You simply have to see these pictures to believe them.

Danwei delivers the links and notes wryly, “All of the images appear to be scanned from magazines or ripped from other websites.”

The LA Times speaks out against confirming the architect of legalized torture as America’s next attorney general.

As a leading architect of Bush’s ends-justifies-means war on terror, Gonzales pushed to justify torturing terror suspects in violation of international law, promoted military tribunals that echo Stalin’s show trials, helped write the Patriot Act (which, among other powers, gives government agents vast new snooping authority) and excused the limitless imprisonment of American citizens whom the president merely suspects of terror activity.

Three years into that war, much of Gonzales’ handiwork has been rejected by courts, damned by the world community and disavowed by the administration — as in the Justice Department memo quietly released last week declaring that “torture is abhorrent to both American law and values and to international norms.”

Gonzales’ defenders argue that, as White House counsel, he was simply a passionate advocate for his client. But the most devoted counselor knows that, even in wartime, there are legal and moral lines this nation crosses at peril to its own citizens and those of other countries. Gonzales’ justifications opened the door to the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The mistreatment and prisoner deaths that occurred have raised fears of retaliation against captured Americans. Those concerns prompted a dozen retired generals and admirals, along with civil rights groups, to oppose Gonzales’ nomination.

And he’s the very best man we can find to advise the president on legal issues?

Update: This, too, could qualify for Quote of the Day: “You know how bad the situation is when the president’s choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore.”

My blog, along with that of Instapuppy and Charles Johnson and other notables, was down for several hours today as Hosting Matters upgraded its servers. My apologies for any inconvenience.

Damming it and damning it, too.

It seems our illustrious friends in the CCP may be moving ahead with plans to ruin one of Yunnan province’s most magnificent natural treasures, putting at risk the livelihood of local farmers, the small and endangered group of Naxi peasants, and the rich botanical life that have made the gorge a tourist attraction.

As the piece says, there are already 85,000 dams in China, so why not build one more? Needless to say, it’s all about money.

The stakeholders who really hold the trump card are the moneylenders, says geologist and author Simon Winchester, who believes that the most effective way to block a project is to convince investors to steer clear. The well-traveled writer calls the gorge one of the most memorable places he’s visited. Although he calls the project “a confection of lunacy,” he notes that international business interests are pushing for increased electricity generation in China. “The combination of incredibly cheap labor and reliable power simply makes western reluctance to stop this minimal. They don’t care that this part of the world is extraordinarily beautiful. Business is business.”

Read the whole thing to get the full scope of this blunder. Just don’t blame me if you feel depressed afterwards. (To be fair, many Chinese environmental groups have shown great bravery and indignation at the rape of the gorge, and have mobilized to fight it. Let’s see how far they get; money always seems to win out in these situations.)

Nicholas Kristoff, the annoying but occasionally right-on columnist for the NYT, tells us why we are indeed a stingy people.

When grieving victims intrude onto our TV screens, we dig into our pockets and provide the massive, heartwarming response that we’re now displaying in Asia; the rest of the time, we’re tightwads who turn away as people die in far greater numbers.

The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it’s three million – we don’t even know.

But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000)….

We gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries. Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).

It is sometimes said that Americans make up for low official aid with private charitable donations. Nope. By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure – meaning that we still give only 21 cents a day per person…

Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist, estimates that spending $2 billion to $3 billion on malaria might save more than one million lives a year. “This is probably the best bargain on the planet,” he said.

Depressing. I believe we have good intentions, but it seems charity has never been a great American virtue, except when a tragedy is well marketed to us.

Via Poor Man.

There’s a precious post by James Wolcott today that calls attention to Sullivan’s maddening tendency to 1.) ignore reality, 2.) see the light once it’s too late, 3.) go on belated tirades against Bush, and 4.) finally give Bush the benefit of the doubt all over again so the cycle can begin anew. (He points to this post as a prime example.)

Sullivan seemed to take forever to recognize what was apparent to the statues on Easter Island, that the Republican Party is hostile to gay marriage and gay identity, eager to support homophobia for political gain, and that the only gays it’s comfortable with are white men and women who look like wedding-cake couples and stay discreetly in the closet. He kept holding out hope that because Bush, based on anecdotal evidence, was personally comfortable with gay people, he wouldn’t push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Then came the inevitable disappointment. One by one the inevitable disappointments succeed one another, like a line of tumbling dominos, and each day Sullivan returns to his little fort, ready to give the Bushies the benefit of the doubt yet again.

