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The risks and social costs of Taiwan-China economic and trade ties(1): Presently many Taiwanese businesspeople get burned (in China), yet Taiwan’s media report very little about it. We can get a glimpse of the plight of Taiwanese businesspeople from the books “Escaping from Mainland China” by Lin Ji-sheng and William Kao’s “The Real Story of China’s Judicial Persecution of Taiwanese Businesspeople.“ ... Chinese society no longer has any ethics after going through the campaign to “Destroy the Four Olds,” (a campaign instigated by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution to destroy old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits). One result is that only 15 percent of all contracts are fully carried out. The lack of trust between people in Chinese society has already reached such dimensions that people even “cheat people they’re familiar with.” “Cheating familiar people” is an expression that has been brought up by Zheng Yefu, a professor in Beijing University’s Sociology Department. He divides trust into three levels... Biff- whatever caused the ethical collapse, I doubt it was commie campaigns. The same lack of character was in spades in Taiwan just ten years ago. As it has been in parts of NY City and other urban areas for time immemorial.

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Drab North Korea is a hot ticket: Moreover, independent mingling with the masses isn't permitted. Tours are highly choreographed with two North Korean guides assigned to foreign travel groups. ("One explanation is that they're watching each other," Keats says.) Travel is arranged through a government agency (akin to the former Soviet Intourist), and Americans are charged more than other foreigners. At Geographic Expeditions in San Francisco, where two departures quickly sold out prompting them to add a third, John Sugnet has warned clients that hot water might be limited, plumbing could be problematic, the schedule will be rigorous and "flexibility and a sense of humor are essential."

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Cspan Video: Bill Gertz, Defense & National Security Reporter for The Washington Times, discusses the U.S. military policy towards Asia. Biff- some interesting emerging stuff about Guam and defending Taiwan against China. Long-range bomber groups, new nuclear subs, double-teaming aircraft carrier crews, etc.

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Cspan Video: Bill Gertz, Author of "Treachery: How America's Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies," and Defense and National Security Reporter for the Washington Times, discusses his book and other topics.

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Security high at Solomons meeting: The election of Snyder Rini as prime minister last Tuesday triggered riots over claims that either China or Taiwan had paid lawmakers to vote for him. ...Solomon Island Police Commissioner Shane Castles told reporters before the session began that "Parliament House will be locked down, and people will not be allowed within a stone's throwing distance".

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Crimes and Motives: Minucci has told the Daily News’s Denis Hamill in a jailhouse interview: “I didn’t say ‘n---er’ with an ‘er.’ But ‘n---a’ with an ‘a’ at the end. There’s a very big difference in the hip-hop world that I come from . . . ‘What up, n---a’ is like saying, ‘What’s up, pal?’” To bolster his argument, Minucci notes that he grew up in mostly black East New York: “I went to Junior High School 226, where I was the only Italian in a school of 2,000 mostly African-American kids. All of my friends . . . were black. All of them. . . . And we always called each other ‘n---a’ all the time.”

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Facing Down Iran: The bad cop/worse cop routine the mullahs and their hothead President Ahmadinejad are playing in this period of alleged negotiation over Iran’s nuclear program is the best indication of how all negotiations with Iran will go once they’re ready to fly. This is the nuclear version of the NRA bumper sticker: “Guns Don’t Kill People. People Kill People.” Nukes don’t nuke nations. Nations nuke nations. When the Argentine junta seized British sovereign territory in the Falklands, the generals knew that the United Kingdom was a nuclear power, but they also knew that under no conceivable scenario would Her Majesty’s Government drop the big one on Buenos Aires. The Argie generals were able to assume decency on the part of the enemy, which is a useful thing to be able to do. ...As Communism retreated, radical Islam seeped into Africa and south Asia and the Balkans. Crazy guys holed up in Philippine jungles and the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay who’d have been “Marxist fantasists” a generation or two back are now Islamists: it’s the ideology du jour.