50 things that make you a better person +1

This is cross posted from Martin Freeberg's Blog

Fifty Things That Make You a Better Person

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

A short time ago The Blog That Nobody Reads put up a list of one hundred things that do not make you a better person. We perceived then, and still maintain today, that the need for the list was present, intense and palpable. People nowadays seem to be grasping at straws, trying to find ways to show their wonderfulness; and the things they do to show off their wonderfulness, overall, do not seem to have beneficial effect.
Frankly, over the years we have come to see this as something of a crisis. We’d even go so far as to say society would be better off if everyone just chucked the whole effort, and contented themselves with regarding all others as a bunch of stinkers, and being seen that way.
We had many thoughts about the ensuing reactions to this list, which we jotted down during vacation. We were most impressed by this: If you measure the response by nose, it seems close to ninety percent of the readers agreed with us. If you measured it by perceived volume, the ratio became reversed. To put it more simply, those who objected to our list objected loudly and forcefully, toward the end of projecting greater numbers in their camp than it seems actually exist. And they seem to be doing this deliberately. It seems they’ve picked out their chosen techniques for demonstrating some cosmetic personal wonderfulness they don’t really have; showing it over and over again, manic-compulsively, takes enough of their energy and they aren’t terribly receptive to having to contend with debates about whether the wonderfulness is genuine or not. Wasn’t part of their plan.
It occurs to me that perhaps there’d be less consternation and contention if alternatives were provided. How can people show off their wonderfulness? My short answer would be: Just stop showing off. After all, if you look to others to confirm that you’re wonderful, and what you’re really after is self-confidence, obviously you’re never going to get there — you have to develop your own internal barometer for your wonderfulness. You need to be sure. You have to get hard-nosed enough that a whole room full of people can tell you you’re wrong about something, and deep down you’ll still know you’re right. You have to measure this independently.
I was not able to come up with a list of a hundred things that really do show you’re a better person. But I did come up with fifty.
1. Run.
2. Walk.
3. Ride a bicycle.
4. Run, walk or ride, just a little bit further than you ever have before. Make records. Break them with new records. Then break those.
5. Read until you find a word you’ve never seen before. Find out what it means. Use it…just once. Then do it all over again.
6. Notice some things about what people do that you’ve not heard of anyone else noticing. Point it out.
7. Donate — anonymously.
8. Open a door for a pretty girl.
9. Open a door for an ugly girl.
10. Teach a child a new skill.
11. Make a list of things to do for your entire day. Cut it off at five. Make a list for the entire week. Cut it off at seven. Make sure each one is all-the-way-done.
12. Make a pot of coffee while your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife is still sleeping. Prepare a cup exactly the way they like it, and bring it to them.
13. Stop an echo.
14. If someone’s working hard to sell you something, and the product makes sense to you, buy it. If it doesn’t, tell them why you aren’t buying. Tell them exactly why. The whole story. Whether you think they can do something about it, or not. Put them in charge of figuring out the next move.
15. Find someone you know who is doing more than their share of the work. Figure out if there’s anything you can do to help. If you can do this, then get it done. If you can’t, ask.
16. If you can see the bartender is one of these workhorses that keeps the whole place from collapsing, and she’s keeping track of what’s going on, taking initiative, but doesn’t enjoy any advancement or seniority from any of this, tip her something crazy. I mean, like 150% percent. Tell her why.
17. If you see a soldier out celebrating his safe return with his girl, motion your waiter over and tell him you’d like to settle the soldier’s bill.
18. If you can do #17 anonymously, do so.
19. If you cannot, give the soldier a great big thank you.
20. Find some arcane political issue you’ve never understood. Read up on it until you do understand it.
21. Always vote down whatever creates a new “civil right” that didn’t exist before, since this would deprive someone of freedom.
22. Also, anything that would nationalize an industry or function that is currently within the private sector. We’ve moved far enough in that direction already.
