• [108]  The Theory of Poll Manipulation in Taiwan (05/31/2007)  (China Times)  With respect to the case described in Comment 200705#105, Taipei county electoral district #2 has a population of about 100,000 households.  Candidate Lin SHu-fen charged that her opponent Huang Jian-hui had obtained 1,000 new telephone numbers.  1,000 out of 100,000 is 1%, which is not a big number.  Why go through the trouble and expense (to the tune of NT$1 million)?
   
  Ah, but things are not that simple.  Let us say that the goal is to obtain 1,200 completed interviews.  Some people will refuse to cooperate and other people are not available when the telephone calls are made between the standard interviewing hours in the evening (6pm to 10pm).  Furthermore some of the numbers will be out of order, fax machines or businesses.  It is estimated that it takes 10,000 calls to obtain 1,200 completed interviews.  The 10,000 calls are randomly sampled from the base of 100,000 + 1,000 = 110,000 telephone numbers in the directory.  The sampling ratio is therefore 10,000 / 110,000 = 9%.  Therefore 90 will be included in the 10,000 selected numbers to be called.  Since these are specially manned telephones, the people will be there to answer the pollsters and the 90 will be included in the 1,200 completed interviews.  So now, the 90 / 1,200 = 7.5% of the sample is controlled.  
   
  But things get worse.  In the DPP poll, those who support the pan-blues (KMT and PFP parties) as well as those who refuse to divulge political affiliatiation are excluded from the tabulation.  It is expected that about 40% of the population are pan-blue and about 20% of the population will not divulge political affialiation.  Therefore, only 40% of the completed interviews are pan-greens and independents. 40% x 1,200 = 480.  But the 90 special telephone lines are manned by people who will answer that they are pan-greens.  This meant that 90 / 480 = 19% of the tabulated sample is controlled.
   
  (China Times)  There is also the matter of respondent selection.  When the telephone rings, someone picks up the phone to answer.  If that person is always interviewed about his/her opinion, then there might be a bias.  So the interviewer should go through a respondent selection process.  This begins by first asking the number of adults living in the household.  Let say the number is three: two men and one woman.  The computer will generate a random choice (say, the older man).  If that person is not at home at the time, the computer will generate a second random choice (say, the younger man).  If that person is not at home at the time either, the interview is over and the woman is not interviewed (because otherwise the survey is biased in favor of people who tend to stay home).  Knowing that this is the methodology, the people who answer the special telephone lines will always say that there are two persons in the household and the other person is not at home at the time.  Thus, the answerer will be interviewed.
   
  But things get even worse.  It is known that younger persons are less likely to cooperate or be at home in the evenings.  Therefore, the completed sample is usually weighted to population census figures by age and gender.  During the process, young respondents received larger weights.  For example, the district should have 10% of the people under age 30 but the sample only has 2%.  Then each person under age 30 in the sample will receive a weight of 5 (that is, they count for five people instead of just one).  The 90 special telephone lines are manned by people who will answer that they are young (under age 30).  Thus, the controlled sample will count for even more than 19% of the tabulated sample.
   
  
  (ETToday)  After analyzing cross tabulations of the poll results, DPP candidate Wu Ping-jui of the Taipei county District #4 found that the DPP support levels among persons 20-24 were respsectively 59.2%, 62.4% and 62.8% for the three polls conducted by independent companies compared to 9.4%, 2.9% and 4.9% support levels for the KMT.  Similarly, the average support for his rival Chao Lai-wang was 76.77% in that age group compared to 19.74 for himself.  The 20-24 group was given the highest weight in these polls.
   
  The public preferences for two candidates could be close in reality, but this piece of chicanery can swing the polls by double digits in favor of a candidate.
   
  Why hasn't this phenomenon been detected before?  In the past, the electoral districts for the legislature was larger (500,000 to 750,000) with 100,000 to 200,000 telephone households.  It would therefore require a very big number of telephone numbers to manipulate the poll results.  This time, the electoral districts are smaller in size (population of 100,000 and telephone households of 80,000 with pan-blue supporters being excluded from tabulation).  It is now possible to make a difference.
   
  Related Links:
  'Next' story throws wrench into DPP primary process  Taipei Times via AsiaMedia
  DPP investigates claims its candidates cheated  China Post

(1) On May 9, 2007, the Society for Truth and Light uploaded an audio.  In this audio, the Society for Truth and Light Secretary General Choi Chi-sum recited questions 3 and 10 of the survey questionnaire about incest and bestiality in the February 2007 issue of the Chinese University Student Press.  Since these contents have been classified as Category II: Indecent by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, this Society for Truth and Light audio is automatically Category II: Indecent as well.
 
(2) A Chinese University of Hong Kong theology student Wong Tat-wai published a commentary on page A20 of the May 7, 2007 issue of Sing Tao Daily and cited the contents of page 23 of the February 2007 issue and page 26 of the March 2007 issue of the Chinese University Student Press.  Since these contents have been classified as Category II: Indecent by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, both Wong Tai-wai and Sing Tao Daily are automatically assumed to have published Category II: Indecent material as well.
 
