Melamine hits the U.S. and Taiwan (but don't text that!)

The biggest news from yesterday was the passage of the U.S.-India nuclear deal (Washington Post), but that was expected as of yesterday morning, and thus covered here.

The melamine scandal resurfaced in the two places Communist China desperately wanted to be spared, the United States and Taiwan. For the former, the poison has now hit both coasts, as Connecticut joined California on the afflicted list (Seattle Times). In the real estate otherwise known as the Republic of China, it was Nestle milk powder imported from the mainland's brutal and thoroughly corrupt northeast (CBC); the overall situation there is so bad that the ROC Prime Minister (from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang, I might add) is demanding an apology (Epoch Times).

This news will inevitably bring more attention to the ongoing scandal, just in time for news to leak out of plans for a coverup "weeks before the contamination of milk with melamine became public knowledge" (BBC - whose phraseology tells me the plans succeeded at least for a time). That the apparent source of the problem is careening toward bankruptcy will likely please few, if any, at this point (Epoch Times).

The other news getting attention in the blogosphere is the discovery of the Communists' Skype surveillance system for text messages (Boycott 2008 and International Herald Tribune) - it should surprise no one that one of the strike-out-and-let-the-cadres-know-you-texted-it phrases is "milk powder."

In fact, that little factoid reveals how these two issues are linked. There has always been discussion about the value of free speech in a political sense, but very few people extend that to other realms where information is highly valuable - such as exposing corruption. It's no surprise that those who cover up dirty deeds should expect more of them, but the political and religious persecutions in Communist China tend to take our attention away from this. Thus the melamine scandal and others like it continue to surprise (look for another one on formaldehyde and furniture - Epoch Times), when given how the regime treats whistleblowers (Epoch Times), we really should be surprised we don't see more of it.

Of course, the regime has other tricks up its sleeve, like unleashing its league of anti-American allies to cause us trouble (David Kilgour goes into extensive detail in Boycott 2008; BBC and One Free Korea have the latest from the Korean colony), but it won't work forever. At some point, the Chinese people will rise up and take their country back.

The only question is, how much blood and treasure must be lost before that happens?