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Bernard English

Bernard English
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email: bernard.english@gmail.com

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Showing posts with label by Bernard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label by Bernard. Show all posts

Monday, August 21, 2017

Robert E. Lee and Trump

“With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.”--Robert E. Lee who declined to take charge of Union troops to put down the independence movement in the South. Note also that his Arlington estate was right across from the Union's capital, so he presumed it would be soon be overrun. Even if he was in the wrong, his personal situation has to be considered. For me, far more unforgivable was his submission of anti-slavery leader John Brown. [from War Between the States by John J. Dwyer]
Trump is right in not jumping on the bandwagon of tearing down monuments as issue is a bit more complicated than some people think. Perhaps he was right in thinking blame for the Virginia violence may need to be shared by the two sides (he claims he watched the video carefully) as well as his statement that the racists had a permit to demonstrate while the others did not, but he was dead wrong in stating so publicly. It would seem it is the justice department's responsibility to apportion the responsibility for the violence and if necessary to file charges. Why is it the president's business to act like the legal council for white supremacists? All Trump had to do was offer condolences to the victims and condemn racism. He couldn't even do that properly.

Sunday, June 4, 2017

Nuclear Power Plants vs. Nuclear Weapons

NIMBY--shut down nuclear power plants, now.
Make more nuclear weapons and let the nuclear waste drop in someone else's backyard!

Friday, February 3, 2017

Rethinking health reform by Bernard

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2017/02/03/2003664234/1

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Email interface for the elderly

Want to get more emails from your grandparents? Someone needs to simplify the standard email interface. Here is my quickie version:

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Taiwanese Raised in America (TRIA)

We are all familiar with the term ABC which stands for American Born Chinese. However, I'd like to suggest that the initialism TRIA (Taiwanese Raised in America) might also be useful, as it covers some people who were neither born in the US nor raised in Taiwan. But do not be surprised if no one is familiar with it, since I coined it.

Friday, November 6, 2009

My new business venture

Realizing that nowadays many Taiwanese parents are too weak-willed or busy to physically punish their children, I hit upon this new business venture. For a fee, I'm willing to beat the little darlings for parents. My fee schedule is as follows:
  • $100 NT per blow to buttocks with any object of your choosing (minimum 5 blows)
  • $200 NT per slap to the face (minimum of 3 slaps)
  • $300 NT per bare knuckle punches anywhere below neck (sorry no direct punches to the face)
  • If the child cries during the punishment I will also kick them at no extra charge
Parents are encouraged to remain stoic throughout the punishment. On the one hand, children may lose respect for parents who cry, and on the other hand parents may face strained relations with their children if they are seen to be laughing out loud while their little ones are getting beat.

Legal Issues
I have been warned by my lawyer that allowing only adults to hire me may lay me open to the charge of age discrimination. Therefore, any child between the ages of 10 and 16 may also hire me to "punish" their parents. The age restriction is due to the fact that children under 10 may not understand the import of hiring me, and I feel that anyone over 16 is old enough to administer their own beatings.

Monday, December 8, 2008

The $NT 3,600 will mislead Taiwanese consumers and investors

One overlooked problem with the government program of boosting consumption by giving out $NT 3,600 vouchers is that it may mislead consumers and businessmen. In the first case, if the vouchers do in fact temporarily boost the economy, some people may misinterpret this as more than just a temporary improvement, thus consuming or spending more than is warranted by the underlying fundamentals of the economy. 

In the second case, a sound economic recovery may happen to coincide with the voucher stimulus. But now, especially cautious consumers and investors may discount the recovery, mistakenly attributing it to the voucher scheme. They will be waiting for, what they believe to be a false recovery, to fizzle, hopefully to be followed by a true recovery. All the while they will be delaying their purchases and investments, which will of course prolong the slowdown.

Artificial stimulation of the economy makes it much harder to predict the future direction of the economy. Not only is the economic data itself harder to interpret, but now investors must also try to read the political tea leaves: What will polititians do next? Will they approve another stimulus package? When? How much? Interference in the economy adds political uncertainty to the untold difficulties of strict economic prediction. To some extent, this is even true of beneficial interference, such as tax reductions.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Extreme Sports


Spectator A: Boy, I  think he is using performance enhancing drugs.
Spectator B: Ya, too bad. After all, extreme sports such as marathons and triathlons are so beneficial to our health. 

