Found this Taiwan government Chinglish fail in my Gmail ads: "Interesting" in Taiwan? Aargh. There are thousands of native speakers who work for the government who could easily correct fails like this.

August. Even in the heat and rain, plenty of stuff happening.

BLOGS:

• An excellent post on the Taiwan HSR at DKOS says it may soon turn a profit.
• Chinese perceptions of Taiwan from Sinocentric.
• CNN says Kaohsiung #3 city for cycling in Asia.
• Students ask for more rights in Taiwan's colleges
• Stocks and Politics on Sen. Patty Murray's visit to China
• Brian Dunn rips China invasion assessment idiocy.
• 250,000 Facebookers against inadequate sentence
• Is Taiwan whitewashing Sino-Tibetan history?
• Lawyer and immigrant Robin Winkler with a piece on rule of law in Taiwan
• Jerome on Ma-speak
• Laowiseass on the fashions of fear: conformism in bicycle masking.
  

MEDIA:

• AP on the cats of the old coal town of Houtong.
• Taiwan painters and Taiwan identity from Jon Adams at Global Post
• Ma moves to restore KMT control over the judiciary with the appointment of crony to key post.
• Commonwealth Mag on the new personal data act: a minefield.
• Sex selection practices in Taiwan's clinics are illegal: DOH
• White Knight to save AIG from Chinese money.
• Indian Defence Review on China's core interests.
• Taiwan to set up marine park over fishermen's objections.
• Cram school scandals. The miracle is that they were caught....
• New analysis in Hsichih Trio case may exonerate them. Finally!
• Qualcomm mulls R&D unit in Taiwan
• Taipei housing crunch: people now searching for homes where murders occurred.
• Beijing whines, pees on floor, snarls at US over radar sale.
• No kidding: another college football player named Taiwan.
• China stages own exercises in Yellow Sea to match US
• Japanese forces stage island re-taking assault. Hint, hint, China.
• Taiwan What's Up out.
  

_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Yet another Taiwan government-sponsored food contest. *sigh* Is the choice of food political? Outdoor activities are likely to create environmentalism, which businessmen hate, while local history and culture are anathema to the KMT.

Anyway, what's on the blogs?

BLOG:

• Drew rips Giant's new marketing to women concept as sexist and essentializing. Not to mention stoopid. Just consider Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan: hot chicks on hot bikes. Giant, you suck! Drew also has an awesome one on biking and the future.
  
• J Michael on the re-opening of the question of subs for Taiwan
• Is there a middle ground between annexation and independence? Stephen Nelson thinks not.
• More land purchases to save the Changhua wetlands.
• Dixteel says DPP needs more military experts.
• Cremation site for 1895 battle dead in Keelung
• Taichung area MAAG from the 1960s and 70s.
• Time to address driving standards
• China and US debt at the Peking Duck
• Taiwan Link on Obama denying me my F-16s! We're never going to get them, and I doubt that the Ma Administration even wants them. It's all just a minuet....
  
• Taoyuan Airport to institute food review. Finally.
• Mutant Frog on George Psalmanzar, the fraud of formosa
  

MEDIA:

• China's dam diplomacy: "At the turn of the 21st century, 22,000 of the world’s 45,000 large dams spanned Chinese rivers. Between 1949 and 2000 in China, construction of large dams proceeded at a rate of more than one per day."
• AU Optronics CEO cannot leave the US due to price-fixing investigation.
  
• Taiwan News on the new Sun Yat Sen film and democracy
• New national health insurance system to get vote in Dec
• In 2010, foreign laborers run away at a rate of 1,000 per month.
  
• China and the Commons
• Time to end US ambiguity on whether it will defend Taiwan?
  
• China: Playing our game.
• Fourth nuke plan draws fine.
  
• Japanese ammo dumps in Penghu to be named historic sites.
  
• The ROC government makes another stupid claim to the Senkakus.
  
• The NCCU prediction markets on the municipal elections: Taipei：http://xfuture.org/cda_ trade_chart/multiline_chart_ data/1807, Xinbei: http://xfuture.org/cda_ trade_chart/multiline_chart_ data/1808, The Chung: http://xfuture.org/cda_ trade_chart/multiline_chart_ data/1809 Tainan: http://xfuture.org/cda_ trade_chart/multiline_chart_ data/1810 Kaohsiung: http://xfuture.org/cda_ trade_chart/multiline_chart_ data/1811
• 2010 DOD report on China
• Some light reading of papers on cross-strait relations at the EU-China and the Taiwan question conference.
• Jamestown Brief has more light reading on PLA hawks vs doves, and on China-Syria-US.
• Taiwan News rips Cross-Strait Economic and Cultural Forum
• China now buying Asian debt
• A Golden Period ahead for Taiwan, says Robert Cutler in Asia Times.

_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

The Suhua Highway and the sea-cliffs of eastern Taiwan, seen from the train.

Apologies in advance -- I left a long post below this one because it is likely I won't be posting for the remainder of this week. Please be patient with comments since I won't get around to them for a couple of days. In the meantime I'll leave you with plenty of links to explore below this one.....