(3) On page A07 of the May 7 issue of Sing Tao, materials from the page 23 of the February 2007 issue of Chinese University Student Press were quoted extensively.  Since these contents have been classified as Category II: Indecent by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, Sing Tao Daily is automatically assumed to have published Category II: Indecent material as well.

If the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority is previously ignorant of these activities, it has now been informed by a mass campaign.  If the Chinese University Student Press and Ming Pao are to be punished according to the law, so too must the Society for Truth and Light as well as Sing Tao Daily.  In fact, all of them have to be punished equally if Hong Kong wants to have the rule of law.  The maximum penalty is HK$400,000 and 12 months of imprisonment.
 
While this gives some sort of satisfaction, one must really ask whether it is necessary to build a culture of denunciation.

• [105]  Numbers in Taiwan (05/30/2007)  (TVBS)  In Taipei county district #2, the DPP primary election is contested by Lin Shu-fen and Huang Jian-hui.
   
  Lin Shu-fen is now alleging that her opponent is fraudulently manipulating the public opinion poll.  Specifically, she referred to reports that Huang Jian-hui had applied for 1,000 temporary telephones in early May in order to interfere with the public opinion polls.  In one case, a total of 150 of these telephones were installed in an unoccupied house.
   
  What is Huang Jian-hui's explanation?  "We wanted to use the telephones to conduct our own polls and that was why we applied for those telephone lines.  But our software did not work, and so we commissioned China Telecommunications to do the job.  We have canceled those telephone lines.  If I wanted to cheat, would I be so stupid as to use my own name to apply for those telephone lines?"  Huang insisted that the 1,000 telephone lines have been cancelled.
   
  The cost for those telephone lines is NT$1 million, for which a deposit of NT$3 million is required.  The expenditure of this amount is bound to draw doubts.  How can this kind of money be involved in a local primary race for a parliamentary seat?  But if the public opinion polls count more than the DPP party primary election, it may be cheaper to get the telephones than to buy party member votes.
   
  (UDN)  According to Lin Shu-fen, the 1,000 additional telephone number accounts for 16.6% points in the public opinion.  She said that this public opinion is unfair as she sees it and this is completely contrary to the core values of the Democratic Progressive Party that she joined.  She called for the Party Central to stop the public opinion polls immediately and begin an investigation.
   
  According to Huang Jian-hui, the DPP public opinion center will only use home telephone numbers that were operational before the end of February 2007.  He had applied for the new telephone numbers on May 15 and those would not have been selected for polling.  He was disgusted that someone should be using the media to manipulate the outcome of the public opinoni poll.  He said that he had applied the 1,000 telephone numbers for the purpose of computerized-voice canvassing.  But he found out that his software does not work and he had cancelled all the telephone numbers on May 25.  So why was he being harassed?

• [104]  The Story of Pre-Censorship (05/30/2007)  In A Conversation With A TELA Bureaucrat, the government bureaucrat informed Oiwan Lam that she should have submitted the photograph to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classification before publication.  Instead, the photograph was published first and there is the possibility of getting the police involved.  In the comments to the original Chinese post 違反日常經驗的官僚／道德審裁, the user Perspex has a story about the process of pre-screening.

A Hong Kong man who posted a message with an internet link to an overseas pornographic website was fined yesterday for publishing an obscene article via the internet.  The prosecution and conviction, the city's first under the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance, involved the use of a common computing technique, the police's commercial crime bureau said.  The judgment has worried the local internet community, particularly with regard to possible constraints on the free flow of information.  Questions were also raised on whether guidelines are sufficient to halt online distribution of obscene material.

Woo Tai-wai, 48, pleaded guilty in Kwun Tong Court to publishing eight obscene photos via a local internet forum.  He provided a linked message which, when clicked, would enable other forum users to access an overseas pornographic website showing the photos.  

Deputy Magistrate Jason Wan Siu-ming fined Woo HK$5,000 in light of his guilty plea and clean record.  He also said that while the articles at issue were obscene, they were not extreme or of deviant taste.

Now, let me explain to you why this case upsets me.  If a society wishes to be priggish, then I don't have a problem with it even if I am just among the minority against a majority opinion.  The truly upsetting part is that the prosecuted behavior has continued unabated.  One and only case has ever be prosecuted at Uwants, even as the same activity goes unpublicized and unpunished at the same Uwants discussion forum.  This is not about the rule of law.  This is about prosecution when they have the attention and time to spare.

As evidence, I direct you to the Adult Area of the Uwants discussion forum.  The time when I made this post was 1:38am on May 30, 2007.  Here are some of the featured posts:

驚暴~(黑客破解)~台灣節目黑澀會美眉容瑄自拍的相簿圖片外流曝光*(第一手獨家)  These are photographs from the famously hacked site of a Taiwanese girl with photographs of her frolicking with her boyfriend.  This post has amassed more than 110,000 page views at Uwants.