In fact, is it not possible that under many circumstances engaging in extreme sports may be more dangerous without the use of performance enhancing drugs than with them?


Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A peaceful resolution to the Taiwan-China problem

A few ways of peacefully resolving Taiwan-China relations:

  • China could allow Taiwan sovereign status in exchange for its vote in international organizations. This is not unprecedentent: the Soviet Union refrained from incorporating some Eastern European countries in exchange for their votes against Western countries.
  • Make Taiwan a safe haven for Chinese money, legal as well as illegal. A no questions asked policy regarding the origin of funds would attract enough money from mainland Chinese businessmen and corrupt bureaucrats to assure that the rich and powerful, for fear of losing their money, would never countenance aggression against Taiwan.
  • China could buy simply buy Taiwan. They just spent about 40 billion USD on the Olympics, so surely they can give each Taiwanese (about 23 million) one million USD as a payoff to become part of China. My guess is most Taiwanese would accept the offer in exchange for giving up their sovereignty. Unfortunately Beijing would never agree to such a resolution because Xijiang, Tibet, Hong Kong and just about every oil rich Chinese province would threaten to declare independence if it were not awarded large amounts of money.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Confucian Values

According to Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations, 1996, p. 153) Dr Mahathir, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, suggests that ". . . Asians generally pursue their goals with others in ways which are subtle, indirect, modulated, devious, nonjudgmental, nonmoralistic, and non-confrontational." In the very next paragraph Huntington quotes Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, as calling Australians "the new white trash of Asia."

Granted that not every single Asian will conform to Mahathir's description of the stereotypical Asian, but as one of the foremost proponents of Asian and Confucian values, you would think Lee Kuan Yew would be a paradigmatic example of a distinctive Asian way of doing things. Actually his abrasive manner is just another reminder of how Asians are not all that different from the supposedly incorrigible Western individualists.

Let's take an example from everyday life--driving. So is there a Confucian way of driving? And if so, is it superior to the decadent Western way? As far as I can see, driving in Taipei, a "Confucian" city, does not fit my image of Confucian values. There is absolutely no thought given to pedestrians by drivers; pedestrians routinely run across the street, even when they have a green light, in order to get out of the way of oncoming cars. I have even seen mothers quickening their pace as they push a baby stroller just to avoid getting hit. On the other hand, in the U.S. pedestrians have the right of way, and this is generally honored by drivers. The rule of thumb is that if pedestrians have to break their stride, then the driver is in error. This rule seems to be unknown in Taiwan.

At least as far as driving goes, I prefer the decadent Western way to the supposedly Confucian way in Taipei. If Lee Kuan Yew or Dr Mahathir really believe in all their rhetoric about the Asian way of doing things, either of them might try crossing Taipei streets imagining that socially oriented drivers infused with Confucian values will take care not to hit him--I don't think either would survive one day.

My point isn't that Taiwanese are bad drivers or that Confucian values are not valuable. I just feel that it is very hard to pinpoint exactly what Confucian values are today and how they manifest themselves in people's daily behavior. Other than among academics and chauvinistic politicians such as Lee Kuan Yew, I don't think that for the average individual the Western or Confucian values uniquely regulate behavior, however much it may have done so in the past. The single exception may be the reluctance of Asians to express their opinions publicly. Then again, Lee Kuan Yew isn't exactly shy.

In fact, Lee Kuan Yew's creation, the strictly regulated city-state of Singapore should make anyone suspicious of the island's Confucian values. A nanny state is only required when people won't conform to the group oriented, self-sacrificing image of Confucianism espoused by Lee Kuan Yew. But Singapore's leaders know perfectly well that Singaporeans (76.8% of whom are ethnic Chinese according to the CIA Factbook) would not live up to this stereotypical image, hence, the strict regulations.
You can read some of these at http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/international/singapore

Monday, June 9, 2008

Political Arithmetic

Total US population: 301,621,157
Total number of electors in the electoral college: 538
All population figures are 2007 estimates from factfinder.census.gov

A positive number in Column C shows that a state benefits from the electoral system.
A negative number (shown in red) indicates that a state has reduced voting power under the electoral system.





