Quick Check-In At Baihe Reservoir

Full scene at the downstream face of the dam yesterday: there are only a few visible changes since last time I was here, the most obvious being that the water flow out from the irrigation channel is much higher since the recent rains. The concrete walls for the new sluiceway are still separated from the tunnel mouth as work continues inside there.

The main visible development is that the shoulder adjacent to the tunnel mouth is now partially covered by boulder rip-rap; the white bags surmounting this are most likely cement mix that must be kept dry prior to its' application.

The dam crest and spillway gates.

Female golden orb spider (nephila pilipes) in the process of determining that a fallen leaf is not actually a food source.

Extreme sexual dimorphism: the tiny orange spider sitting astride the abdomen of the larger spider is actually the male of the species, most likely attempting to mate with the female. 

Not the end of the road, a section in which the tarmac had been washed away. This was at the northwest end of the reservoir and I was following google maps to see if I could get a hirtherto undiscovered view from the north-west. As I have found so many times elsewhere however, I found that the google map image is not accurate; beyond this point the road breaks out into a number of trails used by the bamboo farmers that aren't represented on the map. I spent about an hour walking uphill and downhill through the bush until I ran out of time and was left frustrated and riddled with insect bites.

Looking west into the setting sun: a farmer in his flooded rice paddies.

Looking east back to the mountains that overlook Baihe reservoir.

Miscellaneous Images Over Summer 2017

Over the past two months or so I've done a number of trips, but for several reasons have not got around to writing them up on my blog. I partially rectify that now by posting them here although there is no particular order to them. Most of these trips were in and around Tainan, Kaohsiung and Chiayi although there was also one trip to Taipei in which I discovered that my Taipei motorbike had been stolen. That is a considerable setback which will probably necessitate getting a new one at some point, although the question of how to prevent it being stolen in Taipei city whilst I am in Tainan will need some attention...

Tseng-wen reservoir viewed from the north-west.

My Taiwanese friend Gary, a TSMC engineer, at Qingyun waterfall.

Myself, mid-dive.

Chiayi mountains.

Crested Serpent Eagle.

My mate Syd in my spare boat.

The mid-section of Tseng-wen reservoir before the plum rains.

Namaxia with "Longfong" waterfall.

Syd and I made the climb to Longfong waterfall. It used to be a tourist attraction prior to the 2009 disaster.

Eagles: the lords of the mountains.

Jesus breathing.

The mid-section of Tseng-wen reservoir after the plum rains.

Overlooking the Laonung river valley in Kaohsiung's most remote district...

Looking eastward over the Laonung river to Xiaonienxi (spelling) waterfall.

With girlfriend at the former British Consulate in Sizihuan.

Better than 101? My favourite Taiwan building.

Mountains in Chiayi's Fanlu district.

My favourite waterfall: Qingyun wagterfall.

In a 7-11 in Xindian. Motorbike stolen!

Doughnuts in Banqiao station while waiting for the HSR train back to Tainan. 

Deadlifts: I'm lifting 70kg for several sets on a daily basis. I could probably lift heavier if I went to a gym, but I prefer working out in my garage, the park and at the university.

Fried river crabs in Jiaxian with Syd. Shirtless because it was raining outside and the air conditioner would have had me frozen in my soaked T-shirt.

Kaohsiung harbour. Once upon a time this used to be my city.

Buying mangoes in Tainan's Yujing district. Slightly cheaper than buying them in the city, so buy as many as you can fit in your fridge.

Myself in my preferred element, with my favourite Texas rifle T-shirt.

Chaos In The UK

There is no great mystery, so far as I can see, as to why Theresa May and the UK Conservative Party just lost their parliamentary majority in this latest UK general election. Last year she had campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union, and the loss of her parliamentary majority, whilst an outcome she could not reasonably have been expected to foresee, does make the sort of severance of ties between Britain and the EU that many of us wanted, much more vulnerable to political stitch up, which is precisely how she obtained the position of Tory leader in the first place.

As to her decision to call the snap election in the first place, consider the following question: why was a follow-on election from the referendum necessary to execute the "will of the people"? It wasn't necessary at all. The Conservative Party had a functioning parliamentary majority and they could have got the job done. Ms May's decision to call the snap election was a deliberate attempt to find excuses not to do her job and withdraw Britain from the EU. Had she won an increased majority, she could have turned round and argued that her "hands were tied" and that she had no choice but to follow through with a clean withdrawal of Britain from the EU, and in so doing act against the embedded interests of established political, financial and academic groups. She was looking for a way out and a way to protect herself from later retribution.

I am once again disgusted and enraged that the parliamentary Tory party stitched up their leadership election to exclude Andrea Leadsom for the benefit of that obvious ghoul Theresa May.

Now however, with no clear parliamentary majority for the Tories or for Labour, it's anyone's guess how long a new government will last before another election will have to be called again. And yet the negotiations for Britain's withdrawal from the EU are due to take place in less than two weeks time. Ideally, the British negotiating team should offer certain protections to EU citizens in terms of visas and related matters, but otherwise the basic position should be complete severance with not a toss given for whatever punitive costs the Germans try to impose on the UK.

They should be told to fuck off and do their worst.

With the commies getting over 40% of the electoral vote however, the future is bleak. It is not difficult to predict more violence in the streets of the UK, and not just from Islamic terrorism this time. The Left have to be thoroughly gutted if Britain or even just England, Scotland and Wales are to survive separately with anything like a recognizable culture.

