* In August, the Boston Globe profiled the Taiwan National Assembly (which specializes in constitutional issues), where it is fairly common for the minority New Party to filibuster by merely grabbing the microphone and physically restraining majority-party members so that they cannot call for votes. Fights break out, sometimes bloody ones. Said a local political science professor, "It may not be civilized, but it's efficient" because citizens respond by re-electing the aggressive legislators. ~~~ Send a message to notw-request@nine.org with the Subject line of Subscribe. To read these News of the Weird newspaper columns from the past six months, go to http://www.nine.org/notw/notw.html (That site contains no graphics, no photos, no video clips, no audio. Just text. Deal with it.)