Taiwan's 2010 municipal election results

TVBS vs. reality (again)

Another election in Taiwan appears to have left the country with the same old political landscape. The winners were:

Taipei City (台北市): Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌, Chinese KMT, incumbent)
New Taipei (新北市): Eric Chu (朱立倫, Chinese KMT, same party as incumbent)
Taichung (大台中): Jason Hu (胡志強, Chinese KMT, incumbent)
Tainan (大台南): William Lai (賴清德, DPP, same party as incumbent)
Kaohsiung (大高雄): Chen Chu (陳菊, DPP, incumbent)

But it's not exactly the "status quo" which even the Taipei Times calls it in a headline on news of the election results.

While the number of DPP vs. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayors remains the same (2:3) as it was before yesterday's election, the vote totals tell a different story.

Who got the most votes?
Adding the ballots for all five municipalities, the DPP got a total of 3,772,373 votes (49.87% -- very nearly an absolute majority) compared to the Chinese KMT's 3,369,052 (44.54%). The combined total of all other candidates' votes was a mere 422,692 (5.59%). While this analysis doesn't change the outcome of the election one bit, it does indicate that the DPP have "gained more than 340,000 votes in the five municipalities" (compared with votes for their candidate in the 2008 presidential election). At the other end of the political spectrum, the Chinese KMT -- in contrast with what the international media wants you to believe -- is failing in policy, governance, and strategy, and has lost more than a million votes in these municipalities.

But what I really want to focus on in this post is certain pre-election surveys and how they are regularly wrong.

Oops! They did it again!
Let's compare the pro-blue (pro-unification/pro-China/pro-Chinese KMT) TVBS' final pre-election surveys for all five electoral areas with the actual results of these elections. If most of their surveys were at least close to the margin of error, they might be trustworthy. But they are not.

In particular, I want to focus on the survey numbers for DPP candidates compared to the actual results.

Municipality/ candidate	TVBS survey results	Actual election results
Kaohsiung Chen Chu (陳菊)	41%	52.8% (+11.8%)
Tainan William Lai (賴清德)	47%	60.41% (+13.41%)
Taichung Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全)	43%	48.88% (+5.88%)
New Taipei Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)	49%	47.39% (-1.61%)
Taipei City Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌)	39%	43.81% (+4.81%)

Only one out of the five surveys above was within its margin of error (3.1 percentage points). And you know something? One out of five equals two out of ten, and two out of ten is good enough for TVBS host Lee Tao (李濤).

Could such inaccuracy be on purpose -- done to fill certain voters with hope, others with despair?

Further reading:
* English version of the Central Election Commission web site

* Hanzi version of the Central Election Commission web site

* Although they only hold a majority of city council seats in Tainan, the DPP made some gains at that level, too: "2010 ELECTIONS: KMT, DPP each claim 130 city councilor seats"

* The China Post says that "Pollsters wrong-footed by unexpected shooting."

* Singapore's Straits Times paints the election results as a sunny day for the Chinese KMT.

* The New York Times fluffs the Chinese KMT by saying that the elections "reaffirm[ed] national support for a party that has made improved relations with the Chinese mainland the center of its political agenda."

* BBC absurdly says that the Chinese KMT were "boosted in mayor elections" and that "Correspondents say the results are seen as an endorsement of the KMT's push for warmer relations with China." Could those "correspondents" be anyone like Cindy Sui and her husband Ralph Jennings?

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Victims of the outcome: Taiwan, 台灣, 2010 municipal elections, 五都選舉, TVBS, BS-TV, Lee Tao, 李濤

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

Ma Ying-jeou: Worst. President. Ever.

When pro-Ma media says so, it's even worse than that!


Rotten to the core
爛到極點
(Click to enlarge)
A survey released by pro-blue, 100% Chinese-funded TVBS says that Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) approval rating is now at 16 percent [212 kb Hanzi PDF file] following his inept and deadly response to Typhoon Morakot which began battering Taiwan on August 7, 2009, leaving a village with approximately 500 people buried in a gargantuan mudslide, thousands stranded -- some for over a week -- and tens of thousands inundated by deep flooding.