23. Whatever would make litigation more plentiful or likely, because hey, who really wants to live in a world like that.
24. Everything that would make it more difficult or impractical to start, buy or manage a business; if the thing we want is a stronger economy, then let’s start working toward that.
25. Find out who is responsible for the proposed laws that fit #21, #22, #23 and #24, and vote them out of office. Something tells me they don’t really want to be working at anything anyway.
26. Always give kids the bigger picture. If you’re watching a thirty year old television show with a twelve-year-old, explain Watergate and Nadia Comaneci, so he knows why bad guys had to wear business suits and good guys had to rescue Russian gymnasts who were trying to escape bad guys in nice business suits.
27. Completely sidestep it when a liberal veers off the subject of the argument, and starts evaluating your worthiness as a person. Just come out and tell him: Yes, maybe I’m a creep, but back to the subject at hand…your idea won’t work. Keep doing it.
28. Grab the grocery cart that jerk has let loose in in the middle of the parking lot; use it as yours if you’re looking for one, otherwise put it where it belongs.
29. Pick up litter.
30. On a rainy day, hold your umbrella over the head of a woman who forgot to bring hers.
31. If you know an old person who is living independently, see what you can do about delivering their groceries.
32. Take lots of pictures.
33. Show them to people.
34. Put them on the Internet, if that’s appropriate…
35. Having your life at the mercy of a complex piece of machinery is a privilege and an opportunity, not a problem or a burden. If your home computer does things you don’t understand, find out what those things are and figure out how they work.
36. If you’re told the rules say you can’t do it, take the time to find out what rule that is. Make them tell you.
37. Better yet: Call back, get a different person on the line, find out if they’ve ever heard of this rule, and if that really makes it impossible.
38. Even better still: Find out what it takes to change the rule. People who lack this vision, shouldn’t have control over the people who have it.
39. If you gave someone some money because they needed it, and a very short time later they need more, find out why.
40. If someone is angry and you have the opportunity to mollify them by doing something, remember Thing I Know #52. Put some real thought into maybe letting them stay as angry as they want to be.
41. Usually when people are unwilling to consider clearly superior alternatives, it’s because they don’t have a full reckoning of the consequences of what they want to do. This is especially true if they refuse to allow anyone else to get a word in edgewise. See what you can do about letting them feel the full weight of the consequences, you might be doing them a favor.
42. Combine your bill-paying into your exercise routine.
43. Project what day your bills are due, with what day-of-week that is. Plan it out three months in advance, and see if you can pay every single bill a little bit early.
44. Browse a store that sells fine, reliable tools. Then browse your home looking for something that doesn’t work quite right. Repeat, and repeat again, until you can define an inexpensive project that will improve things. Then do it. Keep doing this. Think creatively. Build things that work for you, regardless of whether they’d be right for anybody else.
45. Follow objectives, not procedures. If there is a list of steps in your life that you have to follow, take the time to learn about each step until the list itself comes to mean nothing. See if you can learn enough to improve the list.
46. If the teevee show is put on the teevee to indoctrinate, rather than to entertain, change the channel.
47. If the school’s special activity is there to indoctrinate rather than to educate, pull your child out of it.
48. This one is for my blogger friend Daphne, who is currently stressing (although I’m sure she doesn’t really need to be told): Don’t keep your kids away from dangerous things. Put together a list of safety rules; make sure it is right. Triple check it. Make sure they understand all of the rules and competently practice them. Then let ‘em go do it.
49. Find something people had to know how to do, back in your grandparents’ time, that they don’t have to know how to do today. Figure out how to do it. Even better, figure this out with your kids.
50. Find someone who wants, desperately, to be wonderful; point out to them the things they have already done that are genuinely wonderful, and make sure they know they are admired for this. Maybe you can stop them from supporting liberals.

