Super Junior

I knew that all 2 of my blog readers were loyal fans, but I really
didnt expect this. How did you know that I was going to Shangdong
Province today and flying out of Shanghai Pudong Airport in the
morning? Thanks for bringing the screaming women and the neon signs
to send me off (albeit just for the day). har har just kidding. So I
was at the airport earlier this morning and while standing in line at
the passport check, all of a sudden I heard a bunch of screaming women
all running towards something and they were holding signs and flashing
neon lights. it was weird. but apparently, someone named "super
junior" was arriving at the airport with his adoring fans waiting for
him or her.

only in china.

http://shangbert.blogspot.com

Tom Campbell for Governor

I know I said I wouldn't get political on my blog, but I just read a really great article about a Republican candidate for CA Governor (that I am supporting) written in the Leftist Agenda (LA) Times.  It's such a rarity that I'd thought I would copy and paste it into this blog (that's supposed to be about Shanghai related stuff), before the newspaper's editors realize that the article was praising a Republican and pull it off their website.  So here it is.

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap12-2009oct12,0,4543621.column

latimes.com

CAPITOL JOURNAL

What if Tom Campbell had money?

The Republican is not far from the California mainstream, but his race for governor needs dollars.

George Skelton

Capitol Journal

October 12, 2009

From Sacramento

 

Tom Campbell is one of those "what if?" political candidates with intriguing potential scenarios.

He doesn't appear to stand a prayer of winning the Republican nomination for governor, let alone the job of chief executive itself. But what if:

* Voters in the Republican primary next June are looking for a new governor who doesn't need training wheels, who could get up to speed from the start and has been leveling with them about the precise routes he'll take?

* Campbell's two mega-rich GOP competitors -- former EBay chief executive Meg Whitman and state insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner -- commit murder-suicide in a bombardment of TV attack ads? That's what Democrats Al Checchi and Jane Harman did in 1998, allowing under-funded Gray Davis to win the party nomination.

* He does manage to become the Republican nominee? Many political pros think that the centrist Campbell would be the strongest candidate against either probable Democratic offering, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown or San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

* Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger provides Campbell with a priceless ballot title: "Lieutenant Governor"? The office is expected to be vacated soon. The incumbent, Democrat John Garamendi, is favored to win a congressional seat in a special election on Nov. 3. His replacement would be appointed by the governor. Campbell was Schwarzenegger's finance director in 2005 and the two share similar ideologies, if not styles.

Have they talked about the lieutenant governor's job? "I'm going to keep my conversations confidential," Campbell told me, hinting that he had.

One huge problem, however, with the scenario of an LG appointment: It would have to be confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

"Campbell is the Republican who scares us the most," says Bill Cavala, a former Democratic operative for the state Assembly who's now managing Garamendi's campaign. "Not in a thousand years would we breathe life into such a dangerous candidate."

OK, that in itself would be a gift: Campbell would get a lot of news media attention. And after Democrats rudely rejected him, he could appeal to Republican voters by railing against Sacramento's incessant hyper-partisan politics.

But Campbell, 57, rarely rails. More commonly he lectures, like the longtime professor -- law, economics, business -- that he is when not representing Silicon Valley in Congress or the state Senate. He also has run twice unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.

Nobody I've talked to gives Campbell much chance of winning, for three basic reasons:

First, and most important, he's a political pauper. He'll be greatly outspent by Whitman and Poizner, who can dig into their own deep pockets for campaign cash, and are doing it.

Second, his personality isn't exactly rock-star quality. He comes across as the smartest kid in the class, and he usually is. He's highly articulate, very polite, often smiles and seldom frowns, but he isn't someone voters would naturally warm up to unless they're fellow wonks.

Third, he may seem too centrist for GOP activists, who lean far right and greatly influence party primaries.

But he's holding his own in the early competition.

A Field Poll released last week showed him essentially tied with Whitman among Republican primary voters. The results: Whitman 22%, Campbell 20%, Poizner 9%. Whitman ran strongest among voters over 50. Campbell led comfortably among those under 50.

But half the voters were undecided and most had no opinion of any GOP candidate.

In general election matchups, all three Republicans trailed Democrat Newsom -- Campbell less so. Brown clobbered everyone.

Few people are paying attention. But Campbell's still pumping out eye-glazing specifics, including these:

* Taxes. He won't take the "no tax" pledge because that would "handcuff" a governor. He wants "flexibility." In fact, he proposed a one-year gas tax increase to balance the state budget rather than borrow and raid local treasuries.

But, he says, "I'd far rather lower taxes. And you should lower taxes when you've lowered expenditures, not the other way around, or you're just creating a budget deficit."

He wouldn't touch Proposition 13, the property tax break.

And he thinks a recent blue-ribbon commission headed by investor Gerald Parsky was "on the right track" when it recommended a totally new "business net receipts tax" to replace the corporation and state sales taxes. That's because it would tend to tax consumption rather than income.

* Marijuana. He's against legalizing and taxing it. "That would be absurd because the federal government won't permit it." Besides, he adds, many marijuana distributors also peddle meth. Legalizing pot would set up an easy money laundering scheme for "very, very dangerous people."

