Daily Links, March 1, 2010

In Fengyuan the other day, I found this small noodle factory drying its products by the side of the road.

What's hung on the blogs today?

• Drew expounds on the Bicycle and National Identity
• Dignified Rant on the need for F-16s
• Just Recently rounds up information on the recent elections here.
• Frozen Garlic says the new redistricting doesn't make for an unfair KMT advantage in the legislature.
• Taiwan Matters! on the election win for the DPP.
• Taiwan Photographers: Kaohsiung
• J Michael looks at the media coverage of the recent DPP election victories. And don't miss this post on news suppressed at China's request (?).
  
• Youtube: from Sean Su: "On 2/26 a KMT supporter threatened and started rushing March for Taiwan just after they marched from the 2/28 Memorial (for the KMT led massacre on Taiwan). When she fails to suppress freedom of speech, she gets pushed away and calls her 'friend at the Investigative Bureau'."
• Stocks and Politics on DPP victory.
• Letters from Taiwan on ECFA and the politics of fear.
• Michael C on our trip to Vang Vieng with many pics. Laos is a blast -- I can't wait to go back. Michael K with more excellent pics of same.
  
• The Former Native Speaker with notes on the publication of Formosa Betrayed.
• A-gu with excellent coverage of the recent proposals to pump up Chinese history in the curriculum. Speaking of education, the Taipei Education Bureau circulates memo warning on "unhealthy gay social activities". Speaking of unhealthy, how about those school workloads?
  
• Save the Dolphins on the Central Science Park EIA, voided, and that decision now upheld.
  

MEDIA:

• A positive Review of Formosa Betrayed. Rotten Tomatoes has a compilation of largely negative reviews. Jon Adams with the report on the film and the White Terror.
  
• China misread by Bulls and Bears alike (Carnegie Foundation)
• One good thing about the electoral defeats the KMT is suffering: the western media is actually printing negative information about Ma Ying-jeou. However, criticism of ECFA is still untouchable -- negative commentary is always sanitized by framing it as an alternative opposition viewpoint against which ECFA is presented as the default correct position. It is impossible to understand the public's disappointment with Ma without understanding that Ma/KMT China policies are not popular. Note how the Taiwan News' local explanation focuses on ECFA.
  
• How the nuke parts reached Iran through Taiwan.
• Yet another criticism of Taiwan's insane educational workloads. Note the low math scores.
• Heritage calls for F-16s for Taiwan.
• Meeting Taiwan's Defense Needs (Eurasia Review)
• South Korea: same pattern of women, marriage, and birth as Taiwan.
• MOEA plans more meetings on industrial trade policy with China.
• Jewel thief in Taipei 101 case held in Korea.
• It's flower season on Yangmingshan again.
• Land Bank says no construction loans for land over $6 million a ping, market just too overheated.
• The pro-KMT China Post report on the election loss. In this case, the explanation is that the nominated candidates were out of touch scholars. Yet the DPP's Hsinchu candidate appealed to the predominant educated demographic precisely because he has a scholarly background.
• Water shortages expected for after April in southern Taiwan.
• Taiwan's first graduate of VMI, now an officer, busted for tongue kissing male and female subordinates.
  

SPECIAL:

• Why is the public so horribly informed about science? RealClimate points out the awful state of science writing at a major UK paper.
  
• Asia Times with a provocative piece on how the Maldives and Seychelles are sinking themselves.
• Roy Berman on freethinkers in the Philippines.
  

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