I never blogged about last week’s idiotic story about dangerous Chinese terrorists slipping into the US to set off a dirty bomb in Boston. Everything about it smelled right from the beginning, and I’m delighted to see the whole thing exposed as a hoax. It’s a great example of our terrorism hysteria, where all you have to do is whisper the T-word and journalists will eat up whatever BS you try to sell them.

It’s a big responsibility, being the PR manager, and I’m going to be out of action for at least another day or two working on our annual report (sheer torture). Guest posts will be considered, so tell me if you’re interested. Thanks.

It seems we’re going to be hearing more about Bush’s drunk-driving episode from 30 years ago. No, not about his arrest long ago, but about his man Alberto Gonzales’ helping him cover it up — and lying about the story during his hearings last week. This is a major development in what we’ve all been led to believe would be a classic slam-dunk. And if anyone deserves a slam-dunk confirmation, it’s “memo-man” Gonzales, right?

That’s what I’m told. (It’s in Chinese.)

[Via a good article on how Chinese in America are memorializing Zhao.)

Time to check up on the latest photos and stories from George Bush’s excellent adventure in Iraq.

A few days ago I posted the famous picture of the Chinese baby crying in the bombed-out Shanghai railroad station.

There’s another picture, perhaps just as powerful, of a child in a similarly tragic situation. I want to urge you to go take a look at that photo and its caption, and read carefully the few lines of text underneath, and don’t miss the comments. It’ll only take a few seconds, and it’s more important than anything you’ll find over here. Go there now.

Since I left Asia, I’ve failed to keep up with all the good stuff at this site, which used to be a daily read for me (at the time, it had a different name). I’ll make it one of my 2005 resolutions to go there more often. For an intelligent, on-the-scene look at what’s going on in China, it’s one of the best sites out there.

Well, that ends that rather messy topic. If the new documents say it’s a fact, it must be so — especially if it’s reported by Xinhua news.

China has published a vast collection of historical documents concerning Taiwan, giving abundant proof of Taiwan’s close link with China’s mainland.

The collection comprises 100 volumes, including a historical record of the Chinese central government’s administration of Taiwan, pedigrees of clans of the mainland’s Fujian Province and Taiwan and historical events in Taiwan, according to a symposium held here on the event Friday.

Taiwan residents are mostly descendants of mainland migrants, many from Fujian province.

“The collection provides indisputable historical record showing the inseparable historical and cultural links between Taiwan and the mainland,” Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said at the symposium.”It profoundly reveals the ‘China attributes’ of Taiwan. It also constitutes a powerful retort against ‘de-Sinolization’ efforts of Taiwan authorities.”

“We are opposed to ‘Taiwan independence’, but we love our Taiwan compatriots,” said Wang Zaixi, deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council. “The vast number of Taiwan compatriots wish for social stability, economic growth and peace across the Taiwan Straits. We’ll continue to work unremittingly for peace across the Taiwan Straits.”

Sounds like a plan. Now we don’t have to argue any more. It’s good to know they have the best interests of the Taiwanese people at heart.

The NY Times has an article on the best places in Taipei to shop, eat and have fun. It looks like a great piece, but never having been to Taipei (only Kaohsiung) I can’t say if the many places it names are cool or not.

It’s such a nice feeling to see Microsoft’s Internet Explorer suffer the death by a thousand cuts it so richly deserves. Firefox is eating away Big Bill’s market share, and if they think it’ll be easy to win us back they don’t know jack. Why on earth would anyone consider going back to a vendor who has no concern for them? (Except, of course, when their customers start to turn elsewhere.)

My friend’s laptop is so crawling with spyware, everytime he tries to go to a business site a pop-up window tries to drag him to a different site offering a similar service. I told him after I installed Firefox I never had a spyware problem again. I can’t understand why anyone’s still using IE.