勁多無知少女手機自拍★  A collection of photographs of nude young girls.  Here is a comment: "Why is this poster not in jail already?"  Don't you think that some of the girls could be under-age?  This post has amassed more than 160,000 page views at Uwants.

Even if you don't understand Chinese, you can just click on the other links and get to the photographs.  Nobody at the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority is interested in these posts.  Instead, they have the time to contact InMediaHK for the one photograph that appeared in this post: A Conversation With A TELA Bureaucrat (note: the only thing that mattered to TELA was that one photograph linked from flickr). (Further details at Comment 200705#100)

Ah, you say, if you proceed to the Adult Area of Uwants, you will read this message: "LEGAL DISCLAIMER WARNING: THIS DISCUSSION BOARD CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH MAY OFFEND AND MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED, CIRCULATED, SOLD, HIRED, GIVEN, LENT,SHOWN, PLAYED OR PROJECTED TO A PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18 YEARS."  Even if your eyes aren't fast enough to read the message, it does not matter because the law has been followed to the letter.  Is this a joke?  Does anyone care about that message?
 
This does not resolve the question just why Woo Tai-wai was selected out for prosecution.  As I said, you can click on any of the links and compare the photographs with the one at InMediaHK.  Why is InMediaHK being harassed and Uwants is rolling on nicely?  The same occurs at other forums such as Discuss.com.hk, etc (for example, there are many more nipples at the Anhui Girl's Self Portrait @ Discuss.com.hk than at InMediahk).
 
So what kind of job is the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority/Obscene Articles Tribunal doing?

• [101]  Bullets Everywhere in Taiwan (05/29/2007)

(TVBS)  In Taichung's District #3, DPP legislature candidate Hsieh Hsin-ni lost her primary election but she has filed an appeal on the grounds that one of the polling research companies had an improper business relationship with her opponent and this company gave her really bad numbers that resulted in her losing by 0.28%. (Comment 200705#094)
 
Yesterday, the office of Hsieh-Hsin-ni received a threatening letter which contained a bullet.  The letter told her not to support DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh anymore.
 
Hsieh Hsin-ni had appealed to the Appeals Committee of five persons, of which three agreed that there was a procedure flaw in the selection of the polling research companies.  But there was also no evidence of wrongdoing by that research company.  The matter has been referred to higher levels.  If the polls should have to be taken over again, then Hsieh Hsin-ni's current public campaign against the nefarious collusion between her opponent and the polling company will in fact be an unfair factor in the public's mind.  That is to day, a poll taking back then and a poll next week will differ to the extent that the public has been exposed to blanket coverage of the public brawl.  Oh, yes, it is also well-known that bullets can affect election outcomes in Taiwan.

(TVBS)  Late today, independent legislator Li Ao's office received a threatening letter with a bullet in it.  The author claimed to be the leader of a criminal gang and he used foul to language to call Li Ao a coward who is taking money from Frank Hsieh.  The writer also said that only Ma Ying-jeou can save taiwan.

(TVBS)  On May 24, Taipei County Councilor Wu Shan-chiu was assassinated in this office by a lone gunman.  (See Comment 200705#084).  On May 28, a letter was mailed to Wu Shan-chiu office at the Taipei County Council.  Inside, there was a bullet shell affixed with transparent tape.  There was a written letter full of discontent directed at Wu Shan-chiu and it was signed under the name of Little Li Ao.

• [100]  Body Arts (05/29/2007)  (Ming Pao)

A writer for the website InMediaHK wrote an article on May 11 about the erotic page in the Chinese University Student Press and posted a photograph that showed the nipples of a female.  The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority received one complaint and contacted InMediaHK yesterday to advise them to either delete the photograph or add a warning message.  According to the TELA person, failure to do so may result in the photograph being referred to the Obscene Articles Tribunal or directly to the police.

According to InMediaHK Oiwan Lam (who was the writer of the said essay), a worker at the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority contact her to provide the advice of either deleting the photographing or adding a warning message.  The photograph had not yet been forwarded to the Obscene Articles Tribunal.  (Why is this point important?  That is because TELA is making judgments on its own when that should have the job of OAT).

Lam said that the photograph was taken from the international photography site 'flickr' (see Nude and Captured) and was an art photograph around which the discussion was totally technical in nature.  "It will not arouse immoral, obscene thoughts."  Flickr itself has not received any complaints to have the photograph removed.  Lam said that she will not remove the photograph, although the InMedia editorial board has not reached a decision yet.  She said: "Whether something is a work of art should be determined subjectively instead of just counting how many naughty bits is being exposed."