Response To The Islamic Terrorist Bombing Of Manchester Arena

The UK is sick; it is a safe haven for radical Islam and, more importantly, its' governing institutions have been infiltrated by the radical political correctness that has now come to typify the political left. Organized political action against the one is hampered by the other's appetite for surveillance and punitive strictures.

I can envisage bypassing the left's presence on university campuses by means of online education to some extent, but I cannot see how their presence in the police and in Parliament can be got around by any means other than a concerted campaign to flush them out. 

An obvious question is whether action on that purpose is a necessary condition for success in preventing Islamic terrorism? Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. Any attempt to organize will be undermined by the surveillance state the Left have built up. Over the long term, intelligence infiltration of mosques isn't going to work when so-called "radical" Muslims can become "radicalized" online and do not need to go the mosque to become so. Putting British soldiers on the streets of Manchester or any other city is just security theater at best, and at worst makes these soldiers a target for unknown assailants.

Over the long term the political end must be the eradication of Islam from Britain. That doesn't mean forming vigilante groups or rounding up all the Muslims and deporting them to the bottom of the Mediterranean sea, but it does mean a concerted and systematic campaign of administrative, commercial and social discrimination against them in order to make it extremely difficult for Muslims to continue to live in the UK without first publicly renouncing Islam so that they become apostates and have some form of registration. The sociological question is whether large scale apostasy will actually work as a means of reducing or preventing home-grown recruitment for Islamic terrorism. I don't know what the answer to that is, but it is a conceivable course of action for an organized and dominant British political force to take.

However, I doubt that it can be achieved without action to purge our governing institutions of the radical political correctness which the political left has allowed itself to degenerate into. 

Update

Although I haven't been posting much lately, I have been out and about taking pictures of the work going on at Taiwan's southern reservoirs. In all likelihood I won't post any pictures for the next couple of weeks. Several houses adjacent to my house are in the process of being demolished and at some point construction will begin on a new house. In the meantime I have to live with the disruption to my internet access, using only my phone whilst my computers remain shut down. 

Later this month, weather permitting, I will travel back up north to see about completing the field work I had almost finished last year. In particular, I want some late afternoon shots over certain areas of Feitsui reservoir and a couple of visits to Xinshan reservoir to see the dam and diversion tunnel exit point. After that, I will decide whether to move the motorbike south and east to Hualien or south and west to Hsinchu. I'm much more keen on Hualien, though there is still some unfinished business at Shihmen reservoir and further south in Taichung. As long as I can keep enough money coming in, then I should be able to finish off all of my remaining field work this year. 

France: Too Early Or Too Late?

Although I predicted the U.S. election of Donald Trump and was delighted by the Brexit referendum result, I am reluctant to make any predictions about the outcome of France's second round of voting in their presidential election.

Much though there may be to disagree with her on, Le Pen is the only candidate who is taking the threat of Islamic terrorism seriously. I do however, suspect that there is far more moral, intellectual and financial corruption in France than there is anger and sorrow over the innocent people murdered by Islamic terrorists. 

The French political and academic establishment are probably much more resistant to change than in the U.S. or Britain, as evinced by their history of recurring bloody revolutions. Eventually, the French will probably elect someone from the Right who is prepared to take Islamic terrorism seriously. 

Two questions occur to me: whether it is too early for them to elect Le Pen, and whether it will be too late for them to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism without recourse to bloody revolution if they don't vote for her?

Leave The Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) Statues Alone

Among the news this morning is that a DPP legislator, Pasuya Yao (姚文智), has proposed a bill to remove all statues of Chiang Kai-shek to a mausoleum in Taoyuan county. Two reasons are given for this: first, that symbols of Chiang are reminders of Taiwan's anti-democratic past so should not be on public display, and second, that the decapitation of these statues (and that of the Yoichi Hatta statue at Wushantou reservoir) is the government's fault for not having removed them.

This is disturbing.

First of all, there is a deep stupidity in the decapitation of these statues; the crimes of which Chiang is accused are already deep in the past and cannot be undone. Chiang is a part of Taiwan's history and to seek to eradicate the cultural memory of him is a dangerous mistake, as this memory should serve a reminder of how far Taiwan has come in becoming a modern, liberal country. There is only the future and so the impulse to purge symbols of Taiwan's past portend the arrival of a dangerous sectarianism. I have long thought that the most likely threat to Taiwan is not military assault from China, but the shoots of domestic tyranny growing out of the cultural undergrowth and fertilized by the political system. The best answer for the government is not to acquiesce to the demands of these sectarian pathogens but to keep the statues on public display where they are and use existing laws to punish those who vandalize them. For the people, the best response is probably mockery of those who vandalize these statues.

You're a bit fucking late aren't you?

Second, the vandalism of these statues is obviously not the government's fault, but the fault of the people who actually perpetrated the vandalism. This is just basic common sense and the necessary principle of justice that individuals be accountable for their actions. To blame the government for these acts of vandalism, as Pasuya Yao is doing, is grossly irresponsible as that blame can only mean that individuals have no control over their actions and are subject to unattributed and unexplained social forces, which is the evil gibberish of the Left used to excuse any criminal behaviour they find useful to excuse.

If the motives which led people to decapitate statues are continually indulged by stupid politicians, then we are going to move step by step closer to domestic sectarian conflict. The people who vandalize statues, whether it be a statue of Chiang Kai-shek or of Yoichi Hatta or a statue of any other historical figure, should be publicly ridiculed and punished under existing laws.