hong kong, 10 years after

June 1st marked the 10-year anniversary of the transference of Hong Kong's sovereignty from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China. In the 1990s, Hong Kong residents and the international community alike imagined that the 1997 handover to communist-led China would mark the end of Hong Kong's civil liberties, rule of law, and robust, open economy. In principle, Hong Kong was to become a Special Autonomous Region, but if the realities of autonomy in Hong Kong were to be anything like the Tibetan experience, Hong Kong, "Asia's World City," was doomed to devolve into a puppet of the Beijing government. Or so the world thought.

In fact, the mainland government has done a fairly commendable job of maintaining Hong Kong's outstanding institutions and economic independence. For the most part, Beijing has shied away from meddling in Hong Kong's judicial processes and has not bothered the openly critical Hong Kong press. The mainland government has not interfered in Hong Kong's economic policies either. And, in spite of financial setbacks stemming from the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, the American dotcom bust in 2000, and the SARS outbreak of 2003, Hong Kong's real GDP grew at a brisk 6.9% in 2006 while maintaining impressively low inflation. And although Shanghai's rapid growth since the early 90s may eventually allow mainland China to compete with Hong Kong as the business and financial capital of Asia, for the time being, Hong Kong is still Asia's number one city.

Except for one small problem. Hong Kongers can't vote for their government. Even though Beijing promised representative democracy to Hong Kong residents on numerous occasions, the PRC has taken drastic and generally shady measures to ensure that pro-Beijing politicians make up the majority of Hong Kong's government. Indeed, Hong Kong citizens only elect half of the tiny Legislative Council that runs the territory and have no say in the selection of the Chief Executive (basically the governor of the territory) who is essentially hand-picked by Beijing.

As such, thousands of Hong Kongers filled the streets yesterday to speak with their feet. According to The Guardian, at least 6,000 people "marched through the city centre chanting, 'One man, one vote', and carrying banners proclaiming, 'Democracy is not a gift from Beijing'." Indeed, "polls suggest the vast majority of Hong Kong people would like full democracy immediately." But of course, Beijing is afraid of democracy anywhere under its flag, especially since Hong Kong will fully merge with the PRC in 2047. Democracy in Hong Kong will either compel the mainland towards political reformation, or force Beijing to reconsider its future relationship with Hong Kong. Hu Jintao's government has never seemed too keen on the idea of democratization or political reform. Yet The Economist notes that, "in recent months [Hu] has tolerated an unusually open debate about the country's political options". In reality, this is nothing more than showmanship meant to coincide with both the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the Hong Kong handover and the ongoing build-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Hong Kong is one of the world's most intriguing, most cosmopolitan cities, and it is a terrible shame that the Beijing government denies its people democracy. Whether full democracy will ever materialize for Hong Kong remains uncertain. In Wong Kar Wai's 2004 film 2046 (the last year of Hong Kong's autonomy), a train departs for the year 2046 where "nothing ever changes" but "nobody really knows if that's true because nobody's ever come back." Time will tell whether Wong is right.

mccain's myspace defaced

John McCain's MySpace page, fairly funny in and of itself, was slightly altered recently to exhibit McCain's new (and improved) stance on same-sex marriage. Unfortunately for gay people, people who want to marry their same-gendered best friend, and the general cause of civil rights and equality in America, McCain's new position was nothing more than a bit of internet connivery

McCain's MySpace template was created by Mike Davidson of Newsvine. As TechCrunch reports, "Davidson gave the template code away to anyone who wanted to use it, but asked that he be given credit when it was used, and told users to host their own image files." McCain's page uses the template without crediting Davidson and uses images hosted on Davidson's server, forcing Davidson to pay for bandwidth from the hits on McCain's page.

Thus, "Davidson decided to play a small prank on the campaign this morning as retribution. Since he’s in control of some of the images on the site, he replaced one that shows contact information" with a statement in support of gay marriage, "particularly marriage between passionate females" (above).

I like this act of internet vandalism. Not only is it a great way to point out the necessity of intellectual property rights protection on the internet, but it also makes a great political statement. Slob is hereby calling on any and all hackers to infiltrate the websites of conservative politicians and replace their right-wing bullshit with some lefter-wing bullfact.

via TechCrunch [via Newsvine]

iWhack

I'm not usually one for MadTV because it generally sucks, but this sketch is awesome but sadly too accurate:

good news for the climate

In all-star day for, well, the world, the European Union announced the creation of a binding target for the implementation of renewable energy including solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. According to the BBC:

The 27 EU states will each decide how they contribute to meeting a 20% boost overall in renewable fuel use by 2020.The measures could include a ban on filament light bulbs by 2010, forcing people to switch to fluorescent bulbs....It is thought the EU could offer to extend its 20% target for emissions cuts to 30% if other heavy polluters like the US, China and India come on board.