The TELA spokesperson said that if they find someone who is potentially breaking the regulations, they will contact and advise the publisher to add a warning message.  If the other part refuses, they will consider turning the matter over to the police for investigation.

The original essay is 查禁政治遊戲啟動 呼籲齊貼色情 hyperlink and the story of the conversation between Oiwan Lam and Mister Kong from TELA is 違反日常經驗的官僚／道德審裁.

Meanwhile, here is something else heading for trouble.  The event is (via Ming Pao):

Hong Kong Open Body Arts Photography Competition Finals
Date: June 16, 2007, 3pm-7pm
Location: Sheungwan Cultural and Entertainment Center (Exhibition Hall)
Organizer: Body Arts Association
Admission: Free
Age limit: Seven years or older
Content: More than 300 nude photographs

(Ming Pao)  From Body Arts Association president Simon Cheung: "There is no need to set age limits for art works ... when the statue was declared incident years ago, the High Court said in the judicial review that it was stupid.  We are not stupid and so we won't do any stupid thing."  Specifically, this was a response to the question: "Will you submit the photographs to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for screening?"

• [099]  Human Flesh Search Engines At Work Again (05/28/2007)  (Southern Metropolis Daily)  At 4pm on May 25, a video was posted on the Internet.  In this video, there were more than 20 students in a classroom for a geography lesson.  The students were napping, talking, horsing around and one of them was roaming around filming.  One student said: "This is the geography lesson.  Watch the show."  Then he walked up to the teacher and removed the teacher's white hat.  The class roared in laughter.  Later, that student went up to the teacher and made for a physical confrontation.  Another student threw a water bottle at the teacher while the first student yelled: "That stupid c*nt!  Kill him!"  The teacher just kept on with his lecture.
   
  The video was apparently posted by a female student in the class.  Within three hours, there were 5,000 visits and 100 angry comments.  The video was deleted at 7pm, but it had already been copied and distributed across the Intenet.
   
  On the afternoon of May 26, a campaign began to identify these students.  Both the Tianya and MOP forums launched their human flesh search engines (人肉搜索引擎).  At 6pm, a Tianya netizen noted that the blackhoard had the national flag of Uzbekistan with words of welcome for the friends from that nation.  This netizen searched for visits by Uzbekistan groups and found out that the staff of the Ubzekistan embassy was invited to visit the Art Vocational School in Haidian district, Beijing.
   
  Meanwhile another netizen had broken the passwode of the female student who posted the video and found many photographs and related information.  The netizens were able to pinpoint a particular class in the Haidian Art Vocational School.  In the evening of May 26, the names and telephone numbers of several students in the video were published on the Internet.
   
  The new website for Haidian Art School was first started in April 20.  By May 26, there were only eight comments.  After the netizens found out that the video came from this school, 1,160 comments were left there from 6pm on May 26 to 9pm on May 27.  According to the school website, there were almost 20,000 unique IP visits on May 27 alone.  On the afternoon of May 27, a hacker blacked out the home page.  For the next few hours, several hackers were swapping different versions.
   
  Video Links:  海艺学生打老师事件; same video at YouTube
   
  Postcript: (Beijing Daily Messenger via Wenxue City)  Yesterday at around 1pm, four netizens were waiting outside the Haidian Art School.  Within the next two hours, the number increased to more than 20.  At around 4pm, a white school bus came out of the school gate but it was stopped immediately by the netizens.  There were several students inside, including the male student with the earring, the male student who threw the plastic bottle at the teacher and one of the female students.  "Stop!  Get out of the car!"  The netizens pounded on the car windows and demanded the students to come out.  Two of the students covered their faces with books and bent down.  After a confrontation of about one minute, the school security guards came over and enabled the bus to leave.
   
  
   
  Related Link: Student hits teacher video  John Kennedy, Global Voices Online

• [098]  Taiwan By The Numbers (05/28/2007)  (China Times)  (1,070 persons interviewed by telephone between April 30 and May 3 by China Times-National Taiwan Normal University)

Q1. How satisfied were your with the experience of seven years after the first transition in the ruling party?
34.3%: satisfied
67.7%: dissatisfied
 
Q2. If you are dissatisfied, then what are you most dissatisfied about?
60.8%: economy
13.0%: public security
followed by cross-strait relationship; normalization of names; and foreign diplomacy.
 
Q3. If you are satisfied, then what are you most satisfied about?
26.8%: normalization of names
18.2% economy
followed by pubic security; cross-strait relationship; foreign diplomacy
 
Q4. On a scale of 0 to 10, how many points would you give President Chen Shui-bian?
0: 24%
1:   3%
2:   8%
3: 10%
4:   8%
5: 25%
6: 13%
7:   6%
8:   6%
9:   2%
10: 3%
 
Q5. What is the biggest source of chaos during the changing of the ruling party>
32%: the media
24%: President Chen Shui-bian
22%: the Parliament
  5%: Lee Teng-hui
  4%: Ma Ying-jeou

• [097]  SCMP Interview of Jimmy Lai (05/28/2007)

What do you mean by the independence of your newspaper? How would you define it in the spectrum of the Hong Kong media?

