Work is going well. Not astoundingly well, but a solid improvement from a month and a half ago. My student numbers are up, my 3rd semester class has finished reading a 40 page Aladdin book, and I don’t really have any lazy students anymore.
The social life has been good, too. There are [...]

In always like to assume the best about people. Sometimes, though, it costs me.
I live in a 加蓋房子, which is basically a floor illegally added onto the top of an apartment building. As such, I don’t get my own electric bills. Why that legal quandary didn’t slow down the phone company when [...]

According to the US Federal Election Commission Selected Presidential Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly, current soldiers and veterans have contributed more money to Ron Paul than to any other presidential candidate, with John McCain coming in second amongst GOP candidates.
Military contributions for GOP candidates

Army
Navy
USAF
USMC
VET
TOTAL

Ron Paul
6975
7765
4650
1500
1250
22140

McCain
6225
6480
1570
1600
800
16675

Romney
2051
0
1500
0
1000
4551

Giuliani
1450
370
250
0
250
2320

Hunter
0
1000
0
0
0
1000

Richardson
50
750
0
0
0
800

Huckabee
250
0
500
0
0
750

Tancredo
350
0
0
0
0
350

Brownback
71
0
0
0
0
71

Thompson
0
0
0
0
0
 

This table expresses in dollars the total campaign contributions that [...]

Aaron Russo interviews Ron Paul about the Federal Reserve in his movie Freedom to Fascism. For the time being, the entire movie is up on Google video. The following is a short clip in which Russo grills Paul on the Fed.

Ron Paul 0wnz the Federal Reserve
Ron Paul is much more moderate in his [...]

There are a couple of signs of progress in the Ron Paul campaign- he won the first New Hampshire straw poll, and he came in number three amongst GOP candidates in cash in hand. The New Hampshire straw poll was from a group focused on tax reform, so a Ron Paul victory is hardly [...]

(Note: This post’s title has hurt some feelings. It was not intended to refer to any specific blogger. In particular, Lonnie at OMB is actually a very generous person in his charity work. This post is an argument against an idea, not an individual.)
Recently, it seems there’s been a sort of obsession [...]

A while back, I noticed that Forumosa, the largest community site for foreigners in Taiwan, had a new guide for Taiwan. It’s called Taiwanease: The Knowledge, and it’s a wiki, which means that anybody can add articles to it and edit it. This sort of site usually takes a lot of work to [...]

A couple of days ago, I took a taxi to my buddy Martin’s place. Right before the turn onto the alley I wanted to go onto, an illegally parked car pulled out in front and to our right, so we couldn’t turn before the light turned. Beep! The meter jumped up from [...]

This week has been busy. Simon’s classes started their vacation last weekend, so it’s just been the secretary and me at school. There have been a ton of odds and ends to tie up; everthing that needed to be done before the break had to be done this week. I gave retests [...]

Longtime readers of this blog will know well that I’ve never really suggested coming to Taiwan and teaching EFL purely for financial reasons. In fact, I’ve always found it a little hard to believe very many westerners, especially Americans would be able to earn anything like what they could at home. Now that [...]