Riding Sun

The Onion scoops The New York Times

2005-08-08T00:01:00.003+09:00

The Onion, August 20, 2003:

I Have an iPod — In My MIND

I'm sure you've seen a lot of tech-savvy people smugly showing off that new hunk of entertainment hardware, the iPod personal stereo. Well, I might not have the scratch to get one, but frankly, I don't want the white-corded wonder. I have my very own iPod — in my mind.

I hear those little things carry up to a month's worth of music. Well, so does my mind. I can call up any song I've ever heard, any time I want. And I never have to load software or charge batteries. There are no firewire cords or docks to mess with. I just put my hands behind my head, lean back, and select a tune from the extensive music-library folder inside my brain.

The New York Times, July 12, 2005:

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Seven years ago Reginald King was lying in a hospital bed recovering from bypass surgery when he first heard the music.

It began with a pop tune, and others followed. Mr. King heard everything from cabaret songs to Christmas carols. "I asked the nurses if they could hear the music, and they said no," said Mr. King, a retired sales manager in Cardiff, Wales.

"I got so frustrated," he said. "They didn't know what I was talking about and said it must be something wrong with my head. And it's been like that ever since."

Remembering, and forgetting, Hiroshima

2005-08-07T23:21:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the day America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, followed by a second one on Nagasaki three days later.

There is no denying the bombs had a devastating and horrific impact. There is also no denying that they ended the Pacific war, forcing Japan's surrender. The fear at the time that many more people — American and Japanese — would have died in a land invasion of the Japanese main islands is addressed in this piece by military historian Victor Davis Hanson, and there's little I could presume to add to it.

But while it is necessary to remember why America decided to drop the bombs, it is perhaps more interesting to consider what many Japanese think about the bombs today. And the answer is: Not much.

Japanese blogger, Internet expert, and venture capitalist Joi Ito has a fascinating op-ed in the New York Times in which he says the bombs have little significance to Japanese born after the war:

When people ask my thoughts on the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I always feel uncomfortable. As a Japanese, I know how I'm supposed to respond: with sadness, regret and perhaps anger. But invariably I try to dodge the issue, or to reply as neutrally as possible.

That's because, at bottom, the bombings don't really matter to me or, for that matter, to most Japanese of my generation. My peers and I have little hatred or blame in our hearts for the Americans; the horrors of that war and its nuclear evils feel distant, even foreign. Instead, the bombs are simply the flashpoint marking the discontinuity that characterized the cultural world we grew up in.

Joi then describes how the war's end jolted Japanese of that era out of the grip of years of "brainwashing" at the hands of their militarist leaders. In fact, he argues that the bombs served as a cultural "reset button", letting Japan make a clean break with its past.

Joi's words reminded me of a young Japanese boy I saw on the beach at Atami this weekend, shown in the photo below:

On the 60th anniversary of the American atomic bombing of his people, this boy happily played with an inner tube decorated with the Stars and Stripes, and emblazoned with an image of the Statue of Liberty.

You might reasonably expect that Japanese would hate Americans for bombing their country, but it just didn't work out that way. Ironically, the devastating atomic assault was followed by lasting peace, and even friendship, between America and Japan.

Lightweight, but underpowered

2005-08-06T23:36:00.000+09:00

The Kneeslider (who found it on, yes, BoingBoing) points to these insanely detailed paper motorcycle models from Yamaha. Here's a single-cylinder SR400:

Best of all, the model kits are available free, over the Internet. Just download the parts as pdf files, print them out, and start cutting.

Al-Zawahri says Osama tapes are "Done"

2005-08-06T17:56:00.000+09:00

PAKISTAN (Rooters) — After months of speculation, it appears that what many fans feared would happen has indeed come to pass: Osama Bin Laden’s series of videotaped threats against America and her allies is finished.

Al-Qaeda second-in-command and Bin Laden associate Ayman Al-Zawahri revealed in an interview with Al-Jazeera that the world’s most-wanted criminal is not coming back.

"Osama’s tapes are over, man. Done," Al-Zawahri told reporters from the Arabic-language news network. "It took me a long time to be able to say those words, but I can say it pretty easy now because it's the truth."

While Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers around the world still hold out hope that more tapes will be made — and Al-Zawahri said that half of a new threat has already been recorded — many of those who swelled with pride upon hearing each new rambling harangue from Osama are facing up to the possibility that they will have to make do with the several tapes he has already released.

The next videotaped threat from the reclusive terrorist leader has been on ice since Bin Laden halted production suddenly and went back into hiding somewhere, it is thought, in the forbidding, mountainous terrain along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

"I'm disappointed it ended the way it did, but I'm not angry with anybody — except, of course, the Americans and the Jews," Al-Zawahri said. "Osama’s tapes were like a suicide bomber who gloriously martyrs himself. They came out, they got everybody's attention, but they blew up into itty bitty pieces, and they blew up quick."

In another sign that the tapes may be on permanent hiatus, Bin Laden's longtime writing partner and reclusive former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is "no longer involved" in their production, according to an Al-Qaeda spokesperson.

Bin Laden allegedly met with Omar several years ago, but the pair have not spoken since — although Omar’s once-powerful gang of fundamentalist Islamic thugs has left the door open for Osama’s return, the spokesperson said.

According to Al-Zawahri, Bin Laden denies that the constant pressure of hiding from US and Pakistani forces led him to stop making new tapes, saying he is only living in dank, squalid caves in order to clear his head.

"I'm not crazy; I'm not smoking hashish," Bin Laden allegedly told Al-Zawahri. "I'm definitely stressed out. There were things that overwhelmed me, but not in the way that people are saying."

Indoctrination, not education

2005-08-05T01:09:00.000+09:00

The Japan Times reported last week that Tokyo has decided to use a controversial new history textbook criticized for whitewashing Japanese atrocities in Asia during World War II:

The Tokyo Metropolitan board of education adopted two contentious social studies textbooks Thursday that critics say distort history and gloss over Japan's wartime atrocities.

The capital is the second city this year, after Otawara, Tochigi Prefecture, to choose junior high textbooks — one for history and one for civics — compiled by members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Fuso Publishing Inc.

...Critics say the history text plays down the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and ignores the sexual enslavement of women by Japanese soldiers. They also say it depicts Japanese wartime actions as aimed at liberating other parts of Asia.

I've already written several posts about these textbooks (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), arguing that while their treatment of Japan's conduct during World War II may be superficial and sanitized, China's criticism of them reeks of hypocrisy.

However, it appears the real harm these books may cause lies not in their portrayal of any particular historical event, but in their overall approach to the teaching of history — and, indeed, in the philosophy of education that they represent.

The following English translation (pdf file here) of an excerpt from the new history textbook is from the website of the strongly nationalist Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which created it:

The history you are about to study is the history of Japan. In other words, you will be familiarizing yourselves with the stories of your ancestors — your blood relatives. Your closest ancestors are your parents, who were preceded by your four grandparents. As you go back further in time, the number of ancestors increases with each generation. Then you realize that the humans who populated the Japanese Archipelago are ancestors you share with the other students in your classroom. In every era, Japanese history was made by ancestors common to all of us.

...Every nation in the world has a unique history; Japan is no exception. From time immemorial, our land has been the wellspring of civilization and unique traditions. In ancient times, the Japanese studied and appreciated the civilization that arose in China, but they never lost sight of their own traditions. Over the centuries, they built an independent nation. To see our ancestors' accomplishments, you need only visit important cultural and historical sites.