For some, independence means taking no stance. But we can't take this approach. Many media organisations have leaned towards Beijing, while some have become the voice of the government. It is natural for us to choose to balance this view in the market, rather than just trying to present a balanced view. By independent, I mean we are independent from the power of the government, the pressure of Beijing or the influence of the business sector.

What would you say to those who see you as coming under strong US influence and as part of the so-called anti-revolutionary force in Hong Kong?

They are entitled to their opinion, of course. But if they think we are subverting the government, this is ridiculous. We might voice more criticism of the government when it intervenes in the market or when it is not pushing hard enough for universal suffrage. But how do we subvert the government by so doing? We are just taking a stance. It is our role as a member of the media to supervise the government. The saying about US influence is not true. But do I share a lot of the values of the US? Yes. Democracy, freedom, rule of law: these are predominant values of today's world. They have become not just American values, but values that are shared by other parts of the world. There are people who go as far as saying I am a CIA agent. What can I say?

Do you think there are inherent contradictions in the way you run your publications? On the one hand, you uphold high-sounding aspirations such as democracy, but on the other, you also get a fair bit of criticism for sensationalism and questionable journalistic ethics.

We have to sell [copies of our publications] in order to get our voice heard. If we don't sell well, it is futile to take whatever stance we take. So, the primary objective is to sell. This will ensure our voice is heard by the people. We sometimes do go overboard. We have done things wrong.

But for all of these, we take the responsibility. We stand up to apologise for our wrongdoings, correct them, learn from our lessons and seek to improve. At the same time, you also need to take into account the fact that because of the stance we take, we have a lot of forces - overtly or covertly - working against us. Our rivals can do a lot of things to smear and discredit us.

• [096]  June 4th for Hong Kong (05/27/2007)

Part 1: (Ming Pao via Yahoo! Hong Kong)

The China Affairs group of the Hong Kong Democratic Party ran a telephone interview of more than 600 respondents last week about the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen incident of army-citizen conflict and bloodshed.  The results were:
- 80% believe the Hong Kong political parties must support the vindication of the June 4th incident;
- 53% believe that the incident was a democratic and patriotic movement;
- 40% believed that it was wrong for the Hong Kong secondary school textbooks not to mention the June 4th incident, including the suppresion by military force and the casualty figures.

The Democratic Party's China Affairs Group pointed out that this survey shows that most of the people in Hong Kong insist on vindicating the June 4th incident and the educational material should record the history accurately.

Part 2: (Ming Pao via Yahoo! Hong Kong)

The march organized by the Hong Kong Alliance In Support Of Patriotic Democratic Movements Of China started off at 3pm from Victoria Park with 200 to 300 persons.  At 5pm, the group arrived at Government Headquarters.  The police estimated that there were 1,000 persons.  The organizers estiamted that there were 1,500 persons.  According to chairman Szeto Wah, it was not bad for 1,500 people to show up in bad weather.

This gets back to that old issue that makes the ESWN blogger so controversial.  The majority of the people of Hong Kong (7 million in total and more than 4 million adults) believe that the June 4th incident should be vindicated as a democratic and patriotic movement.  Yet when the Hong Kong Alliance In Support Of Patriotic Democratic Movements Of China calls for a demonstration in support for this cause, 1,500 or fewer showed up.  Last year, the figure was around 1,100 (note: the police said 600).

What is the explanation for the discrepancy between 2.5 million (=60% of adults) and 1,500?  What is the explanation?  Has anyone ever told you why?  You need to ask some serious questions about this organization.  Some of the questions are as simple as: "What has the Alliance got to do with patriotic democratic movements in China at this very moment?"  Are you aware of any such significant connection?  Does the Alliance support/influence the rights defense movements in China?  Does the Alliance affect public opinion about democracy inside China?

There will also be a candlelight assembly on June 4th and it will attract several tens of thousands people based upon historical figures.  Why is there a difference between the numbers?  Why would more people show up on a Monday evening (June 4th) than a Sunday afternoon?  Once again, this is going to be a question about the Alliance which is apparently very uncomfortable to address.  You can talk among yourselves.

• [095]  Death Note (05/27/2007)  (Southern Metropolis Daily)  

The State "Anti-Obscene/Illegal Materials" working group issued two alerts about the illegal horror-genre publications such as <Death Note>.  Following those instructions, authorities in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Henan, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing and Guangdong have rounded up copies of the books and discs for <Death Note>.  The current statistics are 2,409 copies of the book <Death Note>, 366 compact discs and 1,018 other illegal horror-genre publications.

