I’ve been watching CQ Politics for election figures, because those guys don’t mess around. It looks like, to me, the Democrats are going to get close the 35 seat pick up predictions for Congress. That was on the higher end of the spectrum – at the moment, they’ve got 27 pick ups and they haven’t lost any seats, though Georgia’s 8th and 12th districts they stand a good chance of losing. As for the Senate, I predict a nasty 2000 Florida-style bloodbath in Virginia. Montana is slightly trending Democrat, but they need both to break Cheney’s tie breaker vote.

What interests me, however, is that there are a number of conservative and moderate Democrats in this new House. I haven’t done the homework, but this article in the LA Times pointed out that some of the new Dems are “pro-life, pro-gun and anti-tax”, among other “values issues”. Some Republicans say its all lies, since they’re going to be voting in supposed uber-liberal Nancy Pelosi (is she really the reincarnation of Cesar Chavez as foretold in the Left Behind books?). Heath Shuler of North Carolina, Brad Ellsworth and Jim Donnelly of Indiana, Bob Casey has beaten Rick Santorum a Pennsylvania Senate seat, and others in New Hampshire, Florida and Nebraska, though I’m not sure who. Mind you, the news on this has focused primarily on abortions and guns. And these are freshman – but these may become wedge issues to be exploited.

On the other hand, John “Impeach Bush” Conyers is now Chair of the Judiciary Committee. Conyers is too savvy to go for impeachment – I don’t think the public will appreciate it unless there’s another Katrina type fiasco. But he will make life far more difficult for the White House. Expect similar things from the new Chairs for intelligence, budget oversight and armed services. That’s where a great deal of issues that have not been subject to one iota of congressional oversight will finally start getting attention, and that alone is worth it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Does this mean Sean Hannity will kill himself now?

For those poll watching this evening, CNN projects that the Democrats will gain control of the US House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. Even my home state of NH (once described by the Boston Globe as “Mississippi…with snow”) has switched one of its two reps from (R) to (D).

In exit polling nationwide Tuesday, 57 percent of voters said they disapproved of the war in Iraq, while 41 percent approved. Those figures mirror Bush’s job approval among voters, with 58 percent saying they disapprove of the president’s performance and 41 percent approving.

As for the senate, out goes Republican nitwit Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania as well as Mike Dewine of Ohio and incoming is Independent (Socialist) Bernard Sanders of VT (replacing Jim Jeffords).

A total surprise, work related. I barely have time to pack let alone post. I’ll be out of commission until Monday. Guest bloggers, if ever I needed you, now’s the time. I won’t even be able to rant about the election. (If we lose, here’s why – read it and tremble in fear. I mean it)

Anyone up for lunch or early dinner on Saturday in Beijing?

Update: It’s not cold yet in Beijing, is it? I mean, I should be okay with a windbreaker and maybe a light sweater, no?

Brilliant. I could hear Barbra singing in the background.

Showing Xinjiang music videos is Michael’s area of expertise, but I read Will’s article on Youtube and decided to look at some of the Chinese video sharing sites, namely Tudou and YoQoo. Since today has turned into Xinjiang blogging day for me, I decided to search for Xinjiang videos. I found one which is rather disturbing, a nationalist rant about how Uyghur pickpockets are a scourge because of Western influence. But I decided not to spend time on that one; if you want to see it, it’s here.

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I have just downloaded Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers by bittorrent. I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m fascinated by the boom in private military contractors the past couple of decades. You can watch Iraq for Sale on Google Video if you like (links to all of Robert Greenwald’s films, including Outfoxed: Rubert Murdoch’s War on Journalism are at Crooks and Liars). In the meantime, one of the consequences of military privatization is the online jobs search. Companies like CACI, CSC’s Eagle Alliance and L-3 Titan (apparently blocked in China, but by which side?) all advertise jobs online.