In the modern era, the U.S. and Western European nations threatened to engulf East Asia. But Japan sought harmony with Western civilization — a harmony that could be achieved while retaining Japanese traditions. As Japan transformed itself into a modern nation, it made every effort to maintain independence. But those were difficult times, and tension and friction arose between Japan and other nations. We must be grateful to our ancestors for their unceasing efforts, which made Japan a wealthy and safe nation (the safest in the world, in fact).

It's often said that the benefit of a liberal arts education is that it teaches you how to think. But as the excerpt above demonstrates, Japan's nationalists don't seem to want to teach schoolchildren how to think. They want to tell them what to think. Statements like "In the modern era, the U.S. and Western European nations threatened to engulf East Asia. But Japan sought harmony with Western civilization" don't encourage students to study the facts and reach their own conclusions. In fact, they don't even suggest that there might be other conclusions.

And statments like "Japanese history was made by ancestors common to all of us" not only tell students what to think, they ignore the fact that there are students in Japanese schools whose parents or grandparents immigrated from Korea, China, or elsewhere. What are they to make of this emphasis on a common Japanese ancestry?

Even more disturbing is that this focus on common ancestors echoes militarist prewar Japan's emphasis on racial unity. It also calls to mind the widely-discredited nihonjinron ideology of the postwar era, which portayed Japanese as different from (and, frequently, superior to) all other peoples of the world, by virtue of their race, language, and culture. Most nations have tossed theories of racial and cultural exceptionalism on the ash heap of history, but Japan has put them in its schoolbooks.

I've been quick to criticize China's aggressive new nationalism, particularly in the context of that country's dealings with Japan. But Japanese nationalism presents problems of its own.

FOLLOW-UP:
White Peril points out that teachers in Japan tend to be leftists, not nationalists, and they have ample opportunity to shape and color the presentation of any textbook material in the classroom.

Life imitates Office Space

2005-08-05T00:34:00.000+09:00

We have an intern in our office for the summer. Nice kid — fresh out of high school, and heading into a top college this fall.

Earlier, I overheard one of my colleagues (let's call him Fred) telling the intern how to handle an elaborate data-gathering project. At the end of his explanation, he actually said, "...so, if you could go ahead and do that, that'd be great."

"Hey, Fred," I called out from across the floor. "Did you see Office Space?"

"Yeah"

"You sound like Lumbergh."

This set off a round of laughter and five minutes of everybody doing their best Lumbergh impressions.

Fred no longer tells the intern to "go ahead" and do anything. Nor does he say that doing it would be "great".

Is The Onion becoming funny again?

2005-08-04T00:55:00.000+09:00

I'm of the opinion that the humor quotient of The Onion has been in a tailspin for the past few years, but this is just brilliant:

Suicide Bomber Killed En Route By Car Bomb

BAGHDAD — Terrorist cells in Baghdad are in mourning for suicide bomber Ahmed al-Khalaf, 19, who was killed by a car bomb Monday, 200 yards from an Iraqi police station, his intended target.

Sources within the insurgency said al-Khalaf was "on his way to becoming a glorious martyr" when he was struck down by the car-bomb explosion. Twenty-three other civilians were also killed.

"What kind of God allows the death of people who are on their way to kill innocent people?" insurgent leader Abdulwahid al-Tomizie said. "On the one hand, I am elated that the car-bomb explosion was successful, but the loss of the suicide bomber is a tragedy, as is the survival of all the innocent people he might have killed."

Read the whole thing.

This is getting out of hand

2005-08-04T00:30:00.000+09:00

First Apostropher started blogging about weird Japan news.

Then BoingBoing churned out a bunch of Japan-themed posts.

And Running for the Right piled on.

Fine.

But now even the mighty Instapundit is jumping on the bandwagon, linking to an article on how to eat sushi.

Hey, I was blogging about Japan before it was cool.

The 150th Carnival of the Vanities

2005-08-03T03:06:00.000+09:00

Welcome to the 150^th Carnival of the Vanities. This week's Carnival contains over 50 submissions. It should go without saying that the views expressed by contributors are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect my own opinions.

Next week's edition will appear August 10th at Generic Confusion. And now, on with the show!

The Environment

The Dread Pundit Bluto cites some sources suggesting that NASA's switch to an environmentally-friendly foam may be the reason chunks of it keep shearing off the Space Shuttle's external fuel tank and damaging the main craft.

Mister Snitch thinks that by the year 2020, we might be importing barrels of Chinese hydrogen along with our barrels of Saudi oil.

Do you walk or bike to work? If so, Kiril Kundurazieff wants to hear from you. (I don't think my 1300cc Honda is the kind of bike Kiril has in mind, though.)

Last week's Carnival host Melinama blogs about a failed attempt to start a biodiesel company. Along the way, she discusses blueberry patches, hot sauce, Celtic music, and fried twinkies.

Birth Control

Running for the Right says that NPR has completely mischaracterized the debate over pharmacist distribution of birth control pills.

Nicholas Schweitzer looks at New York Governor George Pataki's plans to veto a bill that would make the "morning after pill", RU-486, available over the counter.

Europe

Greg writes, "While in Europe recently, I saw firsthand that the European Union is doomed. See the pictorial evidence!"

Joseph Cutler points out an even more important European problem.

Guido Fawkes warns that Tony Blair is "stealthily installing a one-party dictatorship" in Britain.

Japan

Making his Carnival debut, Justin compares some inspiring and uninspiring examples of foreign language learning.

Justin's is the only even vaguely Japan-related entry in the Carnival this week. I recommend checking out Japundit for quirky finds and good reads on all things Japanese, while for a pan-Asian blog roundup, Simon World is excellent (although Simon is currently having guest bloggers fill in for him while he's on vacation).

Supporting the Troops

Is there a Carnival of the Podcasts? There should be. Holly Aho interviews Patty Patton-Bader, the founder of Soldier's Angels. (UPDATE: Holly has apparently just launched a Carnival of the Podcasts.)

Kiril Kundurazieff has two blogs, so he submitted two posts. Is that kosher? Anyway, he shares the sad story of a man who spent years cleaning up the tombstones of almost 200 Union soldiers from the Civil War — only to find that local officials aren't too fond of his work.

Buckley F. Williams lists Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Catherine Baker Knoll's favorite pastimes besides handing out her business cards at military funerals.

Liberals vs. Conservatives

Mr. Right imagines what a telethon to save Air America would be like. Seriously, if no one listens to these guys for free, who's going to tune in when they're asking for money?

Charlie Quidnunc has a very well-done podcast that finds House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi unable to back up some serious allegations she makes against the Republicans. Charlie's podcast also covers Air America and moderate Muslims as an added bonus.

John Ray conducted a study, published in the Australian Journal of Psychology, which found that left-wing beliefs correlate negatively with intelligence. Maybe that explains why Kerry got lower grades than Bush at Yale?

Watcher points a finger at bloggers who pointed fingers at Bush's finger.

Islam and Islamic Terrorism

Ferdinand T. Cat notes that Laura Ingraham interviewed Imam Yahya Hendi on her radio show. Hendi is a member of the Fiqh Council of North America, which recently issued a fatwa against terrorism.

GM Roper says that if we're serious about stopping Islamic terrorists, we should be focusing on people who fit the profile.

J. Random American thinks that a surveillance society might actually make us more free — but it all depends on who is under the microscope and who is doing the watching.

Rick Moran says Islam is overdue for a Martin Luther-style reformation.

In a very detailed post, Dan Melson compares the history of Chrisitianity and Islam, and considers the prospects for reforms in Islam today.

Brian J. Noggle wonders whether the British are sinking into a quagmire. No, not in Iraq. In Britain.

Opinionated Bastard notes that the Global War on Terror has become the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. But he thinks there's another name for it that would be even more accurate.

