Links and Short Shorts

Who knows what weirdness you'll find on side roads. 

Busy, busy, busy...

• Months after the water park fire, the 15th victim dies. Amazing how the media has protected Presidential Candidate and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu on that one. DPP Candidate Tsai maintains her enormous lead. At below 20% in most polls, Chu is no improvement on Hung Hsiu-chu, the woman he replaced.
  
  It's interesting to look back on the polls from earlier in the year. For example, in April Chu was at 20% against Tsai at 26%, against a hypothetical Ko-Soong ticket. Fortunately that latter ticket never materialized. In May Chu was at 36% against Tsai in Apple Daily and 25% in Liberty Times. In June, at 23%. Once he did not come out, his own party faithful slowly lost faith in him and it's been that way ever since. Recall that there were cries he should step down when Hung was undergoing nomination, since he'd failed to provide the KMT with a viable candidate. What will happen when he is crushed and the KMT loses the legislature?
  
   In April Tsai was like 60-12 against Hung... Hung actually improved a bit once she became candidate. 
• South Korea our fastest growing tourism source. Looking forward to the day when I guide the Wonder Girls  and Girls Generation cycle ride round Taiwan...
• Frozen Garlic goes to a campaign event for Chiang Wan-an, great grandson of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek
• Froze comments on the low poll numbers for the KMT. I am so pessimistic, it is difficult for me to envision the state of the KMT collapse.
• "Foreign Surfers win all the titles at Taiwan Open of Surf". UPDATE: Open of Surfing, my mistake, English still awful. Nope, we don't resent foreigners winning or anything. And love the Chinglish name of the event *sigh* If only the government would consult several of the zillions of foreigners who live and work in Taiwan on such things.
• Prosecutors to appeal ruling in Tinghsin case. If the Appeals Court rules in favor of the prosecutors, then all the arguments that the judge was just ruling according to the evidence go *POOF*. But given who the defendants are, that isn't very likely. I expect the ruling will be upheld. Taiwan Times on the case is translated here says the judge didn't understand the law.
• Cole: The DPP did not mastermind Sino-skepticism. The KMT and China jointly succeeded at that.
• New Bloom: recent scandals and crony capitalism in Taiwan
• Deep Green Taiwan Think Tank says 64% of people say President should say Taiwan is not part of China. Plurality reject 1992 Consensus.
• Former President Lee Teng-hui, perhaps the greatest living Taiwanese, has a minor stroke and is hospitalized. Please stay with us til Jan 16, Dr. Lee.
• Wang Jin-pyng interview: public doesn't trust the legislature. Hey, who's been in charge of the legislature since forever? Oh yeah, Wang. 

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