51. Learn to tell the difference between opinion and principle and base you decisions upon principle

Thanks Martin for a great list

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who will cross post

Up for air

This has been an incredible month for being busy.

Hopefully I'll be able to post more. It isn't as if there has been nothing to write about, there has been pleanty. I've just been too tied and tied up to say anything.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao

Some General Information

I received a rather strident, but not unexpected comment from someone regarding a previous post on the problematic behavior of domestic helper picnics on the sidewalks in Hong Kong. It started with the rather predictable. "These women are treated like slaves"

Two words: B.S.

They are not slaves. Nobody forced them onto a slave ship. They were not "Sold" at a market and they can quit any time they want. At the end of a two year contract the employer has to pay their way back home. They often quit in the middle of a contract and either return to where they came from or find another employer in Hong Kong. They have garanteed days off and holidays. None of those things are rights that slaves have.

More than that, domestic helpers are not particularly low paid by Hong Kong standards.

Domestic helpers in Hong Kong have a higher actual salary, when you include their benefits and more days off than many of the locals in Hong Kong.

The commentor says "I don't believe that!" Well let us add it up: Domestic Helpers make about $3500 Hong Kong dollars a month in basic salary. All of that is disposable income because they are provided room and board and you have to look at the cost of that as well in figuring their salary. How much is that worth? Well a small room with a shared bathroom and some kitchen privileges in Causeway Bay is about $2500 a month. Figure that food cost the average low wage earner in Hong Kong about $50.00 a day assuming they do not eat out. Maids have to have an insurance policy provided for them by the employer; which cost about $500.00 a month. They are provided airfare home once a year which must be figured into their income. When all of this is put into the total, a maid in Hong Kong actually has a life style closer to a local person making about $8000.00 a month. They don't work more hours than many other professions like security guards or those in food-service or hotels, indeed even most rather high-dollar jobs here require lots of hours. So, let us assume a maid is on duty 12 hours a day, six days a week. That comes to 72 hours a week and 288 hours a month or about the average for a job in Hong Kong. $8000 a month divided by 288 is about 28 dollars an hour. Lots of people in Hong Kong do not make that much. Please notice, my wife and I looked at hiring a maid and this is how I know these figures.

Now are some, possible a high percentage of the maids done hard by their employers? Yes, certainly. Does that mean that all employers treat them poorly? No, it doesn't.

However, whether the domestic helpers are treated badly by their employers our not is irrelevant to my point. They maids I complained about were having a picnic on a pedestrian bridge that was over a busy street. The police will not let pedestrians block that bridge for other purposes, we can they? If it is a traffic hazard for the normal population to do this then it is a traffic hazard for domestic helpers to do so as well. Their working conditions have nothing to do with it.

If the other low income workers in Hong Kong cannot picnic on the sidewalk then the domestic helpers should not be allowed to either. I would bet that the person making the comment drives a car, and thus does not have to walk over the maids.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger without a maid

Would that it were so here

This is a message that the HK government needs to hear as well.

Dogs in Space

Did they have melamine in the milk powder?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who does not eat dogs

Move over Nancy!

I have a new favorite female offender, Leung Sin-ting. I have some sympathy for her in a sense though not very much. She was, I think totally and certifiably nuts but I am not sure that nuttiness should exonerate her of this crime.

What is interesting to me about the horrific crime is the role that culture (Notice I didn't say society) plays in mental illness? If this woman had lived in a culture where a married woman who has problems conceiving a child receives a bit of sympathy rather than being scorned by her inlaws and where adoption is considered a noble option would she have felt pressured to do this? 

While having some sympathy for this woman I am still angered by the fact that it appears in Hong Kong a "Guilty Plea" almost always receives a reduced sentence. Suppose this woman had actually been innocent but through a bad lawyer, lazy judge or poor police work been wrongfully found guilty? Suppose she had pleaded innocent because she was innocent and been found guilty by mistake? The judge would have given her far more jail time. That means the justice system here is actually unjust because it penalized plaintiff that plead "Not Guilty" assuming, I guess that they are liars. It just bothers me but then what should I expect from a legal system patterned off a country with no "Bill of Rights" and not written constitution that limits the scope and power of government?

I could write more but it would be politically incorrect.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who hopes he never has to go before a judge in Hong Kong

The Rule of Law and Domestic Helpers

My wife and I spent time on the telephone with the Hong Kong police today. My tolerance with the passive-aggressive herds of domestic helper buffaloes that are allowed to flagrantly disobey the loitering laws; sell merchandise in direct violation of their employment contracts; block sidewalks and generally make life Hell for the residents of Causeway Bay every Sunday reached a breaking point when a group of them had a the pedestrian footbridge near the Rosedale Hotel completely blocked at one end. There is no ground level crossing at this point and the bridge is over a very busy street.


The only thing that really makes me angrier about this situation is the fact that so many local Hong Kongers put up with it. When the police officer came the shit-assed-coward of an officer refused to up hold the law and make them leave; despite the fact that this activity is a potential traffic hazard. Suppose one of these women had dropped a water bottle onto the road below that landed on an automobiles windshield? Suppose that caused a traffic accident and a child or pedestrian was killed?


So the police are more afraid of offending a group of domestic helpers than upholding the law? This is a blatant form of corruption in that the police are treating one group of citizen in an unequal manner before the law. Why are the maids allowed to break the law and I am not?I can guarantee the reader that If I had a picnic on that bridge with my kids on a weekday the police would ask me to pack up and leave.


The officer complained about being a low level person, with no authority, and nobody had complained about this before. He wouldn’t even ask them politely to leave or relocate but simply talked to them. The Hong Kong police are cowards. Criminals, commit your crimes brazenly and as long as they don’t affect the property developers or THBT’s lunch then you can be as criminal as you want to be with impunity because you now a full proof legal defense.