In the aftermath of the London bombings, Dave L. considers why second-generation Pakistanis in Britain often prove more radical than their immigrant parents. He thinks a New York Times article on the same phenomenon left much to be desired.

Neal Phenes says the locals aren't the problem in Iraq.

After calling Islam itself a "terrorist organization", radio talk show host Michael Graham lost his job when the Council on American-Islamic Relations threatened to boycott his station's advertisers. The Maryhunter calls for a boycott until he's hired back.

Florida

Harvey takes a look at the state of Florida, in a post that reminded me of Johnny Carson's famous monologue, "What Democracy Means to Me".

On a more serious note, Zendo Deb says Florida is coming to grips with the problem of domestic violence.

Sex

Josh Cohen wonders why a quick nude scene earns films the "R" rating, while graphic violence often slides by with a "PG-13". Warning: Readers under the age of 17 will not be admitted to Josh's post unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

Pete reveals "the last message you ever want to hear on your answering machine."

In a truly baffling post, BPG imagines the leaders of the G-8 nations as Victoria's Secret models. There is absolutely no reason why any sane person would ever, ever want to do this.

Shaggy's Girl thinks she's figured out what men really want. How did she know I want a Ducati Multistrada 1000S DS?

Sister Toldjah warns that legalizing gay marriage puts us on a slippery slope.

Blogs and the Internet

Barry Welford wonders if AskJeeves might actually be able to catch up to the "big three" search engines.

Flexo looks at the negative impact of commercial forces on blogging, including the problem of spam blogs and the risk that advertisers will turn bloggers into paid shills.

If you're trying to figure out how to get more visitors to your website, Wayne Hurlbert says your referrer logs may hold the answer.

Law

Kevin says an environmental lawsuit against the makers of Teflon is bogus. I guess he thinks the charges won't stick.

Tom Bowler notes a push for a Constitutional amendment to negate the impact of the Supreme Court's Kelo decision.

Warren Meyer muses about Roe v. Wade and whether the notion of a Constitutional right to privacy will grow stronger.

The Boy Scouts' 2005 National Jamboree was hit not only by a tragic electrical accident that killed four adults, but also by an ACLU lawsuit. Denis Ambrose has more.

Business and Economics

When I read this post by Ashish Hanwadikar about the Laffer Curve, I thought he was rejecting it because it predicts that two different tax rates can yield the same amount of tax revenue. But Ashish wrote to tell me, "I am not disputing Laffer Curve at all. My question, 'So what's wrong with Laffer Curve' is rhetorical." You had me going there, Ashish.

Ironman thinks AFL-CIO boss John J. Sweeney is doubling down on a losing bet.

Bruan works in a department store, and lists some of the weird things its customers do.

Christianity

Look, do you want a happy God or a vengeful God? Northstar wants a happy God, but suspects the members of Rev. Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church do not.

Bussorah Merchant has a joke about a couple of golf-playing nuns.

Education

High school history teacher Betsy Newmark says that students lose out when history is replaced with "social studies".

Chris Hallquist thinks that concerns about Ball State University forcing freshmen to read "leftist" books are overblown. He agrees with this comment by Stanley Fish: "As a genuine academic value, intellectual diversity is a nonstarter."

Miscellaneous

From Skippy-san comes a list of the 10 stages of drunkenness. I'm not sure what stage he was at when he wrote it.

Elisson has a bittersweet post about how the right pop song can trigger powerful emotions and bring back vivid memories.

Kevin Pho, M.D., reviews Dick Cheney's latest physical examination in impressive detail.

Mark A. Rayner knows how to ward off another NHL lockout: Robot hockey on Mars.

In the creepiest post of this week's Carnival, Chris J says it's better to suffer through the misery of life than to commit suicide. Maybe a more brightly-colored blog template would cheer him up?

And if that doesn't work, Steve Pavlina has some tips on "Overcoming Negative Emotions and Boosting Motivation." Remember, Chris — you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.

Beetle mania

2005-08-02T16:50:00.000+09:00

InakaYabanjin looks at Japan's fascination with giant, fearsome beetles. There are beetle videogames, beetle magazines, and live beetles for sale as pets (sometimes supplied by beetle smugglers).

However, only about 1 percent of Japanese are Christians. So in Japan, at least, beetles are indeed more popular than Jesus.

Didn't these guys see Die Hard?

2005-08-02T15:11:00.000+09:00

If there's one thing I learned from watching Bruce Willis in his breakthrough role, it was this: Never go after terrorists without a good pair of shoes.

Which makes this item in the Sun (via Fark) all the more unbelievable:

POLICE have been told they must show respect by taking their SHOES OFF before raiding the homes of Muslim terror suspects.

It was one of 18 rules laid down in new guidelines for officers in Luton — a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism.

Showing respect is nice, but not if it hinders your ability to do your job. I hope none of these shoeless cops have to chase a fleeing suspect outside in their stocking feet.

The teapot is no more

2005-08-02T08:47:00.000+09:00

Previously, I blogged about how Muslims Muslim extremists attacked the giant teapot-shaped shrine of Malaysia's inter-faith Sky Kingdom sect for supposedly luring people away from Islam.

Now, via LGF, Malaysian newspaper The Star reports that sadly, the teapot has been destroyed — even though the sect had obtained a court injunction blocking the demolition of any structure at their commune:

The giant teapot and other key structures at the Sky Kingdom commune came tumbling down yesterday after the Besut District Council sent in its demolition squad.

More than 30 followers of the sect who watched the demolition did not resist or challenge the authorities.

... The followers were taken by surprise when the 40 council workers entered the commune with four excavators and five lorries at 2.30pm. About 50 policemen and officers from the state Islamic Affairs department accompanied them.

In a gratuitous bit of extra nastiness, after demolishing the Sky Kingdom's shrine, authorities detained three wives of sect leader Ayah Pin for "being involved in teachings deviant to Islamic beliefs."

President Barbour?

2005-08-01T23:03:00.000+09:00

Mississippi Governor and former RNC chairman Haley Barbour gave a speech to Republicans Abroad Japan at the Century Court in Tokyo this evening, while on a tour of Asia designed to attract foreign investment in his state. I stopped by to hear him speak.

In his speech, Gov. Barbour focused on the competitiveness, and need for compromise, in American politics today. But he also found time to mention how he managed to virtually erase Mississippi's deficit without raising taxes.

Then, during the question-and-answer session that followed, when asked who would be the most electable Presidential canditate the Republicans could nominate in 2008, Gov. Barbour seemed to have no clear preference. Ruling out Cheney, and lamenting that Schwarzenegger is not eligible, he acknowledged McCain, Giuliani, and Rice as possible choices. But he also noted that the Democrats have done best in Presidential elections when they nomintated relatively unknown governors of Southern states, like Carter or Clinton — and he suggested that the Republicans might do well to consider adopting a similar strategy.

During a cocktail reception after his speech, I asked Gov. Barbour if he had been hinting that he plans to throw his hat in the ring.

"Ha!" he laughed. "There are lots of successful governors."

Hmm...

FOLLOW-UP:
It seems some people are quite keen to see Gov. Barbour run for President. But Chris Kromm and David Sirota think he would be a poor candidate.

The Beijing Olympics should be interesting

2005-08-01T10:57:00.000+09:00

I've never explicitly posted my thoughts on this subject, but given China's anti-Japan riots this past spring, the recent news items about Chinese restaurants and hospitals excluding Japanese patrons, and the arrogance of Chinese officials at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, I've been wondering whether China is really ready to welcome people from all over the world when Beijing hosts the Olympics in 2008.