Upon information, <Death Note> is based upon a Japanese comic in which the principal character came across a "death note" dropped by a God of Death.  He discovered that as soon as he wrote down the name of someone that he wants dead into the notebook, it will become true.  Following the popularity of the comic, Death Note books have become popular among elementary and secondary schools.  These Death Note books can be purchased at various stationery stores.  They have a black cover and every page inside has a round skull symbol in the corner.  In the first twenty pages, there is a black piece of paper with the instructions: "All those who are noted down in this book shall die" and "if the name is written down and the cause of death is entered within forty seconds, the person shall die according to the described method."  A Death Note book sells for 15 yuan per copy.  According to store owners, the Death Note books are selling briskly.

Some students said that they bought the Death Note books only out of curiosity.  Other students said that when they were frightened when they found out that someone had written their names in, even though they knew that nothing would happen.

What are they trying to ban here?  2,409 copies of the book? 366 CD's?  Did they forget about the Internet?  When I searched for 死亡笔记 on Baidu, I found 9.2 million results, which leads to all sorts of links including complete downloads of the comics, novels, movies, etc.  If they meant to confiscate the prop copies of Death Note books only, then why the CD's?

• [094]  Numbers in Taiwan (05/27/2007)  (TVBS; ETToday; United Daily News)  For the purpose of selecting a candidate, the Democratic Progessive Party uses a mixture of primary election results from its membership and public opinion polls to select a winner.  In District #3, Hsieh Hsin-ni is complaining about a public opinion poll.
   
  In the primary election, Hsieh Hsin-ni had 578 votes and her opponent had 556 votes.  Thus Hsieh led by 1.94%.
   
  In the second stage, three research companies were engaged to conduct parallel polls.  In two of them, Hsieh won by 3% points.  In the third poll by Shanshui, Hsieh lost by 9%.  The average of the three gave Chien a narrow lead of 1.22%.  The primary votes counted for 30% while the polls accounted for 70%.  The net result was that Chien Chao-tung defeated Hsieh Hsin-ni by 50.14% versus 49.86%, or a margin of 0.28%.  Hsieh is now complaining that Shansui had ties with Chien.  She said: "I want the Shanshui results be excluded.  They should also be punished.  The Party Central should never use Shanshui again for polling.  You can ask them yourself because they don't dare say that there is no relationship there."
   
  The DPP director of polling said: "We provided with a percentage after those people with no opinions have been eliminated.  This might seem to be a big difference.  But if you look at the full data, then the difference isn't that big."  Reporter: "What was the original percentage?"  Answer: "I think it was about 4%."
   
  Working backwards, it means that 64% of the sample had 'no opinion.'  The elimination of this portion of the sample then leads to a difference of 4%/0.36 = 11%.  Is 64% too high?  Well, one would have liked to know the percentages of 'no opinion' in the other two polls.
   
  Hsieh's opponent Chien Chao-tung said "The Party Central had commissioned these three companies.  I had no idea how the Party Central found them."  He said that if the Party Central wants to re-do the poll, then all the polls have to be re-done (not just the Shanshui one) because one cannot selectively reject only the unfavorable polls.
   
  Addendum: (China Post)

DPP Legislator Kuo Chun-ming, who has won the primary in the Fifth Electoral District in Taichung County, yesterday described the just-concluded primary as "the most chaotic" the party has ever conducted.  He held DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun responsible for all the disputes over the primary because the rules of the game kept changing as preparations for the vote were being made.

The biggest change was the introduction of the so-called "anti-blue" rule, which disregarded the opposition supporters' views in the public opinion survey that formed part of the criteria for the candidate selection.  He questioned whether the change was not tailor-made for Yu himself, who was vying to become the DPP's presidential candidate. The "anti-blue" rule also applied to the presidential primary.

He said the proportion of people who refused to be interviewed hit a record of all DPP primary-related surveys, which the legislator said was a warning.  "The DPP must learn the lesson, and contemplate whether the outcome of the primary really reflects the true spirit of public opinion polls," said Kuo.

• [093]  Lung Ying-tai PK BMW (05/27/2007)  (TVBS)

The Lung Ying-tai Foundation invited Taiwan vice-president Annette Lu to have a two-hour exchange with Lung Ying-tai about human rights in Taiwan.

Lung: "The president's actions leave the international impression that he is a troublemaker."
Lu: "Wrong, wrong.  You are mixing up cause and effect.  I have to make this clear.  Please do not ridicule him.  If he were not the president, he would not be subjected to so much abuse.  It is the international community which is blind."
Lung: "The serious situation was always there, it is there and it will be there."
Lu: "Oh, no.  Sorry.  Let me interrupt."
 
So Lung Ying-tai wanted to have her say while Annette Lu wanted to speak up on behalf of the president.  Meanwhile, Lu had to cope with all the peculiar questions from the citizens who were criticizing President Chen Shui-bian.
 
Citizen: "The president wasted our money on international efforts.  What did we get out of them?"
Citizen: "The humiliation on him was also humiliation upon us.  But his position makes me want to disassociate with him.  I don't want him to stand for the 23 million people, okay?"
 