When TVBS says their own guy is doing this bad, he's doing much worse.
(Click to enlarge)
Ma took office less than 15 months ago promising "no unification, no independence, and no war" (不統、不獨、不武), but later said that the first of those actually meant that he "had not ruled out unification" [read: annexation]. Only about 10 percent Less than 9 percent of Taiwan's population support unification in any form whatsoever -- whether immediately or at some time in the future (1.2 percent wanting "'unification' ASAP," 7.6 percent wanting "status quo now, 'unification' later," for a total of 8.8 percent).

The Ma administration has also run roughshod over human rights. Last November (2008), over 7,000 police were ostensibly brought out to "protect" visiting Chinese envoy Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), but instead of merely doing that, hundreds of protesters -- most of whom were peaceful -- were brutally beaten.

That same month, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) (DPP) was detained on charges which have yet to be judged in a fair court according to the evidence. A judge (Chou Chan-chun [周占春]) who ruled that Chen could be released until such judgment was made was replaced with a different judge (Tsai Shou-hsun [蔡守訓]) who toed the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) line. Chen has now unjustly been in detention for over nine months. [If you haven't done so aleady, please go sign the petition to release Chen right now.]

Ma Ying-jeou doesn't care about Taiwan's Aboriginals
Remember in December 2007 when Ma told Aboriginals living in Taipei that he "sees [them] as humans" (我把你當人看)? [at the 7:25 mark in the video]. Then, when around 500 Aboriginals may have died in the mudslide which buried Siaolin Village (小林村), he blamed the victims for not evacuating. (Important point: The evacuation centers for that area were also buried by the mudslides.)

Where is the compassion? This cold-blooded administration has absolutely none. You must open your eyes, see clearly what's happening, and tell the world all about it. Above all, you must never forget how many Taiwanese have died (and continue to do so) because of the KMT.

FURTHER READING:
* While discussing Ma's actions during "the most crucial hours of Morakot," Taiwan Echo points out how everything Ma touches has ended up "a disaster." I recently dubbed this phenomenon "The 馬的斯 Touch®."

* Claudia Jean explains how the DPP tried long ago to do what the KMT is now trying to take credit for (and which the KMT repeatedly blocked, thus postponing vital action until hundreds of people were already dead).

* Michael Turton points out that "When [the pro-blue] UDN says a KMT administration is not popular -- it ain't popular."

* Over at Talk Taiwan, Άλισον wishes that Larry King would interview Ma Ying-jeou. On that show, a whole new audience would get to see Ma's incompetent and dangerous foolishness.

* Today's Taipei Times has an English-language analysis of the TVBS survey: MORAKOT: THE AFTERMATH: Ma, Liu approval ratings plummet in Morakot's wake

UPDATE: Here are some images showing the numbers from even more recent surveys.


A chart shows Ma Ying-jeou and Liu Chao-shiuan's (劉兆玄) "satisfaction" ratings.
Satisfied (L) vs. dissatisfied (R)
(Click to enlarge)

Here's a comparison of various surveys asking if Ma should step down (those below the black line).
Should step down (L) vs. shouldn't (R)
It should be noted that neither CNN nor ICRT could be considered "green."
(Click to enlarge)

Talking Show had a call-in survey about whether Ma should step down.
The final vote was: YES: 125,709 (98.214%); NO: 2,286 (1.786%)
(Click to enlarge)
[/update]

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Scapegoats: Taiwan, 台灣, Typhoon Morakot, 莫拉克颱風, August 8, 2009 floods, 八八水災, Taiwanese Aboriginals, 台灣原住民, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, TVBS, surveys, 民調

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

How TVBS treats different presidents

Two standards to fool them all?