BLOGS:

• Drew does 91 miles in Miaoli and Taichung
• A DPP political ad that is based on Hong Kong runs in Taiwan.
• Paul Katz looks at Hsiaolin one year after the disaster
• Dear Premier Wu, please stop calling people "idiot"
• Sponge Bear on Chunghsing Village
• Big in Asia takes lovely pics.
• Nascent Liner Notes goes back to Sanjih
• In Taiwan, you will need these winning strategies for rock paper scissors.
• Snarky Tofu leaves Taiwan.
• The 9/21 Earthquake museum, one of the best local museums on the island.
• F Varga hosts a great TT cartoon
• Wandering Taiwan with great pics of one of Taiwan's most eerie terrains, the salt flats of Beimen.
• Fili on the Fulong sand sculture festival
• AsiaEye with little noticed news links
• Save the Dolphins on the police and protesters
• Researcher wants to interview people about the Cold War days in Taiwan
• My Kafkaesque life with an exuberant post on Taipei that made even a confirmed Taipei-hater like me reconsider.
  

MEDIA:

• The legislature is going to hold an extraordinary session on ECFA. KMT news says that DPP and KMT views of how to approve the treaty clash.
• Yang Chiu-hsing's independent run in Kaohsiung is the subject of an informative editorial from the Taiwan News. Procedural unfairness? "Actually, the DPP headquarters accommodated Yang's demands by postponing the public polling from the original time frame of late March to early May to give the Kaohsiung County mayor more campaigning time." Meanwhile Yang is off to Singapore to learn how to make Kaohsiung more like that city. Potential turncoat Hsu Tain-tsair didn't make an expected announcement of an independent run in Tainan.
  
• Watch China's coasts, not its currency.
• As compensation talks break down, residents threaten blockade of Formosa naptha cracker
• Oral cancer quadruples in 40 years thanks to betel nut
• Despite the passage of 65 years, there are no memorials to Taiwanese servicemen in the Japanese Army in Taiwan
• Number of households in poverty hits record high
• Falun Gong sues Chinese official in Taiwan court.
• There's a shootout in an upscale shopping district in Taichung.
• After reaching 32 year high, growth falls in the second quarter
• Commonwealth with two pieces on petrochemicals in Taiwan, An End to the Era of the Wolf, and Can Taiwan live with Petrochemicals?
• Chinese students invade Taiwan islands
• US also putting finger into Mekong dam issues
  

REQUESTS: A friend wants to know...
Also, if you know of any films about Hsinchu County, or made by Hsinchu County filmmakers, please let me know.
Send me an email, please.
_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

The east coast, seen from atop Niu Shan. I'll be biking there this weekend!

BLOGS:

• F Varga says ECFA is magic!
• RTI on confidence-building mechanisms
• maddog with a great discussion of Formosa Betrayed, and rip of Ian Bartholemew's ridiculously misinformed review of the film in the TT the other day. David also reviews Formosa Betrayed. J Michael's excellent interview of Will Tiao.
  
• Far Eastern Sweet Potato on Ma's dismissal of the PRC.
• Nascent Liner Notes takes a foggy journey
• The Dignified Rant on the new Chinese missile
• Taiwan Airpower on F-100s in Taiwan during the 1958 crisis
• Josh of Snarky Tofu has out and about pics of Taipei
• Taiwan's EPA: a Court stops work on the science park because of the environmental assessments but the EPA says the Court is wrong.
• Ben wants arguments against UK pro-China type.
• Neil Wade has pics of trip to Shiding and Shenkeng
• Five favorite rides in Taipei from Biking in Taiwan
• AsiaEye points to more missiles on the way to be pointed at Taiwan
• Cycling Satin Sestina does the Ta-keng route, with pics, and reflects on Taiwan's changing bike market
• Japanese coolies, and atrocities in Taiwan, 1895
  

MEDIA:

• Vietnam takes command of the great game of the Spratlys
• Cindy Sui with the latest in a string of excellent articles on ECFA.
• Commonwealth with a dead-on review of Taichung's development.
• Censored from TV stardom for getting the girl on a Chinese dating show
• The 104 job bank says the birth rate problem is a male thing. Men don't have enough savings or income, they feel.
• Taiwan exports up again for ninth straight month
• KMT uses disinformation to block Taiwan democracy
• Lawmakers from both sides push for geology act.
• Pomfret on how SE Asian nations are building up militaries in response to China's rise.

WAY COOL:

• Open source web fire mapper shows situation in Russia, elsewhere

_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

A quiet Friday morning in Jiji Township [View the large]. Who’s been making noise on the blogs?

• Image Coffee Grey with a splendid shot of Jhongsing Village.
• Biking in Taiwan lists five favorite day rides in the Taipei area.
• Welcome to Scooter Country – courtesy of Mark Forman.
• Jim takes a family trip to Kaohsiung.
• Wandering Taiwan checks out the Orange Daylilies of Liushi Shishan.
• Neil Wade visits Shiding and Shenkeng.
• The Tainan City Guide introduces readers to the Red Wolf Tavern.
• Pinyin News takes a look at a couple of signs in Taipei County.
• David Reid reviews Formosa Betrayed.
• Tim Maddog rounds up July’s big political news.
• A recent computerized scenario showed that it would take only three days for PLA forces to capture Taipei. We don’t have to worry about that here in Nantou – we’re already occupied by Chinese tourists.