That defense is that if the police know that the law is being flagrantly and habitually broken by a large number of people and refuse to take steps to see that the law is actually enforced then they have lost the legal authority to enforce any part of the law; more than that they have lost any legal standing to stop otherwise law abiding citizens from taking the law into their own hands over this situation. 

Notice, this is very different from a unique event like a riot where some of the rioters get away. This is simply domestic helpers, in large numbers, breaking the law with impunity every Sunday and Holiday. Because a report was filed, illegal activity was observed as being illegal and noted but no action taken and indeed, it was clearly stated that no action will be taken, I as the citizen have no legal recourse but to take the law into my own hands. That does not mean I will but I legally could.

The actions of the police today in Causeway Bay have legally justified vigilantism against the women who break the law every Sunday.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who refuses to hire a maid

Civility and Manners

The article linked to above is a good example of why kids should play sports. The unwritten rules in any sport are often as  important as the written ones. They also bleed over in a positive way into the rest of the players life and help to explain why geeks and over protected kids are often so rude. The unwritten rules help the player, child, student, adult internalize the concept of fair play, respect and graciousness. These are lessons that a strictly academic education is often woefully lacking in.

I see rather prominent educational initiatives both at the school I work at and in other international schools that deal with ethical education.  These often look to be rather simplistic and trite to me and deal with everything from running in halls to anti-bully programs. I don't see them as being all that effective.

You see the same problem, I believe in places like Thailand with the endless political protest, The Red-shirts and Yellow Shirts need to learn to wait for the next election. The HK leg-co and PCCCPXYZ!@#SARB or whatever that thing in the PRC is called needs to learn some respect for the opposition,

Maybe, schools simply need to require less math but more baseball.

Play Ball! Double Header anyone?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who wanted to be a knuckleball pitcher when he was a teenager, just like Charlie Hough

The case against a Capital Gains Tax

Hong Kong does not have a Capital Gains tax or a VAT tax. The lack of those two taxes, I believe go a long way towards explaining why Hong Kong is prosperous DESPITE the incompetent government officials.

Here is a good  overview of a Capital Gains tax and why it is a bad idea.





Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger does not support a Capital Gains or VAT tax

Why I am enlarging my carbon foorprint

Robyn makes a wonderful point.

The rub for me is that the environmental movement majors in minors. How much pressure did the environmental movement in Hong Kong put on the government to force stores to stop using plastic bags? This despite the FACT that it was the environmental movement in the 1980's that forced stores to use plastic bags because they were more environmentally friendly than paper bags!

I bring this up today because CLP has a truck parked in the garage downstairs that has display inside the back detailing how environmentally friendly they are. This is the company that has absolutely NO as in zero, Nada, zilch filters on its smoke stakes to remove sulphur dioxide, carbon-monoxide or particulates. CLP and Hong Kong Electric are the largest polluters in Hong Kong.

Robyn is correct. the green movement isn't about saving the planet, it is about control. Government control of what I eat, where I live and my ability to voice dissent. That is a shame because there are certainly problems with pollution that need to be addressed and that could be solved. Unfortunately, they can't be solved by bowing down to the false green goddess Gaia.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who has a smaller carbon footprint than most people who actually believe in AGW

Let's Name Some Things

The definitions below are my reply to a post by Morgan Freeberg's about definitions for various phenomenon:

1. Womynism: That branch of feminism that seeks to divide privilege from responsibility, so that all gender disparities having to do with privilege can be ended, but disparities dealing with responsibility can endure indefinitely.

2. Pan-Gaism: Those of any religious affiliation that seek to win converts through fear and threats, by linking random disasters to the vengeance of an angry, spurned God.

3. Idolatry: Excessive adoration for a public figure based not on the sensibilities of his ideas, or their likely success, but rather on the uneducated perception that he would be a close and dear friend if only his acquaintance could be made somehow.

4. Locutionism: Pronouncing oneself to be the champion of a debate after having deployed nothing but “zingers.”

5. Chamberlainism: The mistaken belief that war must be caused by those who show the temerity to acknowledge it is coming, or to respond to its arrival, or to prepare for its arrival, or to enlist for the purpose of responding to it.

6. Qualitative Research: Making horrible ideas look like possibly-good ideas, by socially stigmatizing their opposites.

7. Sustainable: When an awful idea of yours is put to a test, and fails, behaving as if history began the day after that test; conveniently forgetting about any & all occasions on which the idea has been exposed as a miserable failure.