A B C
Rank State State's Population State's Electoral Votes State's Population as % of Total US population Number of State Electors as % of Total Electors Effect of Electoral College Column B– Column A
1 California 36,553,215 55 12.12 10.22 -1.896
2 Texas 23,904,380 34 7.93 6.32 -1.606
3 New York 19,297,729 31 6.40 5.76 -0.636
4 Florida 18,251,243 27 6.05 5.02 -1.032
5 Illinois 12,852,548 21 4.26 3.90 -0.358
6 Pennsylvania 12,432,792 21 4.12 3.90 -0.219
7 Ohio 11,466,917 20 3.80 3.72 -0.084
8 Michigan 10,071,822 17 3.34 3.16 -0.179
9 Georgia 9,544,750 15 3.16 2.79 -0.376
10 North Carolina 9,061,032 15 3.00 2.79 -0.216
11 New Jersey 8,685,920 15 2.88 2.79 -0.092
12 Virginia 7,712,091 13 2.56 2.42 -0.141
13 Washington 6,468,424 11 2.14 2.04 -0.100
14 Massachusetts 6,449,755 12 2.14 2.23 0.092
15 Indiana 6,345,289 11 2.10 2.04 -0.059
16 Arizona 6,338,755 10 2.10 1.86 -0.243
17 Tennessee 6,156,719 11 2.04 2.04 0.003
18 Missouri 5,878,415 11 1.95 2.04 0.096
19 Maryland 5,618,344 10 1.86 1.86 -0.004
20 Wisconsin 5,601,640 10 1.86 1.86 0.002
21 Minnesota 5,197,621 10 1.72 1.86 0.136
22 Colorado 4,861,515 9 1.61 1.67 0.061
23 Alabama 4,627,851 9 1.53 1.67 0.139
24 South Carolina 4,407,709 8 1.46 1.49 0.026
25 Louisiana 4,293,204 9 1.42 1.67 0.249
26 Kentucky 4,241,474 8 1.41 1.49 0.081
27 Oregon 3,747,455 7 1.24 1.30 0.059
28 Oklahoma 3,617,316 7 1.20 1.30 0.102
29 Connecticut 3,502,309 7 1.16 1.30 0.140
30 Iowa 2,988,046 7 0.99 1.30 0.310
31 Mississippi 2,918,785 6 0.97 1.12 0.148
32 Arkansas 2,834,797 6 0.94 1.12 0.175
33 Kansas 2,775,997 6 0.92 1.12 0.195
34 Utah 2,645,330 5 0.88 0.93 0.052
35 Nevada 2,565,382 5 0.85 0.93 0.079
36 New Mexico 1,969,915 5 0.65 0.93 0.276
37 West Virginia 1,812,035 5 0.60 0.93 0.329
38 Nebraska 1,774,571 5 0.59 0.93 0.341
39 Idaho 1,499,402 4 0.50 0.74 0.246
40 Maine 1,317,207 4 0.44 0.74 0.307
41 New Hampshire 1,315,828 4 0.44 0.74 0.307
42 Hawaii 1,283,388 4 0.43 0.74 0.318
43 Rhode Island 1,057,832 4 0.35 0.74 0.393
44 Montana 957,861 3 0.32 0.56 0.240
45 Delaware 864,764 3 0.29 0.56 0.271
46 South Dakota 796,214 3 0.26 0.56 0.294
47 Alaska 683,478 3 0.23 0.56 0.331
48 North Dakota 639,715 3 0.21 0.56 0.346
49 Vermont 621,254 3 0.21 0.56 0.352
50 District of Columbia 588,292 3 0.20 0.56 0.363
51 Wyoming 522,830 3 0.17 0.56 0.384

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Don't boycott the Olympics - end them permanently

What's the point of the Olympics? If it is to improve relations between countries it has been an abysmal failure. The Olympics have all too easily becomes a point of political contention between nations, as exemplified by the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (see below). This shouldn't be surprising-if you divide athletes into competing teams based on nationality, you are bound to incite nationalist sentiments among athletes, spectators, and most of all, host nations. The faulty logic behind the Olympics as a harmonizing force between nations is revealed when we consider whether the same logic can be applied to sporting events based on other divisions among people. Is it even remotely conceivable that competition based on black, white, and Asian sports teams would be good for race relations? Or better yet, how about advocating an Olympics pitting heterosexuals against homosexuals as a way of fighting homophobia? These suggestions are just as ridiculous as all the cliches about the benefits of competition between Olympic teams based on nationality.

