Is there any news today that's not Dalai Lama? Yes, the blogs are, as always, full of it.
- Paul Katz with another in the excellent series of posts on Siaolin Village.
- Jim on the LDP and the KMT.
- Your bike: made in Taiwan
- Global Voices collects blog posts on the DL's visit.
- US Taiwan Defense Command has slides from 1968-9
- FVARGA wonders whether H1N1 is a disaster in the making for Taiwan.
- Jerome asks whose side Ma is on.
- Patrick Cowsill has pics and more commentary on Taipei's new bike lanes.
- Lief runs down some of the issues involved with roads and relocation in aboriginal areas.
- A-gu discusses the Executive Yuan's Referendum Review committee's shameful rejection of the DPP's request to hold a referendum on ECFA.
MA "ABLE" YING-JEOU WATCH: AFP notes that Beijing blasted the Dalai Lama's visit and warned that it would impact relations. China canceled celebrations over the direct flights, leaving that gaggle of eunuchs that constitutes the Ma government struggling for ways to bend over even further for Beijing. Speaking of having no stones, after Ma says government should only get 45 of 60 Blackhawk choppers from the US and spend the rest on rescue helos, the Ministry of Defense gives Ma the finger and says we're getting the 60. Today Ma says "Uh, ok." But my favorite is this one from today where Ma tells a group of aborigines that they must evacuate when told, otherwise it will be bad for him. Poor Ma! I think my next post might be entitled: Is Ma a narcissist?
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18 comments:
The one with Blackhawks is kind of funny.
It seems obvious that Ma did not even consult with MND before he made the cutting of 60 to 45 statements in the conference. Plus his statement that disaster prevention and rescue should be the military's prime objective just sounds so stupid and contradict with MND's later statements.
Just make you wonder who the heck are Ma's advisers, and if Ma actually talks to MND at all...
You asked: "Does someone have to be killed before Mormons stop this stupid, self-centered behavior?"
You are very prescient, sire. In fact, that is exactly what will happen soon, one of those enormously stupid brainwashed Mormons will get into a serious tragic accident and die. That's when this behavior you mentioned above will stop. Not until then. But you are right, it is an accident waiting to happen. Of course, it would be better if theu just leave Taiwan alone, but they won't and there will be hell of pay soon. Elder Berry, age 22, RIP.
I only hope that his "disaster prevention" statement is from his stupidity not his true intention. Just imagining PRC's army taking over Taiwan's army someday sends a chill down my spine. I hope Taiwanese people always remember what happened at Taianmen Square. I would not think the Blue KMT supporters are naive enough to think that they will be exempted when the PLA's tanks rolling down Taiwan streets to quell democracy movements.
Ma is really slipping up with his words. He sounds so desperate now with that quote you mention. I guess it continues to underline the fact that all he cares about is his own image, rather than evacuating the people for their safety.
Dixteel, I quite agree. It seems that whenever Ma talks in public without a script, it's just gaffe after gaffe.
BIT, I often warn the pro-China types that authoritarians wreak their greatest havoc among their supporters, but usually they just don't get it.
"Just make you wonder who the heck are Ma's advisers, and if Ma actually talks to MND at all..."
His response to the typhoon itself already showed that he either lacks educated advisors, lacks decision-making capability, or both. The announcement of the change of the military's focus came across as political theater with ominous potential. I am glad to see that someone has made a stand rather than buying a ticket on Ma's leaky cross-strait frienship boat.
A video of Mormons acting dumb at Taiwanese intersections seems like it would be a big hit on Youtube.
"BIT, I often warn the pro-China types that authoritarians wreak their greatest havoc among their supporters, but usually they just don't get it."
The reason they don't get it is that the KMT were seige-mentality colonizers who wreaked havoc here not among supporters but among those who opposed them; they did not witness and have not really been told of KMT oppression in China -- except for some of the still-living geriatrics who participated in it. And one of the remarkable effects of Chinese "education" is that it renders people nearly immune to any inductive reasoning that is not squarely founded on their own experience. They'll know you're right only when time and events prove you right; if they could know earlier, they wouldn't need you to tell them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the main idea behind the term "a prophet without honor"?
Thomas:
"that he either lacks educated advisors, lacks decision-making capability, or both."