8. Relativism: Insisting that secular people like you are just as moral as religious people, and then defining morality according to your own personal likes and dislikes — how else could it be done? — completely missing the irony.

9. Noblisobligism: The notion held by certain people “at the top” of a structure of money, power or prestige, that people beneath this level should be forced to cope with limits that don’t apply up there. Hypocrisy coupled-up with a sense of elitism.

10. Entitlementism: Angry people show off their anger. Say they’re angry because they don’t have stuff. The other people get them whatever it is they want. The angry people stay angry as if they were never given the stuff, even though they were.

Here are some new terms for Hong Kong
 
1. Peakism: The idea that those who live in high(er) dollar neighborhoods that were formerly reserved for the British overlords are somehow smarter than the average Hong Konger and deserve to rule, reign and lord over the rest of us simply because they live up there.
 
2. Polivolumism: The way that the interior size of flats is inflated by property developers in Hong Kong
 
3. Running-Dogism: Regina Ip's exercise program.
 
4. Deitism: The attitude displayed by Hong Kong Civil (un)Servants who clearly believe they are God Almighty or at least His favorite drinking buddy. 
 
5. Red Shirtism:  The policies of the DAB
 
6. Lookatmeiamaslutism: The real reason Christina Chan tries to stage protest that get her face on TV.
 
7. Helpliosity: The stated reason that legco members cannot accomplish anything
 
8. Parity: The wage scale that provides Hong Kong (un)Civil Servants with salaries and benefits equal to 6 to 8 times what they would make in the same job if it were not in the government and gives them lifetime employment regardless of how incompetent they are.
 
9. Dim-Sum: Grease, rice flour, chicken feet, tripe, parts of fish that are not normally eaten and some unidentifiable goo.
 
10. Legco: A dog and pony show


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger Who like things well defined

There is an interesting post today at “The House of Erathothenes” about freedom. It is actually a link more than a post but the article it link’s to is interesting. It presents a very clear and well written summary of the Objectivist definition of freedom which the objectivism claims begin with property rights. There is a lot to like in the article and on many levels I find myself agreeing with the Objectivist in day to day matters. Except that its premise is wrong.

The foundation of all other freedoms is not the right to property as the Objectivist claim. I believe that because the foundation of the argument is wrong the entire argument is, in fact ultimately wrong. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t some truth in the argument just that ultimately the argument will fail to provide a satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon it is justifying because it is built one level too high in the logical chain. The Objectivist’s believe that there is only this life and then you die. Thus, what you do while you breathe is of utmost importance. Goodness or virtue is only a means to an end, greater material happiness.

Another novelist, like Ayn Rand who had philosophic pretensions was George Orwell; he came closer to the truth in his book, 1984 when Winston Smith says that “The basis of freedom is the ability to say that 2+2=4.” This gets closer to the root of what freedom is. Indeed, it is close enough that if George were here talking to me he could perhaps convince me that the difference is a simple matter of semantics; but, in philosophy, perhaps more so than any other field, word choice is often extremely important. It isn’t the ability to a say that 2+2=4 that makes you free, it is the ability to not believe that 2+2=4 that makes you free.

The essence of freedom is the ability to believe or not believe anything of your own freewill. It is even the right to not believe in freewill. It is this ability to accept or repudiate any statement without fear of undue coercion or force, the ability to imagine the world in a different way. It is this that makes us as free. This is a freedom that we, as humans are born with. You may argue that it is given to us by a deity or something we have attained by an evolutionary process but this is the fount of freedom, to say “No!” or to say “Yes!” It has nothing to do with living, dying the pursuit of happiness or property. The proof of this is that the Objectivist, the Communist or the three-year old can look at me and say “I don’t believe that is so.” The very act of refuting freedom affirms it. I am free because I can always say “No” even if someone kills me for it. There is no other or greater freedom than this and cannot be. It is a linguistic and moral impossibility. “Cogito ergo sum” is not only a declaration of sentience but of freedom. I am free because I think, imagine and consider.

If I believe that there is more to life than piling up things, or comfortable chairs, fast cars, hot women and cigars then freedom takes on a different tint. If I believe that life does not end at death then the ability of persons or the state to end this life becomes less important. Freedom in that case becomes not a means to an end but something Holy, a gift from God or the highest goal of evolution. It is freedom not things that gives me dignity. And it is freedom defines me as human.