Weeks ago there was a small kerfuffle online when a job listing was found for a Guantanamo Librarian. A spokesman said they wanted to enlarge the library to 20,000 books in the next five years… ah, once you get a government contract, keep that sucker rolling as long as you can. Also mentioned was that Arabic-English dictionaries, Hansel and Gretel, Seabiscuit and Macbeth were banned. I understand Macbeth, and I can kinda see Hansel and Gretel – but I’ve never seen or read Seabiscuit. Knowing government bureaucracy though, they probably have 40 copies of the Count of Monte Cristo. The dictionaries are banned so they can’t use English “against our guard force”. Deadly phrases like “have mercy” and “ease up, big guy”, perhaps.

So I went poking around, learning the crazy list of acronyms that are used for intelligence computer systems (CHAMS, ASAS-L) and ominous sounding Pentagon IT groups (G6 Directorate, who are keenly on the look out for their archnemesis Sidney Bristow), and I stumbled upon this job opening (proxy required, reprinted below):

Uyghur Linguist CAT II
Location: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Req. No.: IOD022520059
Division: International Operations

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Now if anyone here hasn’t heard already, the President of Taiwan has been implicated in a corruption scandal with his wife, with around $500,000 (US) having been supposedly appropriated from a special budget for diplomatic activities.

BBC report on the affair

Chen has now defended himself in a televised address to the country.

Taiwan news report

His defence is interesting. We have already heard that he felt he can’t disclose the full details of some of the receipts because they concerned sensitive information. Maybe, but that doesn’t tend to wash these days with many people in any country – unless they’re exceptionally naive. The other point was interesting.

He [Chen] defended himself and his wife against charges that they used 782 receipts to illegally collect NT$14.8 million from the state affairs fund. “I want to tell you that when I came into power in 2000, I felt embarrassed over receiving NT$840,000 a month, and I decided to halve the salary, which meant I took in approximately NT$5.5 million less every year,” Chen said. Because of the cut in pay, the president said, he received NT$22 million less in compensation over four years, NT$33 million less over six years, and NT$44 million over his two terms. “I want to ask you to think about whether it is possible that I would try to gain NT$14.8 million using illegal methods when I gave up such a high salary?”

Why would someone take a paycut like that, only to steal less money secretly? Then again it could be that this is not the only thing the prosecutors accuse him over. We shall have to see.

Personally I feel that Chen may well have to step down. It is embarrassing for him, but if the public is not convinced by his story and he still can’t or won’t explain what happened to the money, then he has to be the “big man” and do what’s good for the country. If he doesn’t resign in the face of general opposition, it will cause a lot of unpleasant sentiment in Taiwan until his second term would officially finish in 2008. The Presidency should be bigger than one man. If Chen can’t convince enough people to believe him, he should set an example as to how a democratically elected leader should behave.

Chen has said that he will step down if his wife is convicted, but I doubt the Taiwanese public will want to wait that long. Who knows – maybe they will. But given his unpopularity they will probably see the report as the final straw and demand he steps down now, even after hearing his side of the story.

Staying on in the face of so much pressure will also only damage his own party, the DPP. They shouldn’t have to choose between their President and a big defeat in elections next month and next year, if he expects them to help him cling to power. Again, he should put their interests above his own. It’s not as if staying on for another year and a half will help him – he would be formally charged after 2008 anyway. Maybe it’s better to face the music now.

But there is one thing that should be apparent to anyone – Taiwan is more of a democracy today than it ever has been. Can you imagine an investigation like this in the bad old days of effective one-party KMT rule in Taiwan, or the media reporting on it and then calling for the President to resign? No chance – there’d have been a lot of body-bags before something like that could have possibly happened. Yet the investigator made his report without fear of reprisals – he also insisted he was not pressured to say Chen, his wife and former aids had done nothing wrong.

So whilst many people will be sad to see their top leader formally accused of stealing money, they should take pride in the fact that the accusation can be made by public investigators (as opposed to some crazy protestors) and without fear of being silenced.

Some food for thought before we go to the polls on Tuesday.

Another classic. (Word file.)