共和党一边，麦凯恩早已坐稳了共和党候选人的交椅。虽然纽约时报爆出他和一位华盛顿女说客关系暧昧，对他的候选人提名应该没什么影响。
共和党现在关心的是他对保守派的凝聚力，因为麦凯恩一向以激进著称，如何说服共和党内的主流保守派支持他，是他今后几个月的主要任务。对共和党而言，说服任务的主要方式之一是寻找党内意见领袖的支持。麦凯恩最近已经得到了包括老布什总统在内的不少领袖支持，应该说正是一帆风顺的时候。
Category Archives: Comments
美国2008大选观察（一）：民主党两候选人争夺白热化
最近一打开电视就看到候选人辩论、选举广告和竞选活动相关节目，其受关注程度也远远超过肥皂剧和明星八卦之类。民主党一方的竞争尤其引人注目–资深民主党参议员希拉里.克林顿和参议员巴洛克.奥巴马最近在使尽全身解数争夺民主党总统候选人提名。
奥巴马采纳的竞选策略，不少人认为是美国总统选举前所未有的，其突出特征是草根性质–奥巴马阵营不遗余力争取年轻人支持，特别是在校大学生；这些大学生们成了奥巴马竞选志愿者的主力，走遍大小城市为其挨家挨户宣传奥巴马的内外政策。 就其竞选纲领而言，现阶段奥巴马阵营突出宣传的是革新（change）。奥巴马认为，旧的政治体制需要革新，政府才能够采纳好的建议；如果维持旧的体制，麻烦还会继续出现。在奥巴马看来，革新是针对当前美国面对的政治、经济、军事、外交等困难的釜底抽薪。
相比之下，参议员希拉里的竞选似乎没有特别突出的新意。希拉里强调的是她的经验，放言“现在已经准备好党美国的三军总司令”。在华盛顿历练多年，并且工作卓有成效–奥巴马也承认这一点，是希拉里最大的资本。奥巴马所言的革新，希拉里认为是空话–空话不解决实际问题。为了突出与奥巴马的区别，希拉里阵营最近强调的是解决问题（solutions）。
奥巴马目前势头强劲，已经所谓“连下十城”。希拉里的形势不容乐观：刚刚在德州结束的辩论，媒体认为希拉里没有达到她的目标（Smooth talk in Texas）。虽然候选人花落谁家尚未可知，对希拉里而言已经是远出意料之外–希拉里阵营没有料到被置于背水一战的地步。一般的意见是，尽管候选人提名还需在民主党内通过超级代表（super delegate）投票程序，如果希拉里再失去德州和俄亥俄，候选人竞选就结束了。故而，现在希拉里和她的支持者全力在这两州活动。奥巴马一方，目前不仅选举春风得意，还因前所未有地吸引了年轻人的选票而受到民主党领袖们的青睐。
What does Google hide in China and How
I have long heard about Google’s participating in China’s internet censorship, but details, such as what Google hides and how, remain unknown to me. Now with the website “google v. google.cn” I can easily see them. Here is an example of comparing the searching results of “communism” from google and google.cn:
The Next Big Thing: Ideas Flow Through Internet Video Sharing
Flat Cat Continues to Live on Paper, and Face has been lost
(For a previous comment, please see Truth to Be Told: Flat Cat Controversy in China Ends)
Ever since Chinese netizens discovered the original paper tiger, which they called Nianhua Laohu, truth has been revealed. The only thing left is for the national and provincial government agencies to admit it. However, both are still nagging around and trying to avoid such admission, or losing face. Futile, I have to say.
The Shaanxi provincial government agency argued that even though one photo was made from the Nianhua Laohu, others were not. Netizens celebrated for it–they finally force the government to admit that at least one photo was fake–half-truth was told. For the other half, they soon made a thorough examination of the rest 40 digital photos, and concluded with strong evidence that they were fake, too.
The national government agency assimilated the situation with that of the Loch Ness Monster. “We should focus on whether tiger exists there or not,” said the official, “NOT the photos. Look, nobody cares for Loch Ness Monster photos. People are more interested in the existence of the Ness Monster. You should stop discussing the photos.” Immediately netizens started to joke about the assimilation. What do the South China tiger and the Loch Ness Monster have in common? Neither one exists. What is the difference between the two? Loch Ness Monster does not have a governmental representative.
The two agencies efforts’ to save face failed miserably. To add salt to the wound, the media went further to embarrass them. Newspapers encouraged waves of pressure onto them. A CCTV program then dropped the final bomb. It exposed all loop wholes found in the story to its 1.4 billion audiences. These newspaper reports and TV exposure are only possible–one has to keep in mind–with the propaganda department’s permission, which leaves people wonder what the agenda behind is.
Flat cat continues to live–although you may now start counting down its days. Face has been lost, despite all the efforts of the two agencies. Now whose face? The propaganda department expect that only the two agencies, and that’s why it has not oppress any speech against the paper tiger–but it may have been too optimistic.