Where I agree, in a sense with the Objectivist is that I believe humans, at least most humans, trade absolute freedom for convenience and safety. I give up my freedom play loud music because in doing so my neighbor then gives up his right to boil sulfur in his living room. My music bothers him and the sulfuric fumes bother me. But each of us realizes that it is in each others interest to limit our more extreme desires in order to live near each other and obtain the benefit of each others expertise. This is the essence of the Social Contract. When it becomes a larger group than simply my neighbour and I we have a government.

What is important is that a government should realize the choices it asked individuals to relinquish are, in a very real sense, the only thing that they own. That is a major reason why as society has developed (Notice I didn’t say advanced) humans have come to see the efficacy of a representative government. If a government marginalizes the individual choices that have been sacrificed for its existence then that government has become oppressive and evil.

The real reason that the government in the PRC is evil is that the party attempts to deny the individual the choice on how they re governed. The whole “Harmonious Society” slogan is an affront to freedom because they are asking in a none too subtle manner, for me to relinquish my right to say “No.” The reason that functional constituencies in Hong Kong are evil is that they bypass the voices that say No in favour of pro-government voices that say “Yes.” The tyrants are in a sense in complete agreement with Ayn Rand. I may own my home, my car and furniture. I may move to wherever I can afford. I may pile up possessions until the floor in flat sags and I have more wealth than I can count; but I still might not be free because as long as the government says “I give you these rights to life liberty and the pursuit dim-sum” but reserves the ability to take those choices away from me then I have given up my right to be free and am only a slave in a gilded cage.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is fond of saying "no"

Home with the Armadillo?

There are times of year that I miss the prairies. Spring on the prairie is like fall in the mountains. It is the time when nature shows off.


Today is homesick day. I can't really say why. It isn't family I miss, or people it is the land and sky, the dirt, the smell of the plants, the silent ghost that walk the roads of our memory. I despise the crowds today. There is no comfort in the relative solitude of the flat in Causeway Bay. I miss miles of nothing. I have an unfulfillable longing for a '67 Mustang with a 289 and a 4-speed, no AC and three-hundred-and-fifty-miles of empty high-way. There is a freedom in solitude that is impossible to capture in Hong Kong.

I am reminded of the British Physicist, I think his name was Fuch who was a closet communist and defected to the USSR in the late 1940's. He returned to the UK several years later even though it meant spending the rest of his life in jail. When asked "Why?" he said; "I've beed a communist since I was 18 but I was born and Englishman."

I live in Hong Kong. It is my home and probably will be for the rest of my life. But there are days I wish I were somewhere else. This is one of those days. Today, I wish I were in Texas.






Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who'd really appreciate a Lone Star Beer right about now.

Allegorical Nose back on the Alligorical Grind Stone

I've been on a haitus from this blog for a while. I had a daughter get married over the Easter break had lots to do when I came back.  I guess I should feel relieved that I no longer have to complain about the no-good-lay-about boyfriend.

Personal issues aside, The SCMP has a story today about some shoe-polish hair dye guy from up North making a proposal about the electorial process here in the Land of the rising Air-Pollution. It doesn't look like a very good proposal but at least the Mandarin are trying so I'll not be too mean,

I'll write more tomorrow

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The out of practice blogger

Cyber-attack on U.S. firms, Google traced to Chinese

And the PRC is going to put several Rio Tinto employees in jail for asking the executives of Chinese steel makers how much they could produce?


Geez, I thought this level of hypocrisy only occurred in Barak Obama's administration. I guess it just goes to show you that the political left is corrupt regardless of continent.

I was also wondering today how long it will be before we get letters in the SCMP that say the pollution from the sand storms in China are caused by Global Warming rather than poor agricultural practices? Maybe I should look, they are probably already there.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who does not work for Rio Tinto

Google shuts up shop in China in row over state censorship

I am not a fan of Google. They scare me with their reach and ability to monopolize the flow of information. But, good for them on this issue!

This is a move more companies should make. And yes, it just means that it is harder for the citizens of the PRC to get actual information and not Baidu propaganda. However, the situation will never change until the people in China want it to change. If it gets so that the business in China cannot access their customers or markets then the government will have relax the censorship rules.

Rio Tinto should say: "Sorry President Hu, asking about the production capacity of a private company is not a matter of national security and isn’t spying. If you are going to arrest our employees for asking basic business questions then we won't play. Mine your own iron ore from your own damn mine; assuming you can keep them from caving in.

