All the things we're missing since a fisherman was shot

Dragonflies Damselflies mating.

With the Phils/Taiwan mess ongoing, I bet you've forgotten what you haven't remembered. Wait, let me rephrase that.... Like, what happened to the referendum on the nuclear power plant? One of my friends who is a sharp observer of local politics pointed that out to me.

In the news is the usual food scandals. Imagine, a firm using expired ingredients to produce goods for human consumption, in this case I-mei, which allegedly pumped 9000 kilos of soy protein stuff into 5.76 million packs of cream puffs. The government was also accused of hiding data indicating a common medicinal mushroom is actually bad for you. And Taiwan now has its own version of Breaking Bad: a rogue chemistry teacher making bad food additives...

According to a Taiwanese legislator, a retired high school chemistry teacher has been teaching food factories to make maleic acid, an illegal food additive that can cause kidney damage—a real-world echo of the TV drama “Breaking Bad,” in which a chemistry teacher develops a sideline cooking methamphetamine.

Taiwan issued a recall on Sunday of the Sunright brand of tapioca balls, which are used in bubble tea, after trace amounts of maleic acid were found. The chemical is typically used in non-food products such as glue, paper, artificial resins, and antihistamines.

Taiwan’s Want China Times reported that the retired school teacher, whose surname is Wang, received $16,700 to $33,500 each time he taught factories in Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand to make the chemical.

The gov't announced in the wake of the scandal over the Yoho hotel, which turned out to be maybe illegal, that about 80% of the small hotels and B and Bs in Kenting were operating illegally. Yes, the government promised to tear down hotels that didn't manage to get into compliance or pay fines or whatever. On the other hand, if you're a big developer and put up a huge hotel on a formerly pristine public beach in a manner that suggests words like "cahoots" to describe your relationship with local officialdom, nothing will happen to you. And they say size doesn't matter....

The jobless rate fell slightly to right around 4% last month. However, export orders are torpid, so don't expect much on the employment front.

The gov't, always eager to promote tourism, announced free wifi for tourists who are foreign passport holders. I plan to see if I can sign onto this....

CK Wu of Taiwan is running for president of the International Olympic Committee (hey, a link to ESPN)

Blind Chinese dissident Chen to visit Taiwan. China warns him.

Yes, that's right, even when you miss the news for a week as the Manila-Taipei spat adumbrates all lesser news, no worries, it's still the same news you knew for the last twenty years here: food cheating, illegal buildings and businesses.....
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