Lu: "People don't live in paradise.  Not everyone is a saint.  Therefore, in this imperfect system, we want to give our courts a relatively detached space."

Why is this item entitled "Lung Ying-tai PK BMW"?  Because Taiwan vice-president was nicknamed BMW at one time.  What does BMW means?  "Big-mouthed woman!"  She is also sometimes known as "IBM" (International Big Mouth).  Before you get upset about these apparent abuses, please consider that maybe you have to take all this in stride.  BMW and IBM can be take as complimentary instead of deprecatory -- unless you really don't get it.  The alternative is to be meek and indecisive.  So what is wrong with being BMW and IBM?  There is no need to be so insecure.

• [092]  Update On The Murder of Wu Shan-chiu (05/27/2007)  (TVBS)  The breaking news was covered in Comment 200705#084.  The police has been reviewing the records from 280 closed-circuit television cameras in the district in order to track the murder of Taipei county councilor Wu Shan-chiu.  They have records of three appearances of the perpetrator.  According to the reconstructed chronology, the individual had telephoned to check if Wu was in the office.  Then he came around twice to check out the surroundings.  On his third trip, he stopped, parked his motorcycle, went into the office, shot Wu and then left.  From these three separate recordings, the police determined that the motorcycle was a SYM R1 model and that the last three digits of the license plate were 706.  However, they are unsure about the first three English-language alphabets because they suspect that it might have been tampered with.  Nevertheless, there are only about 700 SYM R1 motorcycles with license plates with 706 as the last three digits.  The bad news is that 96 of these have been reported stolen.
   
  Meanwhile, the police has come up with a list of 6 suspects based upon ties with the gang known as Tiantaomen (天道盟) and a local sand-and-gravel biusiness man.  Wu Shan-chiu had been entangled in a land development deal that involved NT$30 billion and it is conceivable that the affected party might want him dead.
   
  P.S. The history of the Tiantaomeng gang is one of the most intriguing illustrations of unintended consequences.  In 1984, the KMT government decided to round up gangsters under the Yi-ching program and sent them off to prison for reform (as if they can ever be reformed in any meaningful way).  The unintended consequence was that these mostly Taiwanese local gang lords were gathered together in one location and they hatched up a grand alliance known as Tiantaomeng to combat against the predominant Bamboo United gang of the time.  The rest is history as Tiantaomeng has infiltrated public works bidding, stock market manipulation, real estate, media, transportation, futures, entertainment, movies and ... political campaigns (see Wikipedia in Chinese and The Ultimate Arbitrator).
   
  Addendum: (UDN)  The police have determined that both the paint job and the license plate on the motorcycle have been modified.  It is known that the manufacturer does not produce a R1 model with the silver color shown in the videotape.  This lead has apparently reached a dead-end.

• [091]  No Mercy On The Judge/Barrister (05/26/2007)  (SCMP)

Disgraced retired judge Miles Jackson-Lipkin and his wife, a former barrister, were released from prison yesterday after a judge reduced their sentences for welfare fraud.  ...  The couple, hidden behind surgical masks, left the Court of First Instance amid a throng of photographers. Gone were the wheelchairs used during their trial.  The 82-year-old Mr Jackson-Lipkin needed the help of a correctional services officer and a walking stick as he left the court. His 81-year-old wife, Lucille Yun-shim Jackson-Lipkin, followed unaided.

But the local Chinese-language newspapers had much more to say than you ever care to know.  Oriental Daily has a front page with the headline "Jackson-Lipkin gets out of prison to enjoy the world."

 
The Sun's front page has the headline: "The judicial process is dead."  

Then there is a picture of Lucille Yun-shim Jackson-Lipkin getting her done (plus a dye job).

Finally, there is a picture of Miles Jackson-Lipkin's trousers falling down as he tried to enter the home of his sister-in-law.

 
Why is this last picture considered newsworthy (apart from the sensationlism)?  Part of it is undoubtedly tied with the desire to see Miles Jackson-Lipkin humiliated.  During his trial, he waved a card with the words 南蠻 (='southern barbarians') at the reporters.  So there was probably some glee here.

The real news story here is that Miles Jackson-Lipkin had lost a lot of weight in prison.  His old trousers are now too wide and that was why they fell off.

• [090]  The Eight Obscene Articles Tribunal Adjudicators (05/26/2007) Earlier, Ming Pao had interviewed eight adjudicators from the Obscene Articles Tribunal.  These eight were selected randomly from the list of 321 adjudicators and they were then asked to classify four different articles that had previously been reviewed by the Obscene Articles Tribunal (see Comment 200705#072).
   
