Up first, spotted skulking about the Western Addition, which certainly would make sense, comes the whip of the Pariah Nation, North Korea’s BFF. Check out the cutesy numbers and letters on the quasi-Fed-issued consul license plate.
Click to expand
(And, ironically, the car is the flagship model of the world-famous Tahara Plant, the finest car factory in the world since the 1980′s. Thomas L. Firedman still has a total boner for it.- he took the tour and got the T-shirt. My ride was made there well, AAMOF. Actually, I passed through there just last month, you know, on bidness. That’s the country that got all invadey starting about a century ago ’til about seven decades ago. Hey, who’s invading Filipino islands these days? I’ll give you just one guess! Ooh, my ride had a cheesy SERRAMONTE license plate holder as well. But I didn’t even buy my car there, so WTF was that for, who told you to put that thing on? Not just plastic bolts, metal. I couldn’t get them off myself so they had to do it for me. But while I was down there one time, I told the extreeeeeemely cute front line sales rep that she ought to sue for harassment if what I saw and heard was routine. Guess what – she got together with her friends and took action by hiring some law firm/lawyer and ended up getting a ton of money from the dealership group. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Oh and that’s the same dealership where bay area favorite son Tom Hanks got a nice SUV, also from Tahara, also the best in the world, about a half-decade back. I’ll tell you about that sometime too. But I digress…)
Up next comes Taiwan. Poor Taiwan! See that, “FOREIGN ORGANIZATION,” like it’s not even a country.
5006.5. (a) The department may issue, for a fee determined by the department to be sufficient to reimburse the department for actual costs incurred pursuant to this section, distinctive license plates for motor vehicles owned or leased by an officer or a designated employee of a foreign organization recognized by the United States pursuant to the Taiwan Relations Act (22 U.S.C. Sec. 3301 et seq.) when the department is otherwise satisfied that the issuance of the license plates is in order.
(b) The distinctive license plates shall be designed by the department and shall contain the words “Foreign Organization.”
(c) The department shall establish procedures for both of the following:
(1) To verify the eligibility of an applicant for plates issued pursuant to this section.
(2) To authorize a recognized foreign organization to apply on behalf of its officers for plates issued pursuant to this section.
Added Ch. 397, Stats. 1994. Effective January 1, 1995.”
[UPDATE: Upon further review, these aren't Chinese naval uniforms after all:
At first I thought they could have been from the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy.
And oh, look what's on the PLAN's to-do list:
See that? In addition to taking over Japanese islands (the Senkakus and others), the neo-Imperial Chinese Navy wants to take over Vietnamese, Malaysian, Filipino, and Bruneian islands as well. And don't forget about Taiwan.
But we're being visited by a South Korean ship so it's all good.]
Let’s let our friends in Taiwan, NMA-TV, take over:
“Dog meat sold in a Chinatown meat market? It looked like the scoop of the century to James Schugel, a reporter for Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO.
Schugel reported that a Chinatown shop had sold dog meat, but it’s actually just a misunderstanding. See, Schugel was investigating a puppy mill operation in Minnesota that apparently sent their dogs to 336 East Broadway in New York City. When he found the address was a Chinese-run meat market, he instantly leapt to the suspicion that the dogs were ending up in the cooking pot.
Schugel called up the staff to confirm his suspicions. But somewhere in the conversation, the words “dog” and “duck” got confused, and the staff confirmed that they do in fact sell meat from all kinds of animals to be eaten. This was enough for Schugel to run off with his report. Husky hash! Schnauzer stew! Keeshond kebabs!
Luckily, it quickly became clear that Schugel was barking up the wrong tree. The misunderstanding was cleared up, and WCCO quietly scrubbed the story from their website. The New York Post correctly quoted the employee of Dak Cheong Meat Market as saying “How could we sell dog meat? This isn’t China. This isn’t Korea!”
"FYI – we did do an iPad 2 training and demo a few months ago. Patrons specifically asked about Chinese-made tablets so the International Center Librarian specifically reached out to find some manufacturers to learn about their tablet computers. No sales pitches can be made. It’s purely informational session about the device and how it can work with library’s resources such as eBook downloads."
Uh, our San Francisco Pubic Library has a “Chinese Center” that puts on bilingual demonstrations about how tablet PC’s like the Acer Iconia Tab and ASUS Eee Tab Transformer are better than Apple’s iPad 2?
“Acer Inc., a top computer company in Taiwan, and Central Computers Co. will talk and demo the features of the popular Acer Iconia Tab and ASUS Eee Tab Transformer, including what iPad 2 doesn’t have. The program will be in English and Chinese.”
“Affirmative action has always been a touchy subject in California, a state with many high achieving white and Asian students. In 1996, California residents passed Proposition 209, which prohibited public schools from considering race in the admissions process. After Proposition 209, the number of Asians in the elite UC college system surged. But now, a California legislator has put forward Bill SB 185, which would allow public universities to consider race. The Berkeley College Republicans fear the effects this bill might have on the UC system. They hosted a “diversity” bake sale to protest the possible effects of the law. Will the bill go through? Maybe – but some foresee it being vetoed next month.
Check out NMA’s latest video on the Berkeley Bake Sale:
Ouch. Airbnb (formerly Air Bed & Breakfast or something) is a San Francisco company associated with a famous incident what just happened to a San Francisco woman, so a Taiwan television outfit has seen fit to, once again, make a mockery of the 415.
See? Airbnb is supposed to be better than craigslist if you want to rent out your apartment to a stranger for a few days and I suppose in some cases it is better than using CL.
Anyway, this is NMA-TV’s impression of craigslist:
And here’s the story, per NMA-TV:
“Airbnb guests trash, burglarize apartment.
Web start-up Airbnb has benefited from the recent tech boom.It just raised $112 million US dollars from investors.It is now valued at $1 billion.
Although Craigslist allows those wishing to rent out their homes to travelers,it has a sketchy reputation. Airbnb is user friendly with a shiny interface.
However, a San Francisco woman recently rented out her apartment through Airbnb. She left her keys for her guests before going on a trip.
The guests ransacked her apartment,stole her stuff and left a huge mess. It took the woman 14 hours to get through to an Airbnb employee.”
And here’s the whole story from EJ, the San Francisco woman who rented out her apartment to the wrong people.
I don’t know how Airbnb can fix this kind of situation…
NMA-TV out of Taiwan, Free Republic of China, well, they’ve got us pegged. They know all about what goes on in California and they show that with pithy animated videos.
And here’s Jeff Bezos (fresh from swimming in a pool of his money) explaining things to California Governor Jerry Brown and our Official State Animal, who looks hungry for a little tax money.
It’s going to be a tough row to hoe getting people to vote for the Amazon tax next year, IMO.
Anyway, good job NMA-TV.
*The tax is on your “use” in CA of whatever you buy. It’s pretty much like a sales tax except it’s based on the tax rate of where you live (as opposed to sales tax, which is based upon where you buy something).