The standard by which TVBS (AKA BS-TV) judges Taiwan's new president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is poles apart from that by which they have handed down judgment on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

A post on the SocialForce.tw forum brings us the links, quotes, and commentary. I've merely provided the translations:

(->) 政院擬降稅　汽油可能只漲4.5元 2008年5月27日 [TVBS article, via Yahoo News]

Executive Yuan to incrementally raise gas prices, price might only go up NT$4.5 -- May 27, 2008

來看一下舊新聞:

Let's look at some older news:

(->) 超貴！油價漲2元　最快今公佈 2006年4月18日 [TVBS article]

Super expensive! Gas prices to go up NT$2, today at the earliest -- April 18, 2006

..................
[Excerpt:] 一大早加油站就湧進大批人潮，因為油價這回不但要漲，
可能還一次漲2元，創下歷史新高。

The large early-morning crowd at gas stations was not only because of the price increases, but possibly also because this is a record high.
..................
[Excerpt:] 假設以每公升調漲2元來計算，民眾平均每次加油40到50公升，
油費就會多出將近100元，累積開銷相當可觀。

Assuming a NT$2 price increase times 40 to 50 liters per tank will add close to NT$100 to the average person's fill-up, adding up to a considerable amount over time.
..................

(->) 油價狂漲！　馬痛批：扁政府做太差 2007年10月30日 [TVBS article]

Insane gasoline price hike! Ma complains: Chen government is doing a terrible job -- October 30, 2007

[Commentary:] 漲了4.5元叫"只漲",漲了2元叫"超貴,歷史新高",
2>4.5...?
記者的邏輯,令人費解.....
奇怪,今天記者們怎麼不幫民眾算加一次油要多花多少錢?
3.9*50=195 快200元耶
民眾活不下去了啦~~~~~

An increase of NT$4.5 is called "only," whereas an increase of NT$2 is "super expensive, a historic high."
Is 2 greater than 4.5?
The reporter's logic is puzzling.
Isn't it strange that today's reporters can't help people calculate what the additional costs of filling up will be?
NT$3.9 times 50 [liters per tank] equals 195 -- almost NT$200!
Regular people can't survive, la~!

[Sarcastic commentary:] 扁政府真是做太差了,沒能力讓大家看到這種排隊加油沒有盡頭的奇蹟,
馬先生好棒啊!

The Chen Shui-bian government did such a poor job, not being able to let everyone experience the wonder of neverending gas lines. Mr. Ma is great!

I suppose the sarcasm in the final paragraph is obvious to most people, but I want to point it out just in case there might be some stubborn Ma fans out there who still don't get it.

Photographic documentation
I do have one thing to add to this. Here's a composite photo showing the gas prices last night and then tonight:


C'mon feel the joys!
(and then demand some alternatives!)
Even saying "I told you so" won't make me feel better.

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Red balloons: Taiwan, 台灣, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Chen Shui-bian, 陳水扁, gas prices, 油價, TVBS

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

The SET Incident

The basic background
In late February and early March of this year, at the time when people in Taiwan were commemorating the 60th anniversary of the infamous "228 Massacre," SET-TV broadcast a multipart program which used oral history from survivors of the incident, documentary evidence, recreated footage, and narration to tell the tale for those who may not know much about it. Among the footage used was a clip of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) soldiers executing people in public. It turns out that the footage was not filmed in Taiwan, but rather in Shanghai.

Rather revealing is the fact that when this came to light in May, the KMT began shedding crocodile tears. (Is this an inadvertant admission that they did not know this back in February?) As soon as this information was made public, the guilty party (and by that, I mean the KMT) wanted the currently-unconstitutional NCC (National Communications Commission) to shut down SET on account of this. This would be the same NCC that wouldn't shut down the mendacious TVBS after that station had broadcast footage of a gangster, claimed it was sent to them, and were discovered to have shot the footage themselves. Before the revelation that the TVBS footage was faked, it was used by KMT legislators to admonish the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration for its "failure to maintain public security in the wake of a recent spate of crimes."

