oh shit. The president and VP of Taiwan were shot today, luckily not fatally. One of the best parts of SF is the availability of foreign language channels. I've been watching the news on KTSF to try to pick up cantonese by listening and guessing what they're saying. They've had a lot of coverage of the upcoming elections, which I didn't even know was happening. I'll have to tune in tonight to the Mandarin version so I can understand what the real story is. They had these interesting poll results (of which I could mostly but not completely discern the meaning), which (I think) contrasted the opinions of the entire population versus the native Taiwanese. As I'd expect, the native Taiwanese were much more for an independent Taiwan, and didn't consider themselves part of China, whereas the general population was overwhelmingly for the opposite. At least I think that's what they said. Don't quote me on it. Whoa. Right after I posted this, I read on the BBC that the polls have opened. I hope cool heads will prevail.