At Japundit, JP is having similar reservations, pointing to a China Daily article about Chinese fans and players attacking the Puerto Rican basketball team during a game last Friday:

A Chinese victory at Beijing Capital Gymnasium on Friday was overshadowed by what was arguably Chinese Basketball's most shameful night as the referee abandoned their match against Puerto Rico after a mass brawl broke out on court at the ongoing Stankovic Cup.

Fists, plastic cups, water bottles and even a fan's shoe went flying in during the fracas with China's Yi Jianlian, Tang Zhengdong, Mo Ke and Li Nan right in the middle of it.

...After several minutes of fighting on and off the court, plastic bottles, drinks, and popcorn rained down on the Puerto Rican players, and with three thousand fans chanting abuse the South Americans made their way to the locker room.

If there's a bright side here, it's that China appears to realize that such hostile behavior at the 2008 Olympics would be bad for its international image. Witness the little bits of editorializing sprinkled throughout China Daily's straight-news article:

•   ...Chinese Basketball's most shameful night...

•   The melee, which badly hurt the growing reputation of Chinese basketball...

•   The unreasonable acts also squandered China's sparkling performance...

Yet, as JP notes, last Friday's outburst was not the first time Chinese fans have shown hostility and aggression in response to foreign competitors:

There was a riot in Beijing in 1985 when the soccer national team lost a World Cup qualifier to Hong Kong. The Chinese basketball team and its fans were part of another brawl during a game against Lebanon in Shanghai in 2001. In 2004, fans went on a rampage in Beijing after the national soccer team lost to Japan in the Asian Cup final.

It seems clear China doesn't want to see this sort of behavior at its Olympics. But the strident nationalism it's been promoting at home, unfortunately, encourages it.

Them Duke boyz n the hood

2005-07-31T21:21:00.000+09:00

Via Dangerous Dan, the Detroit News notes an ironic shift in the demographics of Dodge Charger owners:

The Charger received an early blessing from one of hip-hop's biggest names, 50 Cent, who after seeing the beefy sedan debut at the Detroit auto show requested the first production model. In a January phone message to the publisher of auto-customizing magazine Dub, the chart-topping rapper asked, "What I gotta' do to get that Dodge Charger first? I need that."

50 Cent got his wish. This spring, he became the first customer to take delivery of a 2006 Charger.

And a wave of interest from other rappers followed.

...The new rear-drive sedan is a four-door update of the classic fastback that was born in the early 1960s and was later known for as the Duke boys' creek-jumping General Lee on TV's "The Dukes of Hazzard."

That would be the General Lee with a huge Confederate flag painted on the roof.

Yee-hah, yo.

Un-American vs. inappropriate

2005-07-30T18:22:00.000+09:00

Via LGF, the New York Times editorializes that the goals of activist group Take Back The Memorial are "un-American".

Take Back The Memorial, whose site I've linked to via a small graphic in the right-hand sidebar here for some time now, opposes the construction of facilities at Ground Zero like the International Freedom Center's proposed Freedom Center, and a new outpost of the SoHo-based Drawing Center art gallery. The language in its "Campaign America" resolution that drew criticism from the Times reads:

RESOLVED, that the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation should fulfill its mission by ensuring no facilities that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events occupy space on the sacred site at Ground Zero; and that the World Trade Center Memorial must honor the mission of creating a dignified and respectful memorial which focuses exclusively on the victims, heroes and events of September 11, 2001, and February 26, 1993.

Banning controversial speech all together would certainly be un-American, but as I've argued before, that doesn't mean we must build a special shrine to institutionalize such speech at the site of a solemn memorial. Keeping America-bashing away from the gravesite of victims of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history would be no less appropriate, and no less necessary, than keeping hecklers away from a funeral.

The Times titled its editorial "A Sense of Proportion at Ground Zero". Ironically, that's exactly what its snide accusation lacks.

FOLLOW-UP:
More from Joe Malchow. And Take Back the Memorial responds to the Times editorial.

A sloppy fatwa

2005-07-29T15:55:00.000+09:00

Responding to the recent terror attacks in London and Egypt (or, more accurately, to the surge in anti-Islam sentiment that the terror attacks inspired), the Fiqh Council of North America has issued a "fatwa against terrorism":

The Fiqh Council of North America wishes to reaffirm Islam's absolute condemnation of terrorism and religious extremism.

Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram — or forbidden — and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not “martyrs.”

It goes on in that vein for a while. Here's the bottom line:

In the light of the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah we clearly and strongly state:

1. All acts of terrorism targeting civilians are haram (forbidden) in Islam.

2. It is haram for a Muslim to cooperate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence.

3. It is the civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of all civilians.

Item number 1 sounds good, although it won't do anything to end Palestinian suicide bombings of Israelis. Most Palestinians consider those acts to be a form of "legitimate resistance", not "terrorism." And because all Israelis, in general, perform a few years of mandatory service in the military, many Palestinians argue that there's no such thing as an Israeli civilian. So the the Jew killin' is likely to continue.

But what really caught my eye was item number 2. It forbids Muslims from cooperating "with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence." Well, the U.S. military is certainly involved in acts of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. Does that mean this fatwah prohibits Muslims from serving in or cooperating with the U.S. military?

Before I get too excited about this fatwah, I'd like a little clarification from the Fiqh Council on points 1 and 2.

And via LGF, Steven Emerson also takes a critical view of the fatwah here, claiming that members of the Fiqh Council have ties to various terror groups.

Not likely

2005-07-29T14:36:00.000+09:00

The August 4 issue of London's Private Eye attributes the following news analysis to reporter John Simpson, speaking on Irish public radio:

“The fact is that when a suicide bomber strikes once, he or she may strike again.”

Sean Hannity, super cyborg

2005-07-29T10:16:00.000+09:00

Next month, ACC Studios is planning to release the first issue of "Liberality For All", which it claims is the "World's 1st Conservative Comic Book". (You can read a five-page excerpt starting here.)

Now, a comic about an Orwellian future in which liberals have taken over and conservative thought is outlawed could be interesting if it were done well. And by "done well", I mean "does not feature Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North as cyborg superheroes":

It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. America is under oppression by ultra-liberal extremists that have surrendered governing authority to the United Nations. It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City.

And does the artwork have to be so lame? Here's Liddy astride a motorcycle, and Hannity with an eyepatch and a robotic arm:

I've seen mannikins with more dramatic poses. Sheesh. Shouldn't a conservative comic book make liberals look ridiculous?

Fighting spam, the Russian way

2005-07-28T00:05:00.000+09:00

Via Bigwig, Mosnews.com reports that Russians seem to have developed a new technique for stopping email spam:

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Simple, but effective.

FOLLOW-UP:
More on Russian reaction to Kushnir's death here.

Guns and Grokster

2005-07-27T16:33:00.000+09:00

Daily Kos diarist Radical Russ claims to have found an ironic contrast between the ruling in recent Supreme Court case MGM v. Grokster (link goes to pdf file), and pending legislation affecting the gun industry.

First, Russ displays the relevant part of the Court's decision in Grokster, putting certain parts in boldface:

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice Souter wrote.

Russ then quotes the following Associated Press article about proposed legislation (championed by those sneaky Republicans!) that would shield gun makers from liability for gun crimes. Again, he uses boldface to emphasize certain words:

Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved the National Rifle Association's top priority ahead of a $491 billion defense bill, setting up a vote on legislation to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits over gun crimes.

"The president believes that the manufacturer of a legal product should not be held liable for the criminal misuse of that product by others," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "We look at it from a standpoint of stopping lawsuit abuse."

The bill would prohibit lawsuits against the firearms industry for damages resulting from the unlawful use of a firearm or ammunition.