International sports competitions are a great idea, but they should be organized along non-nationalist lines. Teams can be sponsored by private sports organizations or companies, as is the case in many sports leagues today. The cooperation between the potentially diverse members of such teams would replace the ethnic and nationalist divisiveness of the current Olympic system. If this were done, the distractions of nationalist politics could be replaced by a focus on the drama of actual sports competition.

1936 Berlin Olympics FROM Infoplease

In Berlin, dictator Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers felt sure that the Olympics would be the ideal venue to demonstrate Germany's oft-stated racial superiority. He directed that $25 million be spent on the finest facilities, the cleanest streets and the temporary withdrawal of all outward signs of the state-run anti-Jewish campaign. By the time over 4,000 athletes from 49 countries arrived for the Games, the stage was set.

1976 Montreal Olympics FROM Infoplease
. . .right before the Games were scheduled to open in July, 32 nations, most of them from black Africa, walked out when the IOC refused to ban New Zealand because its national rugby team was touring racially segregated South Africa. Taiwan also withdrew when Communist China pressured trading partner Canada to deny the Taiwanese the right to compete as the Republic of China.

1980 Moscow Olympics FROM Wikepedia
Though the Games have aimed to be an arena free of politics, the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan spurred United States President Jimmy Carter to issue an ultimatum that the United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics if Soviet troops had not withdrawn from the country by 12:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time on February 20, 1980; the official announcement confirming the boycott was made on March 21.

The United States was joined in the boycott by some other populous countries - including Japan, West Germany, China and Canada. Some of these countries competed at the Olympic Boycott Games at Philadelphia. Notably, the United Kingdom, France, and Greece supported the boycott but allowed their athletes to participate if they wished (the U.S. did not). The United Kingdom and France sent a much smaller delegation of athletes than usual. Nevertheless, the delegation of the United Kingdom was the largest among Western Europe, with 170 athletes applying to compete.[1] Spain, Italy, Sweden, Iceland and Finland were other principal nations representing western Europe,[1] though Italian athletes belonging to military corps did not attend the Games, due to the government's support of the boycott. The boycott severely affected many events.

. . . Altogether, the athletes of 16 countries were not represented by their national flags, and the Olympic Anthem replaced their national anthems at medal ceremonies. As a result, there were a few ceremonies where three Olympic Flags were raised.

1984 Los Angeles Olympics FROM BBC
Twelve weeks before the opening ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, the USSR has announced it is boycotting them. It is expected most of the Eastern Bloc will follow suit.

The announcement, which was made on Russian TV this afternoon, blamed the commercialisation of the games and a lack of security measures, which amounted to a violation of the Olympic charter.

The Soviet Union accused the United States of using the games "for political purposes" and "stirring up anti-Soviet propaganda" and of having a "cavalier attitude to security of Russian athletes".

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Early Experiment in Centralization

Most often the communist debacle is set forth as an example of the disastrous effects of central planning. But there was an early British/American effort that should have served as a warning to all central planners. The following information is from Daniel J. Boorstin's The Colonial Experience, Part Three, "Victims of Philanthropy - The Settlers of Georgia."

The problems of Georgia colonists actually began with the Trustees of Georgia, primarily led by General James Oglethorpe and Lord Percival. Boorstin writes that "It would be hard to find another venture of 18th-century colonizing and empire-building whose leaders were more disinterested or more free of sordid motives." But that wasn't enough. The Georgia Charter was drawn up in 1732. Basically, poor British subjects, some of whom had criminal backgrounds, were to settle in the new colony of Georgia. The aim was to relieve England of having to take take care of those British subjects who were a burden and to use the colonists to defend the territory against enemies, i.e. the Indians, Spanish and French. As one of the Trustees' publications states, "England will grow rich by sending her Poor Abroad."

So what went wrong?

1- Trustees' Vision: Georgia's economy was supposed to be based on manufacturing silk.
Reality: Only the black (instead of the white variety) mulberry tree was common in Georgia and its leaves were not suitable for silkworms. Many of the silkworms perished.