I don't think the Chinese realize how evil they look to most people who are not from China. It isn't just the government. The Chinese are the only people I know of who will enslave their others of their own nationality. If you go into a large Chinese restaurant in the US or Europe then employees who are not family members are illegal’s who live in dormitories and are paid less than 1/2 minimum wage. I grew up in an area of Texas that was heavily Hispanic. The local Hispanics didn't hire "Wet-backs" and generally despised them as being the criminal element of Mexican society. However, they didn't go out of their way to enslave them either. We did hire migrant workers, often Hispanics to help on the farm but we didn't treat them as slaves. The propensity of the Chinese to take advantage of other Chinese is absolutely astounding.

The stereotype of the Ugly American tourist is often over played but has some at least mythological basis in actual behavior. The ugly Chinese has overtaken the US in this area. Not even other Chinese like the mainland tourist. They'll take their money but are glad when they leave. Hong Kongers used to snicker at the boys from up North. They were naive and innocent country bumpkins. Now they all dress like gangsters, smoke like freight trains and spit and curse and go out of their way to insult and throw their money around.

Notice, I believe that the corruption in the government goes hand in hand with the corruption of the individual. The PRC will never clean up the corruption in the government until it cleans up the corruption in its society.

I think I will go make a search using Google and click on a couple of adds.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who still thinks that in 15 years the PRC will be freer tha Obama's US

King of the Wild Frontier

Fes Parker died yesterday at 85.

I had the hat. I had the toy musket.

There are days I just feel really old

RIP Davey Crocket
RIP Daniel Boone

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who knows that Daniel Boone was a man, yes a real man

A Classical Liberal

I've struggling to post of late because I get tired of complaining. It is more fun to bang my head on the table than it is to continually recite the list of problems with the PRC or the Hong Kong real state market. I have really try to look for more positive things to write about but sometimes it is just so hard. I've even thought about becoming a poet and filling this space with silly sonnets or bawdy lymricks.

I actually wrote this post as a comment on the Strat-Sphere blog and I thought would fit as a post here as well, if for no other reason than I took quite a bit of time to write the comment. There is an on going conversation at that blog as to what it means to be a political Centrist. This is actually an important issue because one of the common mistakes in identifying political ideology is to use a term but fail to see how the definition of the term has changed. No where is this more evident than politics. The word Centrist does not mean today what it meant 100 years ago. But more than that, what does it mean to govern from the center? What do I mean when I say that I consider myself a Centrist?

Here is how I define a Centrist.
1. A Centrist is someone that I might disagree with on any of several issues but is willing to work at resolving those issues in a legal manner.

2. A Centrist is someone who believes in the rule of law. This is, for example the real problem with the abortion issue. Not that the moral components of the problem are not a problem but that liberals used the courts to short-circuit the system of creating laws.

3. A Centrist is someone who believes broadly in individual freedom but also in individual responsibility. There should be consequences for your actions, deeds and beliefs. This is not just a law enforcement issue though crime and punishment play a big part in it. I think one of the reasons you see such flagrantly goofy individuals in places like the UK and Japan is because of the nanny state. You can be a loser who dresses up like a vampire or ragdoll and not starve. If those places did not tacitly encourage that type of behavior by not requiring idiots to work for a living they wouldn’t dress like that.

4. A Centrist does not use inordinate amounts of coercion in dealing with others. This means that a Centrist believes that that law should be limited in scope and developed with the consent of the greater community. In other words, laws are public entities and morals are private entities. Obviously there is some fuzziness around the edges on this point. I may not support homosexuality. But as long as that Gay man isn’t recruiting my children it is his right to be wrong in my eyes. This same rule applies to people who practice various religions or hobbies I am not fond of. I allow them to do their thing because they allow me to do mine. I am free to convert them and they free to evangelize me. That does not mean I believe all such activities are equally valid or true.

5. A Centrist is someone who realizes that they might not always have all the answers. That is what is so frustrating about the left. They can never seem to learn from their mistakes. It does not matter how often a welfare system fails they think they can make it work. The far right is just as bad because they believe they are speaking for God and that their words are inerrant.

6. A Centrist is someone that believes that while there are times that government must step in there are many other times when the government overtly or inadvertently becomes an oppressor that severely limits personal freedom. As P.J. O’Rourke said: “I don’t want government that works; I want it to stop working.”