Can you see the double standard so common in KMT behavior at play once again?

Some simple answers to simple questions
1. Was the footage in question filmed in Taiwan?
Apparently not.

2. Weren't those KMT soldiers that were seen in the footage executing people in the street?
Yes.

3. Would many Taiwanese have known about the KMT's Shanghai killings if they hadn't attacked SET over the error?
Probably not. (Thanks for that much, KMT.)

4. Did the KMT commit the same kinds of atrocities in Taiwan (and wouldn't that explain why SET used the footage)?
Yes.

5. Did SET handle the apology appropriately?
Perhaps not.

6. Did those asking for the apology approach it correctly?
Absolutely not.

7. Is the "SET Incident" different from the recent "BS-TV Falsification Fest"?
Yep, it's way different.

8. Did the 228 Massacre happen any differently than SET portrayed it?
Nope.

9. Any more questions?

RELATED:
* See the Shanghai footage as it was originally used (at about the 1'52" mark in this video), comprising less than 4 seconds of the SET program that I uploaded to YouTube: The 228 Incident - 60 years on, Part 3/3

UPDATES:
Here are a couple of things which have happened since I posted this:

* NCC fines SET-TV NT$1 million for misleading public (May 19, 2007, Taipei Times)

[NCC spokesperson Howard] Shyr said the commission's review committee had found the history was portrayed in an inappropriately emotional and dramatic manner, which was a violation of journalistic ethics.

After suppressing discussion of it for decades, of course it's going to look "emotional" and "dramatic" (especially to those allied with the murderous party) when the survivors speak out about the people who tried to murder them. If you have any doubts, read George Kerr's Formosa Betrayed.

* KMT slams regulator's 'double standards' in TV row (May 22, 2007, Taiwan News)

At the Legislative Yuan, KMT caucus members said the NCC had been more lenient with SET TV than with TVBS, stating that the NCC had only fined SET TV NT$1 million and asked that its managers and supervisors attend an eight-hour news ethics course, but had fined TVBS NT$2 million and demanded that General Manager Lee Tao be relieved of his post.

"If NCC applied the same standard to both companies, why can't TVBS managers just attend an eight-hour news ethics course?" asked KMT Legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千).

Keep in mind that a TVBS reporter made a video of a gangster and pretended it was mailed in while SET merely used (real) footage of KMT soldiers (just in another location) committing (actual) murders (just like they did in Taiwan). Simple logic should make the difference between these two cases rather obvious.

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Victims, real and imaginary: Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, media, 媒體, TVBS, SET-TV, 三立新聞, 228 Incident, 二二八事件

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

Has the Taipei Times been infected by TVBS and the China Post?

1/23/2007 - UPDATE/CORRECTION:
After spending two full weeks trying to contact both birders and people associated with the HSR project to get details that were missing from the article -- specifically images of bird strikes by the train -- I finally found one image on my own.


Although it comes with its own exaggerated headline about "12 ghosts of [beings] who were wrongly put to death or murdered," this photo indeed appears to show several marks which could certainly be bird strikes. (Note that the marks are unhelpfully obscured by thick red outlines [to help readers see the obvious?] which only serve to sensationalize a story which is bad enough on its own.) Having said that, it still doesn't qualify for the term "massacre." I wish that the person whose words Shelley Shan repeated and amplified hadn't used that description. At the same time, I hope that the operators of the HSR will do everything possible -- if they're not already -- to prevent this kind of thing from happening all along the trains' path, most especially in areas where birds like the Jacana and raptor are endangered.

Having said that, reporters who blowdry their HSR tickets, purposely insert expired tickets into the entry gates, or set off fire alarms to create false news stories are still psycho, and I'm sticking to that.

