The end of the DPP's problems



A DPP lawmaker symbolically seals the lips of #1 first family gadfly (KMT Lawmaker) Chiu Yi.

Somehow I don't think this will help.

Things that appear in my inbox

In my position as "a just gentleman of intact humanity, and one of the most influential persons in the world," I receive a considerable amount of correspondence from PR firms, from the media realations departments at various corporations and government ministries, and from howling lunatics.

Allow me to quote from a piece of e-mail I received this morning:

"Now, you may have a question: How could an ordinary Taiwan people be elected president of Taiwan in the democratic election if most Taiwan people had been mentally transformed; remodeled and suffering from major type Stockholm Syndrome through 3 generations? The answer is composed of 3 fortunate factors:

First: Jiang’s henchmen are corrupt enough to be intolerably stinky."

I'm going to cut it off there, adding only that the excerpt I've provided comes near the end of e-mail that runs nearly 3500 words.

Wow.

FTA in the deep freeze (ha ha)

Well, I knew that Taiwan was serious about working toward signing a free-trade agreement with the United States. But I didn't realize how serious until I belatedly noticed that among the congressmen pushing hardest for an FTA is William Jefferson, the Lousiana Democrat in whose refrigerator the FBI recently (allegedly) discovered $90,000, evidently what remained from a $100,000 bribe that Jefferson had accepted days earlier from a wire-wearing operative in exchange for Jefferson's influence over some kind of shenanigans in Nigeria. If you're interested in the complex details of the case, go read the Jefferson link above. But in the meantime, I can't help but wonder how much Jefferson charged Taiwan for introducing a pro-FTA resolution on the floor of the House...