And Sullivan plays the exact same scenario in regard to Iraq, Albert Gonzales’ torture memo, Rove’s dirty tricks, tax cuts for the rich and just about everything else. As Wolcott says, it’s as though he were “herkily-jerkily battling with himself as if being yanked by an invisible leash.”

All that said, he’s still one of the smartest and most interesting bloggers around and my day is never complete without reading him. (Is that a flip-flop on my part?)

Recently I linked to the Web site of writer and meditation master Walter Stimson. I thought you might enjoy his essay on China’s controversial Anti-secession Law.

“A Big Step For China”
by William R. Stimson

The central standing committee of the People’s Republic of China’s National Congress on December 26, 2004 approved a draft bill for what has come to be known as the “Anti-Secession Law.” This is a big step for China. Unfortunately it’s in the wrong direction.

Evolutionary biologists have long known that the fastest evolution, the quickest development in a line of organisms, doesn’t occur on continents but in archipelagos of many close but separate islands, where it’s possible for populations to make local experiments. The successes spread like lightning through the region. The failures remain local or fizzle out.

Not China, but Europe, with its many separate and distinct nations, cultures and languages, spawned modern civilization. It’s no accident. We think of China as a country, but it’s not. China isn’t analogous to, say, Germany, Italy or England. It’s the Asian equivalent of Europe and, like Europe, China is, in fact, composed of many separate regions, each having its own individual history, language and nationality. This truth has been obscured by China’s historical fixation on empire. If this “Anti-Secession Law” is intended to pave the way for a move against Taiwan, it only shows how firmly entrenched China still is in its dysfunctional past.

For China to gobble up Taiwan would, admittedly, not be good for Taiwan, which is much better off as it is. But the point I would like to make here is that neither would it be good for China. The “One China” policy never benefited China. It has all but defeated everything that’s splendidly and vibrantly Chinese. Consider this one fact: it’s the little specks of vast China, those tiny particles of territory historically unconnected to the corrupt power center, that have moved forward with such singular verve into the modern world — Taiwan, Singapore, and, until recently, Hong Kong. What China needs is to follow the example of its success stories, not strangle them one by one. The “archipelago effect” works, the “continental scenario” doesn’t. This is the message that should be getting through to China’s leaders.

What China needs isn’t an “Anti-Secession Law” but a program for the orderly secession of its different constituent nationalities so that, one by one, each may set out like Taiwan on its own amazing adventure, forging its own unique way of being Chinese. Only in this way can China, so long stymied, break out and finally achieve its proper place of leadership in the civilized world.

China should forget about competing with the United States. It can do better than displacing the world’s dinosaur. The European example is clearly the one China needs to follow. Living here in Taiwan as I do, I see on a daily basis the miracle that can happen in a place that is small and free. The young people Taiwan is now producing are amazing. I only wish all the other regions of China could gain their independence too and experience the same miracle.

It’s only one sentence in a long article about our favorite topic — relations between Japan, Taiwan and China — but it jumped out at me. The article, in Japan Today, deals with why China’s all bent out of shape over Taiwan President Lee Yeng-hui’s recent trip to Japan. It looks at possible reasons, such as Japan’s “friendly military relations” with Taiwan and the WWII grudges, and then it quotes Phoenix TV political commentator Lawrence Ho:

A more likely issue is loss of face, said Ho of Phoenix TV. He said Japan’s rejection of Chinese protests over the visa and the reminder of history leave China “no face.”

I think it’s pretty obvious that face is an enormous part of the problem, and part of the reason it may never be resolved. And the problem may be on all sides, not just China’s.

A strange and potent force, the “face” phenomenon, and something most Westerners (at least those I know here) can’t begin to grasp. Many see it as merely being embarrassed, without knowing how deep it actually goes. I learned about it myself at work in Beijing, and it was an unforgettable lesson.

Anyway, the article touches on many of the grievances this blog has been absorbed with the past few days, and all of you who are following this issue should certainly check it out.

It was only a matter of time. While I don’t think the backlash has really started, this relatively restrained piece by an American Enterprise Institute fellow strikes me as a possible prelude. The author suddenly reveals his cards in the final graf:

If the Bush administration is serious about preserving American hegemony, it needs to devote greater attention in its second term to balancing against China’s rise in Asia, rather than simply appeasing it. Witness the weak response by the State Department to Beijing’s recent passage of an “anti-secession” law that provides the legal “justification” to attack Taiwan. Trading Taipei for Baghdad isn’t much of a deal.

Expect to hear a lot more in coming months from indignant conservatives, outraged that we are “giving Taiwan to Red China” and incapable of dealing with China’s amazing economic successes. (We’re the ones who are supposed to achieve economic miracles, not Communist tyrranies!)