2 - Trustees' Vision: 50 acres would be enough to support a family.
Reality: It wasn't. Some blamed the colonists for not working hard enough. However, the makeup of the early settlers chosen to colonize Georgia should have indicated that they might need more than the theoretical 50 acre-minimum they were alloted. The colonists were chosen precisely because they could not make a living in England. Their was no reason to think they would be super colonists.

3 - Trustees' Vision: Men can be induced to work hard even if it does not benefit their families. The Georgia Charter of 1732 stipulated that land was not salable nor divisible and could only be inherited by a male heir.
Reality: Since the land reverted to the Trustees if there was no suitable heir, many saw no
point in working hard to develop their land.

4 - Trustees' Vision: The allocation of resources by micromanagement from thousands of miles away would be an efficient way of provisioning the colonists. The colonists were supported with donations from English charitable organizations and subsidies from the British Government (the only colony to receive such help for non-military purposes). The paternalistic rule of the colony can be glimpsed from the "Rules for the year 1735" which lists the supplies colonizers of a new Georgia town will receive.
Reality: The colonists simply demanded more and more assistance. They developed neither the political skills of self-government nor economic initiative. Eventually the Trustees concluded that the poor "who had been useless in England, were inclined to be useless in Georgia likewise." That seems rather harsh since the Trustees created many of the problems faced by the colonists.

The Upshot? - Many simply decided to leave Georgia for another colony.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Screening out e-mail with Taiwanese IP addresses

Recently a student told me that he sent an e-mail to a professor at a US university to find out more about a program. He received an automatic reply indicating that that professor's e-mail does not accept e-mails with a Taiwanese IP address. I think this student was lucky in that he found out immediately what the professor's position was regarding Taiwan and Taiwanese students. I imagine some Taiwanese students applying to US schools never find out their efforts are being undermined.

This reminds of an older college professor who said that when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, a student could finish an entire semester without the professor ever having revealed his political inclinations.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

A comparison of the US and Taiwan

Category Taiwan US
total area 35980 sq km 9,826,630 sq km
population 22.9 million 301.1 million
median age: 35.5 36.6 years
birth rate: 8.97 births/1,000 population (2007 est.) 14.16 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
male life expectancy: 74.65 years male: 75.15 years
female life expectancy: 80.74 years female: 80.97 years (2007 est.)
government branches: executive, legislative, judicial, examination, and control executive, legislative, judicial
ethnic groups: Taiwanese (including Hakka) 84% mainland Chinese 14% indigenous 2% white 81.7% black 12.9% Asian 4.2% Amerindian and Alaska native 1% native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.2%
net migration rate: 0.61 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.) 3.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
religion: mixture of Buddhist and Taoist 93%, Christian 4.5%, other 2.5% Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%, other 10% (2002 est.)
household savings rate: 20% (2007)
Taipei Times
-.3% (2005)
Bureau of Economic Analysis
homeownership rate: 86% (2002)
Lu and Chen
69% (2005)
Danter.com
average home size: 42.2 ping (2006)
Liberty Times
70 ping USA Today
suffrage (投票, 參政權, 選舉權): 20 years of age 18 years of age
legislative branch unicameral legislative yuan bicameral congress
(225 seats; 168 members elected by popular vote) senate (100 seats) and house of representatives (435 seats)
GDP per capita (PPP) $29,600 (2006 est.) $43,800 (2006 est.)
population below poverty line: 0.9% (2006 est.) 12% (2004 est.)
public debt: 34.6% of GDP (2006 est.) 64.7% of GDP (2005 est.)
export partners: China 22.5%, Hong Kong 15.7%, US 15%, Japan 7.3% (2006 est.) Canada 22.2%, Mexico 12.9%, Japan 5.8%, China 5.3%, UK 4.4% (2006)
import partners: Japan 23%, China 11.9%, US 10.9%, South Korea 7.2%, Saudi Arabia 4.9% Canada 16%, China 15.9%, Mexico 10.4%, Japan 7.9%, Germany 4.8%
major exports 2006 (economist.com) machinery&electrical equipment 49.8%, base metals 10.7%, precision instruments 8.2%, plastic&rubber articles 7.1% capital goods (excl auto) 45.8%, industrial supplies 30.5%, consumer goods (excl auto) 14.3%, automotive vehicles, parts&supplies 11.8%



All data from CIA Factbook unless otherwise noted.




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