[Senator Larry] Craig said such lawsuits are "predatory and aimed at bankrupting the firearms industry," unfairly blaming dealers and manufacturers for the crimes of gun users.

Outraged that a software maker can be liable for the misuse of its software, while a gun maker might not be liable for the misuse of its guns, Russ blames sinister corporate special interests for this alleged inconsistency:

Got that? If a company makes a product that is inappropriately used to illegally copy a movie, that company is liable. If a company makes a product that is inappropriately used to illegally kill a human, that company is not liable. What's the common logic holding these disparate concepts together? Massive corporate special interest money. Welcome to your government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations...

What's wrong with Russ's analysis? Well, first of all, Grokster was, of course, a court case, not a piece of legislation. All the special interest money in the world can't make five Justices rule in your favor.

But more importantly, Russ ignores the principle at the very core of the Court's holding in Grokster — that the maker of a file-sharing program or other copying device can be found liable for third-party actions if it distributes the device "with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement."

Those boldfaced words are the exact ones Russ didn't put in boldface. It's easy to see why he chose to ignore them: they contradict his argument. The Supreme Court says companies should be free to make software capable of copying and sharing files, so long as they don't promote them for the purpose of violating copyright law. It's entirely consistent with that principle that gun makers, who don't encourage people to use guns for criminal purposes, be held similarly blameless for the acts of third parties using their products.

(I found Russ's post cited approvingly on BoingBoing by Mark Frauenfelder, who is smart enough to know better.)

FOLLOW-UP:
A BoingBoing reader comments, and Cory Doctorow replies.

The Selfish American Cafe

2005-07-27T00:54:00.000+09:00

Next time you're in eastern Setagaya, why not drop in for a bite at the Selfish American Country & Cafe:

The owner of this place doesn't think Americans are jerks. He's simply chosen a name for his shop that reads spectacularly poorly in English.

"Selfish", or its Japanese equivalent wagamama, as used by young Japanese people, can actually have an ironically positive connotation of independently following one's own whims, in the face of social pressure to conform to the group.

As the New York Times Magazine explained several years ago in an article about "parasite singles", or Japanese women who live with their parents rather than marry and take on the traditional role of wife and mother:

"No one is actually rejecting marriage," Izumi says quickly. "Not even Sumiko. They all think they'll probably get married some day. It's just..." She breaks off and laughs. "Women today are wagamama."

Her word choice is significant. Wagamama means selfish, willful; in a culture where personal sacrifice is the highest virtue, the connotation is far harsher, especially for women. Yet, as the parasite trend has emerged, women like Arai have taken on the word wagamama, albeit slightly tongue in cheek, as a term of defiance...transforming its meaning in the process to something closer to "choosy" or even "self-determining."

In that context, America is the ultimate wagamama nation: a land where everyone can pursue his own destiny.

I've never been so proud to be a selfish American.

Democrat calls for Muslims to reject terror

2005-07-26T18:16:00.000+09:00

Via Gindy, a US Senator has gone on record calling for ostensibly peace-loving Muslims to take a tougher stand against Islamic terrorism. And she's no neocon Republican, either. Agence France-Presse reports:

A top US Senator urged Muslim leaders across the world to issue a slew of religious edicts denouncing terrorism and warned that mosques in "many places" are enabling terrorists.

Senator Dianne Feinstein spoke in the wake of Saturday's bombings in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where 88 people were killed, and the July 7 attacks in London, where 52 people and four suicide bombers died. A new attack in London failed Thursday.

"I think until the mosques in the Muslim world and the imams in the Muslim world in a major way issue fatwa after fatwa denouncing jihad and denouncing terror that we're not going make any progress," the California Democrat told CNN.

"I don't see many, if any, major imams throughout all of the Muslim countries coming together and saying: Enough of this. Stop. This is not Islam. You know, we object to it," she said.

Sen. Feinstein makes a good point. Even if mainstream Muslim leaders bear no responsibility for Islamic terrorism, they do have a unique ability to fight it. Their words, at least in theory, carry a weight with other Muslims that the words of non-Muslim politicians do not. If they are truly appalled by the wave of terror being perpetrated around the world in the name of their religion, well, they're in an excellent position to do something about it.

Are they? In the same article, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's incoming US ambassador, says:

Many fatwas have come out from Muslim scholars and religious leaders against suicide bombings and against the killings that have taken place, but they're just not getting enough resonance in the public media and the public audiences that should be where these statements are directed.

Well, no. Those statements shouldn't be directed toward "the public media", as if the main goal were to polish up Islam's image. They should be directed to Muslims, in mosques, by imams. But either those statements are not being made, or they're not being taken seriously. And how could they be, when so many Muslims, not merely the extremists, reflexively support a Palestinian movement that has made the Islamic suicide bombing of civilians its signature weapon?

A denunciation of terrorism that overlooks terrorism against Israel is meaningless. Once you've decided it's okay to attack a bus full of Israelis, it's a lot easier to rationalize attacking a bus full of Londoners, or a hotel full of Egyptians. The sea change that Sen. Feinstein hopes for will not come until Muslim leaders unite to condemn terrorism against all people, without an Israel exception. I'm not holding my breath.

FOLLOW-UP:
I smell a meme brewing... In the Wall Street Journal (via LGF), Ahmed H. al-Rahim calls for a "Million Muslim March" against terrorism.

Cubans flee to dead country

2005-07-26T01:46:00.000+09:00

NOTE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And thanks for the link, Prof. Reynolds.

The New York Times reports on the group defection of 49 members of a Cuban dance troupe — possibly the largest defection of Cubans in American history:

Singers, dancers, musicians and other troupe members received notice this week that they will be allowed to stay in the United States, said Nicole "N.D. " Durr, creator of the "Havana Night Club" revue. (It recently changed its name to the "Havana Night Show.") Two members of the troupe decided to return to Cuba.

"A new chapter of their lives has started," Durr said. "Here's something we worked very hard for, we fought for. This is something that will change (their) destiny."

Troupe members hope to begin the process of becoming permanent residents and, ultimately, U.S. citizens.

"This has been pretty amazing for all of us," said Jose David Alvarez, 24, the host of the stage show. "The United States of America has always been a myth for Cuban young men like me and a lot of my colleagues in the company. It has always meant freedom for us, because in Cuba, it's kind of different."

Those poor saps. Don't they know that America is dead?

Chinese hospitality

2005-07-26T00:36:00.000+09:00

In the grand tradition of the Chinese restaurateur who barred Japanese customers from dining at his establishment unless they first apologized for Japan's actions during WWII, comes this Kyodo News story (found via C. Buddha):

A hospital in southern China has hung a sign outside its entrance forbidding Japanese people from entering unless they apologize for the Japanese army's World War II-era use of "comfort women," two of whom were treated there, a local paper reported Thursday.

The Hainan Eastern-Western Medicine United Hospital, located in the central district of Haikou, capital of the island province of Hainan, posted the sign in Chinese and Japanese on Wednesday afternoon, according to the South Country Metropolitan News.

The sign reads: "Japanese people first apologize, then enter. Japanese people who 'decide not to admit to their crimes' are prohibited from entering."

The sign drew a crowd of local people Wednesday, the paper said. The article did not say how often Japanese people visit the hospital.

Fortunately, after only one day of their little stunt, hospital managers decided to stop acting like a bunch of three-year-olds:

A hospital in southern China that hung up a sign last week forbidding Japanese people from entering unless they apologized for the Japanese military's wartime use of "comfort women" took the notice down after only one day, a hospital staff member said Monday.

The Hainan Eastern-Western Medicine United Hospital, located in the central district of Haikou, capital of the island province of Hainan, removed the notice from above its main gate on Thursday. The employee did not say how many Japanese people tried to enter the hospital on Wednesday and Thursday last week. She said the number of Japanese patients is "not a lot but not a few."