The EU's agreement will have a large net impact on climate change and will hopefully force the rest of the industrialized world into taking more considerable action to combat global warming.

Meanwhile, President Bush signed a deal today with President Lula de Silva of Brazil to cooperare on the development of ethanol from sugar cane. According to SmartMoney.com, "the two nations intend to help third countries, beginning in Central America and the Caribbean, to stimulate private investment for local production and consumption of biofuels." Unfortuntely, President Bush stopped short of reviewing tariffs on imports of ethanol.

While the United States is now officially lagging behind Europe in the development of renewable energy, the ethanol agreement might be a step in the right direction. Furthermore, we may see more positive developments come 2008 when the Bush administration is out of office. Meanwhile, write your congressional representative, copy this story, and tell them that you want the House to debate binding targets for renewable energy.

presidential candidates on youtube

Some of these guys (and gals) get it, and some of them just don't. Clearly candidates are trying to appeal to the internet generation--that would be us--by making YouTube videos so we can blog and MySpace and FaceBook about them and do whatever it is kids do these days. Message to campaign media managers: new media is all about user generated content and posting the same video that you're going to run at your party's national convention is not going to sell to a generation that is more media savvy than you are.

Take, for instance, Mitt Romney's video, titled "Unplugged". First of all, this is one of the only videos on all of YouTube that uses quotation marks in the title, and I know that's hypercritical of me, but it's an early sign that the video is going to be detached from YouTube's audience. Second of all, it's called "Unplugged", which might have been a cool pop culture reference in 1995 when that show was still on MTV, but now it sounds tired. Then there's the video itself: a slick, well-edited montage of Romney (using the word Jihadist, no less) and his wife, narrated by someone who sounds like he's from the National Geographic channel. This video might impress a 50-year-old, but word on the street is that they're not so hip to YouTube. There is, in fact, nothing "unplugged" about it.



Let's contrast this with the videos coming out of Barack Obama's campaign. Obama has hired Joe Rospars, a young, cool guy who co-founded Blue State Digital, as his New Media Director, and Rospars' team has produced a series of videos that I actually enjoy watching. They don't seem scripted, they're edited like other YouTube videos, and a good majority of them build on Obama's "I'm the grassroots candidate" theme by relying heavily on interviews with people off the street. The videos are effective because they don't bore the audiences with Obama's stump speeches--rather they play up the buzz surrounding Obama. In this next video, Obama is comes off as a rock star surrounded by his adoring fans. Talk about hitting the target audience nail on the head:

blog forces talk radio to kneel down, suck it

West coast blog Spocko's Brain has scored some big points against San Francisco conservative talk radio station KSFO, an ABC affiliate (why there is a conservative talk radio station in San Francisco to begin with is anyone's guess). Blogger Spocko has been recording clips from Melanie Morgan's controversial show and sending them to major KSFO advertisers. According to the Guardian:

Spocko objected to various comments by Melanie Morgan. In one exchange about about a book by environmental writer Rachel Carson, Morgan said it made her want to dig up Carson and "kill her all over again". Carson died from breast cancer in 1964.

Morgan's colleague Brian Sussman, meanwhile, called Democratic presidential contender Barak Obama "Halfrican".

The New York Times notes that Sussman also "challenged a caller who said he was not a Muslim to prove it by repeating back an insult to Allah", although Sussman later apologized.

You can mock Rachel Carson, you can even mock Allah, but don't mess with my boy. Now slob is pissed too. It's on, now, KSFO. That's why we're posting the following soundclips. Here are some really classic numbers:

-"Allah is a Whore"
-"Stupid Liberals"
-...and my personal favorite:
"How to Torture Detainees"

In response to Spocko's campaign against KSFO, Disney, ABC's parent (KSFO's grandparent?), attempted to shut Spocko down, but alas you can't stifle the internet. Just ask the Chinese Communist Party. Unfortunately for Disney, using copyrighted soundclips to make a new argument or create a political or social critique falls under fair use best practices.

Apparently, Spocko's campaign against KSFO has worked. Various reports point out that major advertisers have pulled some or all advertising from KSFO, including MasterCard, Visa, Bank of America, and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Blogosphere: 1; Talk radio: suck it.