看热闹喽：“封锁消息——人质劫持事件中CNN的理性”
念中国青年报的新闻评论“ 封锁消息——人质劫持事件中CNN的理性”，感觉好像看一伙在小巴上玩易拉罐中奖的骗子做戏–这伙人花样有限，但玩的还特投入。北京市民的智商对付这种骗子绝对一流，诸位请上眼–
小巴上碰见玩易拉罐中奖的，北京市民多半两手揣兜里不言语，以冷漠来表示他们对骗子动机和智商的双重蔑视。当然，他们有时候也会觉得不是滋味：社会主义都这么多年了，怎么还能让这些骗子出来跳呢（这句“出来跳”是广东话里来的），保不准还真有善良群众看了上当。不少热心肠的，实在看不过眼，就会站出来跟大伙言语两句。这回是帽子胡同的刘大爷。
中青报说：老少爷们，别净说姆恩家歪曲事实封锁消息，恁家常夸奖的CNN，这不也封锁消息吗？(北京土话放这儿还真合适)
刘大爷： 呸！你们弄这点小玩意，可见上小学时候没念好思想品德：人民雪亮的眼睛是那么容易逃脱的吗？像姜昆当年相声里一卖烟老大妈说的，（你小子）只要放个屁就能知道抽的香烟什么牌子的。你们要当婊子，就别成天想着立贞节牌坊！
刘大爷就看准了一点， 你中青报说人家封锁消息也罢，自比CNN也好，不能改变自冰点事件之后自甘堕落，从此昧着良心文过饰非、粉饰太平加上为虎作伥。人说打蛇对七寸打，嘿嘿，对阵再精明的流氓，任凭你巧舌如簧，也知道你就是个流氓，绝不和你纠缠于具体细节。让看热闹的老少爷们知道流氓的老底，我就已经立于不败之地。
您看，北京市民的智商是不是一流？古人云大隐隐于市，果不其然。
Execution for Less Killing? –On Adrian Vermeule and Cass Sunstein’s New Argument for Capital Punishment
Two law professors, Adrian Vermeule of Harvard and Cass R. Sunstein of Chicago, have raised a new argument for capital punishment. Based on the economic analysis that the execution carried out is correlated with fewer murders the following year, they stated that “capital punishment may be morally required, not for retributive reasons, but rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives.” (http://lawreview.stanford.edu/content/vol58/issue3/sunstein1.pdf)
Their argument, however, is not entirely new. Conventionally, arguments against capital punishment include: first, the state doesn’t have a moral basis to kill a person; second, even if it does, capital punishment may lead to disastrous result for the State may execute innocent people by mistake; third, even if the mistaking execution won’t happen, it goes nowhere –capital punishment doesn’t prevent crimes from happening. Those argue for capital punishment, accordingly, have three counter-arguments: first, it is a moral responsibility of the state to punish criminals by executing murderers; second, mistaking execution may happen, but it won’t be disastrous, particularly when nowadays the principle of reasonable doubt has been strictly applied; third, capital punishment does deter new crimes. The argument that Professor Adrian Vermeule and Cass R. Sunstein have raised focuses on the first and the third one.
Their argument mingles two of the aforementioned arguments: first, as a matter of fact, capital punishment does prevent new crimes (the taking of innocent lives); second, the state does have a moral basis to enforce capital punishment.The mingling contributes to its creativity, but more of its vulnerability. On the one hand, their argument won’t convince those who believe any killing by the state is morally wrong. The statistics carries no persuasion to them. On the other hand, it will not make the non-deterrence proponents change their view–after all, since the statistics only build correlations, not causations, how can one possibly prove the causation between execution and crime deterrence? The moral argument would not add upon this debate of cruel logic(!) any weight.
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule:Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
58 Stan. L. Rev. 703 (Jan. 2006)
http://lawreview.stanford.edu/content/vol58/issue3/sunstein1.pdf
Widener图书馆奇思妙想系列(一). 城市电力紧张解决方案
Widener Library Brain Storm 1: A Simple Solution for Power Scarcity in the cities
Guo, Rui
(版权所有, 内容免费. )
酷暑的时候城市电力紧张, 在国内已经很普遍. 原因很简单: 电力无法储存, 在短时间内家庭/商场等地开启空调, 用电量骤然增加,但供电系统却无法增加电量,当然会导致电力紧张. 严重的时候, 电力紧张会带来大面积停电,造成不可挽回的损失. 随着中国城市化进程的加快, 城市电力紧张的问题会越来越严重. Continue reading
Byse Workshop Today
Finally the workshop started a discussion on the globalization process. The speaker presented two models on how globalization happened: a rational model and a cultural model. WRT the rational model, we have discussed the “race to the bottom/top” theory; for the cultural model, we have discussed the expansion of models. What’s interesting about the discussion is the diversity of views among fellow SJDs. On the same phenominon, they had dramatically different understanding. You can imagine how different their comments are on the 1000-face globalization. It is simply too much work for me to repeat their views, so I give up.
A comment from the work shop (about the soft international norms such as guidlines):
“So it means ‘better to be hypocrats than to be jerks’.”
Regulating Reincarnation of Buddhas in China
The Religious Bureau of China recently issued a Regulation on the Reincarnation of Buddha. Here is a digest of it.
Article 4. A Buddha can not reincarnate when any of the following conditions is met: …
(2) the local city government does not permit such reincarnation.
and
Article 10. Before a candidate assumes Buddha’s position, an official from the government agency that issues reincarnation permissions shall read the permission, and the candidate shall obtain a certificate issued by the Buddhism Association of an appropriate level.
The certificate shall be made in accordance with a national standard by the Buddhism Association of the national level. All issued certificates shall be registered in the Religious Bureau of China.