyl"?
ReplyDeleteSince, in their eyes, it all seems to be about dollar costs and not that of human lives, I have an idea: Let's put all the nuke plants right in the pro-nuke trolls' backyards -- if they're willing to risk even a single accident (if so, they're as dumb as I think) -- or nowhere at all.
RE: other comment: "Mini Ma"! Excellent! Brainstorming on that one: "I shall call him... Mini Mao!"
Tim Maddog
I call that one "Chiang Kai-shek's Third Leg"! ;)
ReplyDeleteI read the article, the plants are just replacements. They must be counting reactors, not actual plants since Taiwan has 3-4.
ReplyDeleteMa is such a douche bag. He looks like a goddamn idiot to any educated American. How is this good for Taiwan's international image?
Let me write a suitable caption:
"Harvard educated lawyer and Taiwan's presidential elect Ma Ying-jeou stands at the crotch of an outsized statue of former dictator and strongman Chiang Kaishek, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Taiwanese."
Clean caption:
ReplyDelete"Daddy, let me sit on your lap while you tell my favourite story. The one about how you had all your political opponents shot."
Unclean version:
"And this is what I'll be doing when I turn round..."
To "all you" pro-nuke people out there, can you say "Chernobyl"?
ReplyDeleteThat's an old design and a completely different one that we use in the US. Btw, there is a nuclear reactor right outside of San Diego. If you drive from L.A. down to San Diego, you will see it (it has funny nickname too because how it looks). Yea but you are right, I can't help with people with NIMBY syndrome. If you are so afraid of nuclear accident, then I guess you just have to wait for someone to figure out a fusion reactor using D2 (I will take either hot or cold).
The link that arty provided to the Uranium Information Centre is highly biased. The UIC is the leading lobby group for the nuclear industry in Australia.
I did say that. However, you can't argue that the cost which is lower and almost 0% green house emission. Btw, even if the article is biased it did provide links to the studies done by academics.
i'm pro-nuclear power but i'm 1) anti-subsidy so nuclear waste's cost has to be economic or no deal and 2) taiwan's fourth nuclear power plant, the way they forced that shit down the throat of that town and the way they tricked the old people of that town into signing waivers they didn't understand...
ReplyDeleteeveryone just talks about the economic side but everyone forgets how undemocratic and sad the process was that forced nuclear plant 4 onto the site it is today. it's a goddamn tragedy and i feel like i want to shove a nuclear nugget up arty's self-righteous ass.
But arty, what about the nuclear waste? Where to keep that for the thousands (or was it millions) of years that it'll continue to be dangerous, how to guarantee that it won't be a source of disease for our grandchildren?
ReplyDeleteBut arty, what about the nuclear waste? Where to keep that for the thousands (or was it millions) of years that it'll continue to be dangerous, how to guarantee that it won't be a source of disease for our grandchildren?
ReplyDeleteWell, if you do some googling, you will realize that most of the waste these days from the fast reactors are recyclable. The final fission waste also have several ways to dispose of them. I like the one letting the waste sink into the earth crest just like someone proposes to do to the CO2 emissions (Taiwan is actually in the perfect position to develop CO2 deep deposit into deep ocean because of her location if you don't think nuclear is right). In the US, since we are cheap and have a lot of lands, we choose to have them trapped in glasses and have them stored underground. France has the technology to recycle fuels and are welling to export the technology at least to the US and Japan. I hope most people do realize part of geothermal energy is due to radioactive isotope within earth. Where did our nuclear fuels come from? Yes, they are from the mother earth.
Devils and angels in Taiwan
ReplyDeleteBy Stephen A Nelson
www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JD11Ad04.html
The lowdown on Ma-The-Weather-Vane. The following quote sums it up.
“For people like Arrigo, the sight of Ma Ying-jeou kowtowing to the Chiangs is an ill omen. 'Even if the names [of the memorial and the airport] aren't changed back, a chill 'Blue' wind is blowing, just because Taiwanese automatically buckle down to please the new authorities,' said Arrigo, implying that the whole country is bending with the KMT wind.”
How can Ma be seen as "international" when he does retarded things like this? Michael laughed; I'm scared at the damage it does to Taiwan's image for anyone that sees this, especially if they know who the guy in the background is.
ReplyDeleteI love this photo. It's a classic.
ReplyDelete*KMT's new loincloth.
*Ma Ying-joeu -- direct descendant from the loins of Chiang Kai-shek.