Whatever the differences between China and Japan may be, penalizing ordinary citizens today for the actions of their nation's former government over 60 years ago is simply ridiculous. I hope no Japanese patients were harmed as a result of this petty, childish bit of grandstanding.

Why Japan won't be on the Security Council

2005-07-25T20:20:00.000+09:00

Reuters reports on Japan's desperate last-ditch bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council — which, given that it would require China's approval, seems exceedingly unlikely:

Japan's relations with China have been strained by a series of disputes and its U.N. bid was among the factors that triggered violent anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities in April.

"This is a difficult proposal... It is hard to tell until the final stage," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters on Friday, when asked about the prospects for the G4 proposal.

Failure could spark annoyance with Washington and anger at China among Japanese lawmakers, already irked by Beijing's criticism of Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo shrine for war dead where convicted war criminals are also honoured.

It would also cause deep embarrassment, especially if it highlighted a lack of Asian support for the Japanese bid.

I would never tell Japan that it should follow China's orders. But when you really, really want a favor from someone — particularly someone who doesn't like you — it pays to be nice.

True, China's posture toward Japan has been particularly aggressive and arrogant over the past several months. But Japan has done nothing to curry favor with China, either.

It issued a new government-authorized history textbook skimming over Japanese WWII-era atrocities at Nanking.

It fought over the status of the Okinotori outcroppings, which Japan says are actual islands extending its territorial waters, and which China says are just a bunch of rocks.

It fought over ownership of the Senkaku Islands and the natural gas resources in the ocean floor around them. China calls them the Diaoyu Islands, and claims them for itself.

And, of course, it refused to give an inch on the contentious matter of Prime Minister Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine.

Again, I don't think Japan should necessarily defer to China on the above issues, or, for that matter, on any others. But nor should it be surprised when China vetoes its bid.

How to fight terrorism

2005-07-25T11:24:00.000+09:00

Master satirist Scott Ott at Scrappleface finds a way to unite the world against terrorism:

Although the United Nations lacks a consensus definition of "terrorism" and has no substantive anti-terror program, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said that yesterday's bombings in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, that killed more than 85 people, may violate the Kyoto protocols on climate change.

"The global concept of terrorism is hazy and subjective," said Mr. Annan, "but almost everyone agrees that blowing such a quantity of smoke, debris and blood-borne pathogens into our atmosphere is an unmitigated evil."

The Secretary-General called for the U.N. Security Council to issue "a stern resolution against this egregious pollution of Mother Earth, even if the justification for the bombings is debatable among civilized people."

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," Mr. Annan said. "But the horrifying consequences of unregulated emissions is a crisis that transcends culture and ideology, and demands immediate and vigorous action."

Kind of like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion, I guess.

Muslims against terrorism

2005-07-24T22:33:00.000+09:00

I've been posting quite a bit lately (see here, here, and here) about how it would be nice for the millions of Muslims that repudiate Islamic terrorism to make their voices heard.

Well, via Instapundit, here's a link to a Muslim anti-terrorism protest in California, plus one in Iraq and another one in Denmark. And here's a link about one more in Cairo.

Good. And keep 'em coming.

Egyptians blame Israel for terror attacks

2005-07-24T03:22:00.000+09:00

Even though Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an Islamist group with ties to Al Qaeda, has already claimed responsibility for yesterday's terror bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian analysts and commentators are blaming (wait for it) ...Israel. Haaretz reports:

Less than 24 hours after terrorists killed at least 88 people in attacks on the Sinai resort town of Sharm el- Sheikh, Egyptian sources claimed that Israel was responsible for the deadly bombings.

The claims were apparently based on the fact that most of the victims were Egyptian nationals.

Egyptian media analysts, sources in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian parliamentarian Ala Hasnin, in an interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network, all suggested Israel was responsible for the attacks.

An Egyptian analyst interviewed by Al-Jazeera who is associated with extremist elements in the country said it was in Israel's interest to carry out such a terror attack and thus Jerusalem was thus responsible for Saturday's bombings.

...He went on to add that the United States also has a motive to carry out such an attack.

If the United States really wanted to hurt Egypt, we could start by no longer giving it billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid.

Art gallery may back out of Ground Zero

2005-07-23T19:35:00.000+09:00

The Drawing Center is a SoHo-based art gallery which in the past has occasionally featured politically controversial art. I blogged about its plans to set up shop at Ground Zero here.

From issue #47 of Drawing Papers, the Drawing Center's exhibit review, here's a detail from A Glimpse of What Life in a Free Country Can Be Like #6 (2004) by Amy Wilson. It depicts the hooded prisoner from the infamous Abu Ghraib photo hooked up to wires spelling "Liberty":

And here's Homeland Security (2004) by Zoë Charlton, showing a jet airplane diving omimously toward a naked woman's spread legs:

It's not necessary to feel works like these should be banned or censored in general (and in fact I don't) to feel that they're simply not appropriate material for Ground Zero.

Now, activist site Take Back The Memorial cites a New York Post article (registration required) reporting that the Center may abandon those plans.

Catherine de Zegher, its Executive Director, says the Drawing Center won't accept any limitations on the kind of art it can display. With New York Governor George Pataki refusing to tolerate the above sort of controversial works at Ground Zero, that means the Drawing Center probably won't remain among the "cultural organizations" slated to be part of it.

The Post notes, however, that the International Freedom Center is still pushing ahead with plans to build a Freedom Center on the site. That suggests that either it's prepared to accept Pataki's conditions, or it's dismissing them as empty political grandstanding. Unfortunately, I suspect the latter is the case.

FOLLOW-UP:
What Pataki actually said, back in June, in response to a Daily News editorial about the Drawing Center, was the following:

We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom, or denigrates the sacrifice or courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11.

The IFC may simply take the position that its Freedom Center would do none of those things. That's why it's important for Pataki to make clear that the issue is not simply the potential denigration of America, but the politicization of the space around a somber memorial.

New York starts useless searches

2005-07-23T19:16:00.000+09:00

In the aftermath of the London terror attacks, New York has begun randomly searching the bags of passengers in its own mass transit system. The Washington Post reports:

Police began the arduous process of randomly searching a few of the thousands of bags that passengers carry onto the subways Friday, after New York became the first U.S. city to require such searches in the aftermath of new terrorist explosions in London.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the baggage searches — which will be extended to buses and suburban trains — could continue for weeks, if not months. Seven million people ride the city's buses and subways each day, more than half the nation's daily mass transit riders.

The article goes on to note that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg essentially admits the searches are little more than a psychological gambit designed to make people feel, but not actually be, more secure:

"Clearly, we'll do it for a little while. It's partially designed to make people feel comfortable ... and keep the potential threat away," Bloomberg (R) said in his weekly radio show, as reported by the Associated Press.

And we know the searches will be useless because they'll be done, supposedly, on a random basis:

Police officials took pains Friday to describe the searches as entirely random, hoping to allay fears of racial profiling. "We are looking at backpack size or containers large enough to house explosives that we know have been used in these mass transit attacks," said Paul J. Browne, chief spokesman for the city police. "The protocol would be to pick the fifth backpack in each group of 10. If a Middle Eastern man is number four, he would not get checked."

Very few men of Middle Eastern appearance are actually terrorists, yet the sad truth is that men of Middle Eastern appearance are responsible for the vast majority of terror attacks against Western targets. A search policy designed to actually stop terrorists, rather than to create the illusion of safety, would necessarily focus on people fitting this profile.