Everything below (except the strikethru) remains as it was originally written so you can see my mistakes. If anyone wants me to remove something, just ask, and I'll see if it warrants removal. [/END UPDATE]

Bloviating birdwatchers bleed blue blood

Cue up some Bernard Herrmann and check out this exaggerated headline to an article in Monday's Taipei Times:

High speed trains said to be causing bird massacre

That's right -- "massacre." For your info, here is Reference.com's definition of that word:

–noun
1. the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.
2. a general slaughter, as of persons or animals: the massacre of millions during the war.
3. Informal. a crushing defeat, esp. in sports.
–verb (used with object)
4. to kill unnecessarily and indiscriminately, esp. a large number of persons.
5. Informal. to defeat decisively, esp. in sports.

Here is the most ridiculous part of the Taipei Times article:

Birdwatchers in southern Taiwan said last week that bullet trains are killing "many" wild birds along the high speed rail routes. Although they could not provide numbers to support their claims, they pointed to bloodstains "commonly seen" on the bullet trains as evidence of an avian massacre.

It's a damn shame to see sensationalist writing like this in the Taipei Times, but this isn't the first time I've complained about their writing in recent days. On the first day of this new year, I had this to say about their lack of self-awareness:

Hey, Taipei Times editors -- wake up and smell what you've published!

Looks like they need another reminder.

Perspective
It's certainly unfortunate when animals die because of human carelessness, but cars, trains, and airplanes kill birds every day, despite efforts to avoid such things. Being a vegetarian and an animal lover myself, I would agree totally that if such a problem exists, something should be done about it. However, such exaggerated reporting does little to help the situation. The frenzied media reports I've seen about the HSR have shown viewers everything but "bloodstains" on the train, and the content has given me little reason to believe them this time around.

This and this and this and this are what actual massacres look like, by the way.

Psycho newsfakers
I describe these reporters as "psycho" because they spend valuable time pretending that it's in the viewers' interest to tell them about incredibly foolish things that I can't really think they expect me to believe are important. For example, one report demonstrated that if you hold a blowdryer a couple of inches from your HSR ticket and direct the hot air onto it, it will turn black. (Gasp!)

Without too much effort, I think you can figure out the problem with their "logic." One might also conclude that if people have a habit of blowdrying their HSR tickets, their brains have already turned to mush.

Who dunnit?
The byline of the Taipei Times article tells us it was written by Shelley Shan (冼立華). The name stood out because I recalled that Shan co-wrote two articles just after the recent earthquakes in southern Taiwan in which she quoted TVBS twice when she could have quoted just about any TV station that reported the same basic information about the quakes and failed to clarify basic details of the story.

Shan's name doesn't begin appearing on articles in the Taipei Times until 2006, so I wondered if she was part of the reason for or merely a symptom of the decline in quality in that paper lately. Then I discovered that she used to work for the China Post. That kind of tears the curtain open a bit, eh?

"Consumer advocates" bleed blue blood, too
Another group being used in an attempt to add credibility to the crazy complaints about the HSR is the "non-governmental" Consumers' Foundation. A quick web search revealed to me that their full English name is "CONSUMERS' FOUNDATION, CHINESE TAIPEI." Next time you see this group complaining about something while accompanied by pan-blue legislators, that might make you think twice about the validity of the complaints. In fact, since you should normally think twice anyway, think 39 times in these cases!

And remember, question everything -- especially vertigo-inducing things like this!


Liberty Times image
Translation: The man at left is saying, "The HSR is green, better paint it black!" (i.e., "vilify it via groundless allegations"). On the front of the train is the short form of "High Speed Rail," or "高鐵." To the right, a man with sunglasses is holding a sign which reads, "Refuse to ride!! Consumers' Foundation," using the short form of their name, "消基會."

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Alfred Hitchcock's unfinished movies: Taiwan, 台灣, media, 媒體, Taipei Times, 台北時報, Shelley Shan, 冼立華, TVBS, China Post, 英文中國郵報, THSRC, 台灣高鐵, HSR, 高鐵, Consumers Foundation, 中華民國消費者基金會, 消基會

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!