Election Expulsions

Bike paths to nowhere: this boondoggle travels along the HSR right of way in Miaoli for a kilometer and then dies. Brilliant.

Sorry about the light blogging, but I am swamped with work.

Well, it's a new year, but same old politics. First, Clara Chou, the talk show host who accused the President of getting under the table money, six million US bucks worth, from the Ting Hsin Group, has been expelled from the KMT. The TT reports:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday denied media personality Clara Chou (周玉蔻) a chance to present herself at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting to appeal against her expulsion from the party.

The Evaluation and Discipline Committee of the party’s Taipei chapter on Tuesday decided to expel Chou from the party, with chapter director Chung Tse-liang (鍾則良) saying that remarks made by Chou during the campaigns leading up to the nine-in-one election on Nov. 29 had damaged the party’s reputation.

Meanwhile, in the now legendary Tainan city council speaker vote, which the DPP lost to the KMT despite having a 29-16 advantage over the KMT, the DPP has expelled the five councilors who voted for the KMT:

The DPP, which has 29 councilors in the 57-seat council, had expected to win the speakership race on Thursday last week, with two of the 11 independents on the council and one Taiwan Solidarity Union councilor allying themselves with the party.
However, DPP candidate Lai Mei-hui (賴美惠) lost to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教) by 26 votes to 29, despite the KMT only having 16 seats.

A DPP investigation into why it lost out in the secret voting despite the KMT holding less than one-third of the council identified Tainan councilors Chen Chao-lai (陳朝來), Tseng Wang Ya-yun (曾王雅雲), Tsai Chiu-lan (蔡秋蘭), Liang Shun-fa (梁順發) and Chuang Yu-chu (莊玉珠) as having gone against the party line.

Prosecutors have already moved to annul the election on the grounds that bribery took place. It's kinda of funny, because it is hard to believe that five DPPers switched sides without bribery. Thus, a KMT victory would stink to high heaven and certainly call attention to itself, but the local KMTers went ahead and spent the millions to do it anyway. I am sure the KMT won all those speaker elections in other places without bribery, because all those independents of course voted their own consciences. Of course! It was only those DPPers in Taiwan who strangely elected to vote for the KMT.

Of course, there's Changhua, where everyone's indicted after every election.

Hello, Lord Raglan: I was in a convenience store this afternoon around 2:30 and the ICRT announcer explained that the reason Disney heroes' fathers/parents are dead is that Walt Disney's mother died in an accident in her home. Facepalm. From Frodo to Spiderman to Simba to Harry Potter to Rose of Titanic, the reason the hero's father is dead is because the hero is the son of the gods. Not because Disney's mom had an accident. Don't they teach Joseph Campbell to undergrads anymore?
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Daily Links:

• Drunk driver kills two in Keelung, had once been jailed for shooting gang boss. Was issued parking permit by city councilor. 
• New Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je is my new hero: now going after illegal rooftop construction.
• Ma's new year's day address promises unicorns and rainbows. 6-3-3! FTAs! 
• Vietnam also takes China to court on South China Sea.
• Beijing has "political difficulties" in wooing Taiwan.
• Tiananmen veteran Wang Dan loses position at Taiwan University when contract is not renewed
• Al Jaz: immigration transforming Islam in Taiwan
• If you're in Taiwan and on Facebook, a very useful group is Taiwan News in English. The list Admins are among the most intelligent, sexy, admirable people I know. 

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