7. A Centrist does not believe in the perfectibility of humanity through human means. We are never going to solve all the problems sometimes we just do the best we can. But, we can keep from making things worse

In short; a Centrist is, someone who if possible works within the law and believes in the rule of law and that all citizens are equal before the law, believes in both personal liberty and personal responsibility, avoids the use of political coercion, does not believe they have all they answers, believes that excessive government leads to tyranny so government should be limited, and does not believe that all problems are solvable by government action.

A.J. Strata added:
And a centrist is a skeptic who thinks for themselves. Make a sound argument, don’t demand blind allegiance!

At times I appear to be far away from the political center in Hong Kong. However, that is because our government here is so steeped in authoritarianism that that it makes me look a revolutionary. Maybe if I look like one here I am.

In any event, a positive post. There is hope for me yet!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who stands on the white line in the middle of the road

Superbugs in HK Hospitals bug me

I am not a big fan of government hospitals and the ones here deserve my scorn more than many I've seen. I bring this up because there is a front-page, above the fold article today in the nearly always unreliable SCMP about the growing problem of antibiotic resistant bacterial in Hong Kong Hospitals. I will give the SCMP the benefit of the doubt on this story because the issue is easy enough for a student with mental disabilities, such as journalist to understand.

Unlike a lot of ex-pats I do not make enough money to use the private hospitals here. I must use the public ones. So I have had the opportunity to use the services of the public hospitals in Hong Kong on more than one occasion and can verify the claims made by the paper from my own experience. They are dirty, the care is lousy and the staff generally un caring.

A case in point: Several weeks ago the really-pretty-very smart-hard working-looks 25 years younger than she is- Chinese-wife got sick. She was dehydrated from a mild case of food poisoning and fell in the bathroom after passing out. I carried her back to bed and called an ambulance to take her the emergency room. We then spent several hours in the emergency room while they gave her fluid through an IV and something to ease the other symptoms she was experiencing. Despite the professionalism of some of the staff it was a thoroughly un-enjoyable experience for reasons other than her sickness. I was impressed by how dirty and ragged Ruttongee hospital looked when we were there.

The equipment was in poor mechanical shape.

The walls were painted a very dingy color making the entire place seem depressing.

There was a dirty old woman, apparently a street sleeper who was roaming from bed to bed taking naps; I mean she was absolutely filthy. Yet, as far as I can tell nobody on the hospital staff asked her to leave or at least stay in one place.

There was also a small group of staff standing around talking. Maybe they were off work so I can't say they were goofing off but their conversation was intriguing. One of them had just managed to join the ranks of civil servants who work for the hospital. They were quizzing another such employee on ways to defraud the system, receive extra benefits and milk more money for less work. In a sense I can't blame them as they are simply part of the system.

That is the point; it is the system that is wrong. Socialized health care always seems to mean poor service, uncaring staff and prices not noticeably lower than could be obtained through private care. At least it appears to everywhere it is tried. Honestly, the trip was only worth HKD $100.00 because we had to endure crazy old woman, slow service, a bed that wouldn't work right and loud uncaring cleaning staff. The problem is we actually pay much more than that for this service through taxes. If I am going to pay the taxes that would provide me with an at least 2nd class hospitalization policy I want at least 2nd class service.

So, the cry is raised yet again. Fire some civil servants. Don't reduce the pay of the ones entering the system Fire the higher ups that make 80gazzillon a month for doing nothing except eating dim sum.

How about this? Rather than pushing paper all day how about some of the hoity-toits get out of the fancy office and come wipe down some surfaces in the hospitals they administrate. How about making the high level administrators USE the hospitals they run? I guarantee that if THBT had to take his wife to Ruttongee he'd be expecting better care than we received.

Until Next Time

Fai Mao

The Blogger who wants to see an antibiotic that kills civil servants

I had a friend who used to drop acid.

Unfortunately a drug using friend is not the same as this guy.

I find it amazing that the response for this serial thug is so silly. They install security cameras AFTER an attack is made when the attacks are never made in the same location. What exactly do they hope to see?

How about this.
Require purchasers of this type of material to show an HK ID and have the store record the ID and then subnitt the ID number and the date of purchase to the relevant government agency? Then at least the sleaze would have have to sneak the stuff accross the border. Tracking the purchases would narrow the field of suspects down from 7 million to at most a few hundred that the police had to think about questioning.

Not a perfect solution but better than what is being done now. I doubt that legiimate contractors and those with a commerial need for acid would mind this, I can not see how it would cost more than all the cameras and would have a better chance of catching a creep. It would also have fewer privacy issues

Logic, it isn't something taught at HKU, at least not in the subjects the civil servants major in.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The non-acid dropping blogger