New York may feel it would be unconstitutional to profile potential bombing suspects on the basis of ethnicity, gender, and age. Or it simply may feel that doing so would be odious and offensive. Perhaps that's the right decision. But we should have no illusions that its current policy of completely random searches will do anything to improve safety.

FOLLOW-UP:
Majikthise agrees that the searches will accomplish nothing. When conservatives and liberals both think your policy is stupid, it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Six percent

2005-07-23T17:15:00.000+09:00

In the comments on this post about Muslim terror attacks, Big Ben said:

You admit that you have no way of knowing what percentage of Muslims supports terrorism, and it goes without saying that there are many who do not.

Well, now we have a way. News.com.au reports (via LGF) that a British newspaper has polled local Muslims about the recent terror attacks in London:

A new poll says about a quarter of British Muslims sympathise with the motives of the London bombers, if not their methods.

And the survey in London's Daily Telegraph shows one-third of British Muslims believe Western society is immoral.

The poll asked Muslims if they felt the July the 7th suicide attacks in which 56 peopled died were justified, and six per cent said they were.

71 per cent said they weren't justified at all, and 11 per cent said they weren't justified on balance.

But asked whether they had sympathy with the feelings and motives of the four British Muslim bombers, 13 per cent said they had a lot of sympathy and another 11 per cent had a little.

A link to the Telegraph's own article about the poll is here. and the results are here:

The poll was conducted on behalf of the Telegraph by public policy research firm YouGov, which claims "a track record as the UK's most accurate pollster."

Looking at only those respondents who said the attacks were "on balance justified", we have a figure of six percent. Of course, that figure is only meaningful in comparison to the percentage of British non-Muslims who think the bombings were justified, but I imagine that level would be close to zero.

Perhaps a different poll would have yielded a different result. In fact, the News.com article says a separate poll, by the Sun, found that 91% of British Muslims "didn't feel the suicide bombings were justified by the Islamic holy book, the Koran". The Sun's article about its poll, conducted by research firm MORI, is here.

It's heartening that the vast majority, 91%, of Sun poll respondents thought the bombings were not justified by the Koran — but that still means 9% either felt they were justified, or couldn't say. That seems consistent with a 6% level of support. So, while acknowleding that it hardly represents the final word on this matter, let's take the Telegraph's 6% figure at face value for now.

However, let's also bear a few things in mind:

•   The 6% figure leaves out the 11% of survey respondents who felt the terror attacks weren't justified "on balance".

•   Some respondents who actually support the attacks may not have felt comfortable saying so to the poll takers.

•   This was a poll of British Muslims. Support for the London attacks may be much higher among Muslims in the Middle East.

•   Muslims who feel that the London terror bombings were not justified may nevertheless feel that other terror attacks, like Palestinian suicide bombings of Israeli civillians, are.

Ignoring all those factors, we're left with six percent of Muslims supporting terrorism. I'll round that down to five, just to be cautious. With one billion Muslims in the world, that level suggests that some 50 million support the London attacks. And for the reasons listed above, the actual number is most likely far greater. While I'm aware and appreciative of the fact that millions of other Muslims reject terrorism, that's still one heck of an extremist fringe we're dealing with.

Earthquake hits Tokyo

2005-07-23T16:35:00.000+09:00

First-hand blog reporting! We just had a huge earthquake here in Tokyo. It hit just now while I was at my computer. I'm fine, and there was no damage to my house, but it was the biggest one I've felt, ever. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that elsewhere in Japan there were injuries and significant damage. Another aftershock is rocking my monitor as I type this sentence.

FOLLOW-UP:
Here are some early MSM reports: (1), (2), (3), (4). Apparently it was a magnitude 5.7 quake (on the Richter scale, not the Japanese scale) with its epicenter in Chiba prefecture. No risk of a follow-on tsunami is seen, but Narita airport shut down its runways to check for damage.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
Bloomberg News now says it was a 6.1 magnitude quake. It also notes that commuter trains and subways throughout Tokyo were stopped when the quake hit, while shinkansen "bullet train" operations were suspended. And after checking for damage, Narita airport has re-opened its runways.

More London bombings

2005-07-22T21:18:00.000+09:00

I've been so preoccupied with the debate here, about whether Islam is more likely than other major religions to inspire violent extremism in its followers, that I neglected to note the second wave of coordinated terror attacks to hit London in the past two weeks.

Thankfully, this round failed to go off as the terrorists planned. Bloomberg News reports:

London police are hunting four "would-be" bombers after three subway trains and a bus were targeted with explosives that failed to detonate yesterday, the second act of terrorism on the U.K. capital in two weeks.

As passengers escaped without injury from Warren Street, Oval and Shepherds Bush subway stations and from a double-decker bus in east London, four suspected terrorists also fled, leaving behind vital evidence, police said.

Sadly, I suspect that the culprits may once again be part of that nefarious gang, A Tiny Percentage Of All Muslims™. However, I remain open to the possibility that the bomb attempts were in fact the work of militant Christian anti-abortionists.

FOLLOW-UP:
Via LGF, Australia's The Age reports that terrorists struck again just today (Saturday), this time in Egypt:

At least 50 people died when a string of suspected car bombs ripped through hotels and bazaars in the Egyptian Red Sea tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Medical sources said at least 50 people died in the blasts and rescue officials said another 150 were wounded, 120 of them seriously.

Britons, Dutch, Qataris, Kuwaitis and Egyptians were among the casualties, police sources said.

Shaken tourists spoke of mass panic and hysteria as people fled bomb after bomb, with bodies strewn across the roads.

The rescue official, who asked not to be named, said many wounded were Egyptian workers who had gathered at a cafe in the old market.

He said 17 of the dead were burnt beyond recognition by the explosions, apparently caused by up to seven car bombs planted near hotels and bazaars frequented by tourists.

The article does not mention who carried out or claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, I can't definitively prove that there were no militant Christian anti-abortionists in Sharm el-Sheikh at the time.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
The Associated Press reports that a group calling itself "Abdullah Azzam Brigades, Al Qaeda", has claimed responsibility for the Egypt attacks.

And the AP also reports that another Al Qaeda-linked group, the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades, has claimed responsibility for the most recent London bomb attempts. Authorities are skeptical, however, because the group has made dubious claims of responsibility in the past.

Are you a state? Take this test and see

2005-07-22T03:26:00.000+09:00

Question #1:
Do you have a government with the power to set and enforce policy?

(a) Yes

Blocking roads and stopping buses, Israeli police and soldiers thwarted a march yesterday by tens of thousands of opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

(b) No

In Gaza since Thursday in a bid to draw a line under the unrest, Abbas has so far proved largely unable to assert significant control over Hamas militants in their increasingly chaotic Gaza Strip stronghold.

Does Pervez Musharraf read my blog?

2005-07-22T02:41:00.000+09:00

Riding Sun, July 21:

...it sure would be nice to hear more Muslims saying, "Is it really such a burden to clearly denounce the guilty among us? Especially when our success depends on convincing as many non-Muslims as possible that we are not their enemy, a clear denunciation of terrorism doesn't seem like too much to ask."

PakTribune, July 22:

Addressing the nation on TV and Radio on Thursday President Musharraf in a message to UK PM Tony Blair said, "We strongly condemn terrorism and stand united in war against terrorism. We admit we have a problem with terrorism..."

Hey, it's a start.

Turnaround time

2005-07-21T22:54:00.000+09:00

Next time you take a Tokyo taxi, note that if you flip the advertising pamphlets in the little plastic holder upside-down, you can make the Nido Re-Hair guy look like he's totally bald:

BoingBoing turning Japanese

2005-07-20T10:19:00.000+09:00

Continuing the disturbing trend of my being scooped on cool Japan stories by blogs that aren't particularly focused on Japan, BoingBoing has a veritable bento box full of Japan-related goodness today.