No! Producing people poor at making prescient decisions is a key part of the task of Chinese education. Authority's delectations -- capriciousness and condescension -- would otherwise be at serious risk. Generally, though there are a few exceptions, the more "educated" a Chinese is, the worse he or she makes decisions in unaccustomed situations -- again, because they have refused to induce from any examples outside of their own experience and The Official Chinese Canon of Examples.
I am a bit surprised. I met Mormon missionaries in Italy and England and they behaved well. The latter ones were not ready to face simple questions like "this (your anectodal evidence of God's existence) would have happened with or without a God", which made for fairly one-sided conversations (and I might have converted one to atheism, or at least agnosticism, in Staines, Surrey). In two years in Atlanta I met none, and I am still waiting to see one peddling his theories here in Singapore.
Could their behaviour have anything to do with the idea that their riding behaviour does not make traffic worse, or with a superiority complex towards Taiwanese?
Whoa, that hits it on the nail. The Mormons here absolutely DO think they are better than the Taiwanese here. They walk already with this swagger, this I can float around in two worlds and you can't, all the while actually clueless about Taiwanese culture. Big negative on Taiwan, and I'd wish they'd leave.
Just what the hell is it with the Mormons and Taiwan? I used to think they did this everywhere they were allowed to in Asia, but I have never seen them anywhere but Taiwan. Is there some special reason why this pack of swaggering nincompoops in their ridiculous black-and-white get up have decided to be such a blight on Taiwan? With the exception of a 40-something spinster who was forced on my sister as a 'flat-mate' by her landlord so she could study English back in 2001, I have never met any of their converts, and I sincerely hope they are few in number.
Yeah, well we can all hate the Mormons, but don't forget Obama just appointed one as the ambassador to China.
FOARP, it is a cold war legacy, i suspect, plus Taiwan's religious freedom. Fortunately they are not effective -- in fact several years ago they hired a local marketing expert to understand why they were so ineffective locally. They are a growth industry elsewhere -- the product markets well in the Philippines I hear.
As far as I know only the Mormons behave this way in Taiwan -- other groups do accost you on the street, like real estate agents, but they do not press or harass and get out of the way before the light changes. I've seen Mormons blocking traffic lights and traffic flow many times.
Michael
Mormons are just the same as any other religious missionary. It is not the act of believing, but the thought process behind the endeavor.
"I am fulfilled because I have truth (as proven by my own faith in it) and these other people are lacking or deprived because they don't have exactly what I have, like I have it. Since I feel it is the best then I must go out and fix these people to make them into better people. Only through my way of doing things can these people be perfected. Once they are more like me then they will need to be minded that they do not back slide into their old behaviors."
I do have a problem with other religious people who bag on the Mormons. I would fight for a Mormon's right to be equally as wrong as a Catholic or a Baptist. The Mormon Nephi is no less believable than Moses and the Mormon concept of Sainthood is no more fantastic than living in eternal happiness with God in heaven.
Looking outside now, where people are filling the air with choking smoke from burning ghost money, and having been woken up more than once by temple "music" and high explosives at some ungodly hour in the morning, I'm cheering for the Mormons. Taiwan's local religions seem to be dedicated solely to producing as much pollution in as many different forms as possible. The sooner they are stamped out, the better.
No, Mormonism is different because it's a very recent, ahistorical racist religion that also uses very annoying tactics in Taiwan. Look for stuff on Slate and other websites for excellent commentary. There are many foreign Christians in Taiwan and other religious people, and though I know of a few exceptions, the vast majority are not arrogant and don't have that swagger. THAT is why I dislike Mormons.
So the age of the religions lends it authenticity? Right.
They're all arrogant, because they all claim to be the correct one. Besides they have all been changing and inventing new takes on the same thing. If Mormonism sticks around for 200 more years will it gain greater authenticity? Lol!!! Then why hang gravitas on one of these other hokey Jesus cults just because they are old and were invented before science could explain the gaps in human understanding?
I think you're making excuses. Calvinism, Lutheranism, Protestantism, Christian Fundamentalism, Southern Baptism, Jehovah's Witnessism, Quakerism... they are all someone's take on a presumed, but unproven man-god named Jesus. They were all new once too.
Sure, like Matsu processions never mess up traffic. And religious paraphenalia dangling in the windshield is safe, too.
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