More: San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, The Guardian, and of course, a third party blog devoted entirely to covering this subject

let's invade greece

On Friday, January 12th, the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece was hit by an antitank grenade, presumably launched from a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher. The attackers missed the non-existent tank, but hit a window in the embassy. Fortunately, no one was injured, so I can make a mockery of the situation.

The New York Times reports that home-grown Greek terrorists were probably responsible for the attack. So...Greece harbors terrorists that attacked U.S. soil? It's time to make the case for regime change in Greece. First of all, Greece would make an excellent base for projecting power across the Middle East and the Mediterranean, so an American military presence there could be highly advantageous. Second of all, they're big fans of Iron Maiden in Athens, and that's really not cool--not even in an ironic way--so a missile attack is probably overdue. Finally, they suck at international relations and should be put out of their misery, once and for all. Since that whole Iraq thing isn't working out too well, methinks it's time for the U.S. to find some easier territory to annex. After all, Greece hasn't had a strong military since, oh...say, the Peloponnesian War.

Opa!

bush vs. reality

The Plan

Last night, President George W. Bush unveiled his new plan to secure Iraq over the course of the next two years. Speaking from the White House library, a frazzled Mr. Bush told the world, "The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people--and it is unacceptable to me...Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." That admission is a step in the right direction. Finally, the Bush administration is acknowledging the same reality that the American people acknowledged this past November: Iraq is bad, it is the administration's fault, and it is time for a change in strategy.

The centerpiece of Mr. Bush's plan is to send about 17,000 soldiers to war-torn Baghdad and about 4,000 Marines to Anbar province. In Pentagon/media-speak, this tactic has been dubbed the "troop surge." The mission of the military in Iraq will also shift from a search-and-destroy operation to a search-destroy-hold tactic in which Iraqi troops and police, backed by a substantial U.S. military presence, will engage and defeat the enemy and then occupy territory in order to prevent the reorganization of the militias. This new tactic (often referred to as an "ink-blot" tactic) is a common counterinsurgency practice that has, up until now, been ignored by the Bush administration.

President Bush also explained that the Iraqi government would commit USD10 billion to reconstruction of infrastructure. Furthermore, the U.S. will ensure that Iraq passes legislation to share oil revenue amongst the population, and will hold provincial elections later this year. Iraq will also alter the de-Baathification process in order to bring more people with political experience back into play in Iraq, possibly including security officials.

Many Democrats are rightly incensed that President Bush ignored the exalted Iraq Study Group's suggestions to negotiate with Syria and Iran. While the ISG report was a bit nearsighted, Bush should have headed the advice of Vali R. Nasr at the Council of Foreign Relations:

"He recommends a regional conference that includes the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as Iraq’s six neighbors (Iran, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Kuwait). He suggests a UN envoy be appointed to “shuttle” between the various states and assess what their shared interests are and how to leverage their influence over Iraq’s feuding parties."

Good idea.

We Broke It...

Bush's new plan has a lot of potential. The increase in troops may provide the necessary edge to defeat the Shi'a militias that are fighting in and around Baghdad. If the Iraqi and U.S. militaries can successfully gain control of the capitol, then the political process in Iraq will be able to move forward, unencumbered by security considerations and the looming threat of civil war. Congressional Democrats argue that the U.S. should seek to jumpstart the political process in Iraq and bring all interested parties to the table. Realistically, the use of force will be a much more effective peacemaker than any overly-optimistic political dealings. As long as Shi'a militias are engaged in an insurgency, political unification of Iraq will remain stalled. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen whether or not an extra 20,000 troops will be a large enough presence to really secure Iraq. This may be a case of too little, too late.

Democrats are opposed to any troop increase in Iraq and instead argue for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops. They maintain that the Bush plan is no different from strategies put forth by the administration in the past, that it is time for the Iraqis to step up and the U.S. to leave Iraq. It is not time to leave Iraq. The United States is responsible for the toppling of the Iraqi government and the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure. The current situation in Iraq is entirely a byproduct of American policies. It would be immoral and irresponsible to withdraw from Iraq without America putting forth its best efforts to bring peace and stability. At this point in time, an Iraq left to its own devices will be either an oil-rich country in a perpetual state of civil war or an oil-rich extremist Shi'a-led state with allegiance to Iran. Neither circumstance is in the interest of the United States or the world. Mr. Bush's plan may not work, but simply leaving Iraq will guarantee failure. Democrats (the majority of whom voted for this war in the first place, and therefore bear some blame for the current situation) owe it to Iraq and the world to work with President Bush to develop a comprehensive solution for the Iraqi problem, based on Mr. Bush's new proposal.

Click here for a full transcript/video of the Presidential address.