* Budget. Cut back all social spending -- on healthcare, welfare and the aged and disabled -- to the national average.

And ask Washington to allow California to take all the federal and state money spent on healthcare for the poor -- $42 billion -- and permit private insurers to compete to provide the care. That could save $8.6 billion, he asserts. The feds probably wouldn't agree, he admits, "but one has to try."

* Water. He'd call for help from the so-called god squad, a federal panel that could exempt the Delta smelt from endangered species protection and pump water back into San Joaquin Valley irrigation ditches. He'd transplant that tiny fish to another body of water.

Long term, he'd heighten Shasta Dam, develop an off-stream reservoir and build the controversial peripheral canal around the delta. He'd also emphasize conservation and encourage desalinization using clean, economical nuclear power.

* Other stuff: He favors same-sex marriage and abortion rights. He opposes offshore drilling and demoting the Legislature to part-time. He's for an open primary.

Call him a fiscal conservative and social moderate -- not far from the California mainstream. Nobody's going to agree with all his views, but he should get points for not playing dodge ball.

What if that's what voters want next year? Naw. Even if they did, he'd still need money to be noticed.

george.skelton@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

  

50 Reasons

Saw this on Shanghaiist and wanted to share this article with the 1-2 people that actually read this blog.  Nonetheless, here are the 50 reasons why Shanghai is the greatest city on earth.  

 http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/play/worlds-greatest-city-50-reasons-why-shanghai-no-1-590704

Shanghai Triatholon

The other day I was the gym on the cardio machines and while there are
little televisions for each exercise machine, more often than not, the
TVs dont work, are blurry, or stuck on some CCTV channel showing some
boring soap opera. So it was quite a pleasant surprise that on this
particular day and at this particular time, a triatholon was being
shown. I like watching sports while working out. Hell, I like
watching sports anytime. I'm not sure where the event was being held,
but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the states.

So that got me thinking. What if Shanghai was to hold its own
triatholon? (I'm pretty sure I'm spelling that word wrong, as the
dotted red line shows up each time I type it that way.) I have
absolutely no clue if Shanghai already has a triatholon, and if so,
apologies in advance to the coordinators of such an event. So
basically a triatholon is swimming, biking, and running - in the
order. There's some distances involved but I don't know what they are
and frankly in the discussion, it doesn't really matter.

Where would a hypothetical Shanghai triatholon be held? And what TIC
(this is china) hijinks would occur? Here's what I think.

The logical choice for a body of water that's central and a showcase
location to Shanghai to swim in would be the Huangpu River, which
divides Puxi and Pujersey (well actually Pudong). But then, the
Huangpu River is pretty gross. The water is chalky brown. No sane
person would want to swim in the 'Pu. You could come out with an
extra eye or maybe in the process of forming another leg growing out
of your neck. Chances are good that you will swim over/through/past
some rotting corpses. But let's just say for arguments sake, that the
swimming portion of the event was held in the 'Pu.

The next event is biking. And there are plenty of very scenic biking
routes in Shanghai. Go from The Bund to People's Square, then over to
XTD and west through the French Concession, up to Jing'An and Suzhou
Creek or down to the Puxi side expo site. The route isn't the
problem. I would envision the problem to be that there would be
either 1. no bike to ride b/c it would be stolen or 2. the
participants would lose a boatload of time trying to unlock their bike
or getting through city traffic. First, imagine a whole bunch of
swimmers running out of the 'Pu to discover the area where their bikes
are supposed to be is totally empty. Yeah that would be Shanghai.
If your bike isn't locked to something or to itself, it's good as
gone. Or the second scenario. There probably would be signs at the
city's busiest intersections informing motorists that a race is coming
through and that they shouldn't drive between certain times. Like
anyone would give a shit. The triatholon bikers would soon bike head
on into impossible traffic conditions. More than a handful of bikers
would be hit by a bus, a taxi, a scooter, a truck, other bicyclists,
or all of the above. And as soon as one traffic accident occurs, 40
shanghainese people will surround the scene screaming at each other
and figuring out who is at fault. If you're a foreigner (which all of
the triathletes probably would be), you are automatically at fault.
Time to get back on that bike and ride like the wind.

BUT LETS JUST SAY FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE that the triathletes were able to
complete the swimming and biking events without a hitch. Running
would be the last event. At this point, I think the route could begin
in Puxi then head over one of the bridges to Pudong and run to either
PVG (the airport) or to the East China Sea. Like I stated before, I
don't know the official distances of triatholon events and it really
doesnt matter. The running would be hard work. B/c there's streets
in Pujersey that are unfinished and are either dirt roads or are
blocked off for no apparent reason. Or new highways or bridges that
have no start or end. So on a map, it may look complete, but far from
reality. By this time, there would be just a few triathletes
remaining. If you've been in the race this long and manage to finish,
everyone should get a prize.

This may sound like I'm bitching about Shanghai, but I'm really not.
I just wanted to bring up the worst case and most humorous (and
totally hypothetical) scenarios if a triatholon was to be held here.
I sure do love this city!

http://shangbert.blogspot.com

I'm Back

I'm back. Look for more blog posts to Shangbert. Even though
blogspot is still blocked, I feel that I've got much to opine about.