  (The Sun)  Netizens are questioning the actions of these eight adjudicators for contempt of the judicial process.  According to the Obscene Articles Tribunal Adjudicators Association chairman Yip Kwok-hing, the Chinese University Student Press is asking for a review of the previous classification.  Before that review has been completed, the "simulated review" organized by Ming Pao is clearly disrepectful of the Obscene Articles Tribunal.  The Television and Entertainment Licencing Authority has received nine complaints about "simulated review" in Ming Pao, but it has not decided whether to forward the matter to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classification.
   
  There is much more about individual adjudicators of the Obscene Articles Tribunal perverting the course of justice at The Very Public Adjudicators of the Hong Kong Obscene Articles Tribunal.

• [089]  What Should The Chi Heng Foundation Do Next? (05/26/2007)  (YZZK via Boxun)

Chung To (杜聪) was born in Hong Kong but went to the United States as a very young student.  He returned to Hong Kong after graduating from university and he had a very good job with an investment bank.  During his spare time, he was involved in public interest projects and joined the Chi Heng Foundation.  He was introducted to Dr. Gao Yaojie and he accompanied her to visit AIDS patients in Shengcai county, Henan province during the summer of 2002.  He saw the large number of new graves, the suffering AIDS patients and the AIDS orphans who could no longer attend school because their parents were dead.  Chung To was shocked.  He gave up his investment banking job and he dedicated himself full-time to help the AIDS orphans.

When school began in autumn 2002, 127 elementary/secondary school students in one village in Shengcai county were able to continue school because Chung To paid their tuition fees.  In total, Chung To's foundation has assisted 6,000 students in four counties in Henan provinces, as well as Anhui and Shandong provinces.  During the past five years, Chung To has spent all his personal savings in charitable work and he is forced to become an investment banker again.  In 2005, Chung To was named as an outstanding Hong Kong young person.  In 2006, he was named as an outstanding worldwide young person.

The above was the good story.  Now for the bad story.  In the summer of 2006, Chung To organized certain university students from Shengcai county to return to work as volunteers.  On August 6, the Shengcai police summoned one of these university students to the police station for questioning.  They informed the student that Chung To's Chi Heng Foundation was an illegal organization.  At past midnight on August 9, the Shengcai county police went to the home of Chung To's assistant in Shengcai and made her go back and open the office so that they could take away the two computers with all the data.  They left no warrant and no receipt.

When school began in September, the county had not renewed approval for Chung To to continue paying for tuition.  Several dozen parents and students went to petition but some of them were arrested.  The government said that these petitioners disrupted social harmony when they only wanted to get the government to allow Chung To to continue to pay for tuition.

In October, the Shenchai Civil Affairs Bureau's Charity Association contacted Chung To and asked him to transfer his planned donation into their bank account to be distributed to students.  Chung To refused.  He has never ever distributed financial aid through a third party.  He has always personally delivered the money to the students.  In the end, Chung To proposed to work with the Charity Association by handing the money over to the students together.  Shengcai county rejected the proposal.

When Chung To attempted to visit the petitioners, he was stopped by the police at the village entrance.  Chung To said: "I have friends in the village that I want to visit.  I have been keeping very quiet about this whole thing.  But how can you deprive me of my right to visit friends?"

When YZZK contacted Shengcai county party secretary Li Haizhou, he said: "We welcome charitable activities in Shengcai, but you must go through the procedure and get approval from above to work with the Civil Affairs Bureau's Charity Department.  Otherwise, I have difficulties."  He emphasized that he was just following the orders and policies from above.  The public security bureau will suppress all unregistered NGO's.  Li Haizhou said that overseas NGO's help this family but not that one and this creates squabbles among families.  "Our work is very hard."

In truth, over the past five years, Chung To had signed agreements with the Shengcai county Department of Health and Department of Education.  He has government approval and he has red-lettered government documents.  He keeps his promises to the government.  Even when he raises money, he does not mention Shengcai specifically.  In order to make practical contribution, Chung To has been exceeding careful in not offending the government.

Chung To is careful about describing the nature of his task: The blood trade was the cause of the AIDS disaster.  "There has been a fire and I am the firefighter who is helping the government fight the fire.  I am not here to investigate the cause of the fire and hold people accountable.  That is the reason why many government officials are willing to accept us and help us."  But let us suppose that the fire was accidental and there are people willing to help fight the fire.  Instead, the government obstructs them from doing so.  Then that is another story.

So far, more than 400 high school and university students have still been able to receive their tuition fees.  Chung To had set up bank accounts for them and he wired the money directly into their accounts.  "Although the government took away the computers and data, we had backups and the government cannot obstruct us from helping those AIDS orphans from completing their studies."  However, the middle- and elementary- school students have not received their tuition fees yet.

Why is Chung To being so stubborn?  Five years ago, Chung To made a promise to the deceased AIDS parents that "their children shall receive a good education."  Chung To's message to the government officials is: "I did not come here because of you, and I definitely will not leave because of you."

What should Chung To and the Chi Heng Foundation do next?

• [088]  The Proposed Hong Kong Subway System By-Laws  (05/26/2007)  (The Standard)