Archive for the ‘News Log’ Category

Election day live on Bear's Blog Chinese

I wanted to do an English version, well but I'm on my own and My Chinese blog has a larger readership so ...

Bear's Blog Chinese will be offering latest results, web digests and analysis from me and other members of the internet community after 7pm.

Some of those items will be published on my Twitter, it will be in Chinese, well, but you can click on links, most of them will be in English.

Latest from my Twitter:

just a quick note

I don't know much about U.S. politics, so just a congratulation to Sen Barack Obama.

It was a decisive victory. Obama's victory was set when Ohio called for Obama, there was just no way for McCain to win all central states and at least one West Coast state. News netowrks around the world called Obama victory at 5pm nz time as polling stations in west coast states closed, it was without a doubt that these states will go for obama.

I don't know much U.S. domestic issues, but for the rest of the world, I think this is a good outcome as it is likely to leads to a U.S. foreign policy change, and it renewed the concept "American dreams" - anything can happen if you worked hard.

Second debate

Last night’s leaders debate on TV 3 was quite dull – I nearly fall into sleep before they finish the debate. I don’t understand what’s the point for them to use that one hour to just list their policies, which they’ve done for many times during the campaign.  I wanted to get something new from the debate, and both of them disappointed me.

The only interesting thing happened was around the Anti-smacking Bill. Maybe it was so boring so that two leaders actually started to claim the credit for this very unpopular bill, instead of give the “credit” to the other party.  Well this reinforces what I said in my Chinese blog – if you want real change, don’t expect that from major parties.

It was so boring so I have to say that both of them did quite bad. In fact, I think the only winner of the debate, was John Campbell.

Despite others’ comments, I thought John Campbell did very well. The questions were succinct and right to the point.  And most important of all, he can control the debate far better than Mark Sainsbury, Helen Clark was unable to yell as she did in the first time, and asked for ”fairness” (when was the last time you see this?). Campbell did very well by given each other fair amount of time to respond to questions, and when someone is way off the topic, Campbell interjected very quickly.

I understand those who criticised Campbell do not like too many interjections in a debate, well, that’s really a matter of individual preferences, for me, I don't want to see two people just yell to each other without any form of mediation, in that situation nobody gets anything out of the debate.

John Campbell was the clear winner of the debate. I usually watch Close Up at 7, but I’ll sure consider Campbell live in the future.

For two party leaders, I think Helen Clark did better than John Key, compare with last debate on TV ONE. Key played it very safe, but lacked energy and motivation. Clark didn’t yell much this time, but was still fierce and energetic – well she had to hadn’t she?

Just one quick point

Environment is an important issue to me. After seeing the debate tonight, I just got one question: "if we don't have an environment that is able to sustain our life, will we still be there to enjoy the economic development?"

New Zealanders are always proud of their progressive, sometimes radical social values. They are part of our nation's identity. We cannot compete in economy with countries like USA, but we can lead the world in social issues.

We did not seek a balance between rugby matches and our value, we also shouldn't do like what Mr Key said, "a balance between environment and economic development". Mr Key also should not be hesitate to answer the question on the 1981 Springboks tour, I agree the past has no value in order to help us solve our current issues, but Mr Key's personal values are  important though, for me, to assess whether he's the right man. His hesitation to answer that question, shows me that he got no social value at all - that was the defining moment of our country and yet you have no opinion on that?

For that reason, National is definitely off my list for now - if we lose our identity, New Zealand will no longer be New Zealand.

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In terms of the debate itself, both did fine. But clearly John Key is more energic and won the debate. After 9 years of Helen Clark, you can even tell what she's going to say before she actually says it.

And it's quite weird that John Key didn't mention the phrase "national party" a lot in the debate ...probably only once or twice.

A smart move

Auntie Helen has announced this afternoon that if reelected, her government will eventually make the student allowance universal by abolishing the parental income test in 2012. Before that, the threshold for receiving an allowance will rise each year to make more students eligible for student allowance.

Well sure this policy is not targeting at current university student like me, so I won't benefit much from it. The real target of this is the middle-class family: 40ish couple, with a bit of money but not too much, got a kid or two that is about to enter the university but don't want kids to ruin their life.

Middle class people do not form the stable vote base of neither major party, and they are the real king/queen makers of the election. People will eventually have children at a point of their life (well most of them), so a few bucks of tax cut sure is no match to Auntie Helen's big cash out bribes.

Just need to see how would the voters respond to this policy...

Although I will not benefit from it, it does, however make me swinging more toward Labour. I like left-wing more than right wing Nats - lefties usually tell public what they really think, wheres Nats tend to tell you what you like to hear - I cannot understand why National's cash dishing policy (tax cut) can be branded as "smart" "helpful to economy", but Labour's same type of policy is branded as "big election bribe". So why high income earner's spending can stimulate economy, but give more money for students' to spend is a bribe?

Some people are really  too greedy, 2% more of taxation in exchange for the cheaper labour and social stability, that's the best deal in the world. Most importantly, that 2% reduces the gap between the rich and poor,  prevent proletariat to become lumpenproletariat class (gosh, such a long word).

4 dead, director arrested.

Questions still remain for the contaminated milk powder scandal. How melamine got into the baby milk powder is still a bit of mystery, although Chinese police has arrested several dairy farmers, alleging them of adding that chemical to the raw milk.

But melamine is almost insolvent to water. If it was added in the raw milk stage, it is hard to believe that San Lu does not have any knowledge on it, as the precipitation will almost occur in the milk.

San Lu, the producer has a motive to add melamine to the milk in the production stage because it gives the end product a false high protein reading. But this possibility is not publicly investigated at the moment.

Just some facts you may be interested to know ...

• Melamine was later found in varies milk powder products, including some reputable Chinese brand.
• However, San Lu's product got an extremely high reading (2000+ mg/kg), compare with 100 or less mg/kg in other products)
• Only one type of  San Lu milk powder product was found to be "contaminated".  It is the cheapest of its type in the market.
• San Lu products were granted exemption from state quality surveillance inspection because of its "excellent performance".

So did San Lu or dairy farmers deliberately added melamine into the milk powder? In my opinion, the short answer is yes, with a long answer "no". San Lu, like nearly everybody else, adds bit of high tech stuff like melamine into their products. But there's no need to boost protein % by add 2000+ mg/kg melamine, so something must gone wrong in the process, which probably San Lu's QCs have no knowledge of.