First, they've got a post about a Japanese pop art exhibit at the Japan Society in New York City.

Now, arguably, that's a New York thing, not a Japan thing. And the exhibit's been going on for a few months, so it's not really a "scoop".

But check out this post about an unintentionally hilarious Japanese subway advertisement for The Passion of the Christ on DVD.

Or this post on the little-known Japanese "thorn crotch" self-defense tool.

Ouch.

FOLLOW-UP:
The Japanese posts just keep coming. Maybe they should change their name to BoinguBoingu.

FOLLOW-UP:
And another one. I surrender.

Muslims attack giant teapot

2005-07-19T21:27:00.000+09:00

Islam may claim to be the religion of peace, but its followers don't really have a stellar track record of getting along with members of other faiths.

Like Jews:

An Israeli soldier died on Thursday of injuries from a Palestinian suicide bombing in central Israel, raising the death toll from Tuesday's attack to five, hospital officials said.

Or Christians:

Angry mobs in the mainly Muslim city 600 kilometres (375 miles) northwest of Lagos burnt Christian churches and rampaged through the streets stabbing, bludgeoning and burning bystanders to death.

Or Hindus:

Six men thought to be Islamic militants Tuesday stormed a disputed temple complex that is the main flash point for Hindu-Muslim tensions in India, triggering a gun battle with police in which five of the attackers died, authorities said. The sixth man apparently blew himself up.

Or Buddhists:

Suspected Islamic militants beheaded a policeman in Thailand's restive Muslim south, officials said on Wednesday, the tenth decapitation in more than 18 months of unrest but the first such attack on police.

Or even other kinds of Muslims:

Iraq's most powerful Shia cleric has condemned the wave of violence in the country as a "genocidal war" and demanded that the Iraqi government do more to protect its Shia people against Sunni insurgents.

Now (via BoingBoing), the BBC reports that we can add to that list Malaysia's little-known Sky Kingdom sect and its giant teapot:

Arsonists have attacked the base of a small inter-faith sect in Malaysia called the Sky Kingdom.

The sect is noted for building a giant teapot to symbolise its belief in the healing purity of water, and is accused of luring Muslims away from Islam.

A lawyer for the sect, Haris Mohamad Ibrahim, said that about 30 armed men dressed in Arab robes had attacked the commune with Molotov cocktails.

It should be clear by now that militant Muslims aren't just targeting Jews, or Americans, or, indeed, people of any particular nationality or faith.

They're targeting everyone.

If it sounds too good to be true...

2005-07-18T20:04:00.000+09:00

A story in three parts, from Kyodo News:

Wednesday, July 6:

Supermarket chain operator Aeon Co said Tuesday it will sell Taiwanese-made 32-inch liquid crystal display television sets for 100,000 yen for three days from Friday.

Saturday, July 9:

Supermarket chain operator Aeon Co said Friday 10,000 32-inch liquid crystal display television sets, each offered on sale for 100,000 yen, sold out on the first day of the sale.

Saturday, July 16:

Supermarket chain operator Aeon Co. said Friday the 10,000 32-inch liquid crystal display television sets it sold last week for 100,000 yen each were found to have defects in the software that controls their displays.

The Internet has at last fulfilled its promise

2005-07-18T13:51:00.000+09:00

...now that we can watch Pulp Fiction in 30 seconds, as re-enacted by animated bunny rabbits.

(There's more bunny re-enactments of famous films here, by Angry Alien Productions.)

Chinese general threatens to nuke U.S.

2005-07-17T20:56:00.000+09:00

Via Crooks and Liars, the Guardian reports:

A senior Chinese general has warned that his country could destroy hundreds of American cities with nuclear weapons if the two nations clashed over Taiwan.

Major general Zhu Chenghu, a dean at the National Defence University, said he was expressing a private opinion, but his comments, the most inflammatory by a senior government official in 10 years, will fuel growing concerns in Washington about the rise of China.

...Echoing threats last made in 1995, Mr Zhu, who has a reputation as a hawk in Chinese military circles, said his country was ready to sustain heavy casualties in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other heavily populated areas.

"We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian," he said. "Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

Although Mr Zhu said war was unlikely, his proposal that China should adopt a first-strike nuclear option against the US will alarm the Pentagon.

Well, I should hope it would.

FOLLOW-UP:
Via ChinaDaily, Beijing has emphasized that General Zhu was expressing his "personal views". I suspect China's leadership rather likes having someone like Zhu running around making wild threats, while it remains comparatively calm. Kind of a geopolitical good cop-bad cop routine.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
Simon World rounds up reactions to Zhu's remarks. Check here, here, here, and here.

Islamic group issues fatwah against blogger

2005-07-17T19:47:00.000+09:00

NOTE: I can't find any real supporting evidence for this story so far, and at any rate, it seems like it may involve simple death threats, not an "official" fatwah. Still pretty scary, though. See the follow-up below for more information.

Via Gullyborg, Chris, who blogs at The AnarchAngel, claims that a fatwah has been issued against him by an Islamic terror group:

A Fatwah has been issued against me by a known terror group. Corresponding groups have responded indicating that I will be eliminated shortly.

They have my name, address, telephone numbers, and the names and addresses of my friends and loved ones.

The FBI has been unable to tell me of any actionable threat, however they beleive that the threat is real. They have warned me to take the standard anti-terrorist precautions, suitable for Bogota or South Africa not Phoenix.

They are also contacting the people on the list that was distributed, including my mother, my stepfather and step siblings, and the people who worked on Team Infidel with me.

The thousands of hits I've been recieving from the JP domains with blocked referred information are anonymizer proxies used to hide the identities of those viewing my site.

As my resume is public information, my employers or former employers may also be targeted. There is concern that staff at my former employers has fed them my personal and private information as well.

The FBI agents I spoke with clearly indicated that althoguh they had nothing direct or specific to an individual (and thus couldnt justify protective custody), they are very seriously concerned about this threat.

Chris says he's been marked for death because of this post, in which he details how he and a couple of his buddies, calling themselves "Team Infidel", took copies of the Koran and variously shot, urinated on, burned, and exploded them. (Video files are available at the post.)

In the video file of a Koran being exploded, Chris comments:

Well, now. Since y'all seem to think it's perfectly acceptable to strap explosives to your body and blow yourself up in pizzarias and schoolbuses, I thought we would do the same thing to your holy book.

Destroying someone else's holy book may be disrespectful, but Chris doesn't seem to think Islam deserves a whole lot of respect these days. And the fact that a gang of Muslims would apparently mark him for death simply for expressing his opinion shows why.

FOLLOW-UP:
Chris has posted a response to people who suspect he's making the whole thing up:

Please note, I wasnt contacted or threatened directly. This was not a bluster. No public fatwah announcement was made or press release or vague email or web threats. The FBI wouldnt tell me how they recieved the threat specifically, other than it was from arabic language communications off the internet.

So, we're not exactly looking at a whole lot of supporting evidence here. Chris does link to a critical post on a Muslim-oriented Yahoo! groups message board, but no death threats.

Still, it's not hard to believe that some Muslims would want to kill a guy for disrespecting the Koran. After all, it's happened before.

Japanese blogger catches MSM distortions

2005-07-17T19:10:00.000+09:00

Previously, I cited a Kyodo News report that the Japanese government would begin encouraging people to use their real names when posting material on the Internet.

Now (via Adamu), Japan Media Review reports that Japanese bloggers have shown the initial Kyodo News report to be inaccurate in key respects:

Later Monday, however, an anonymous blogger who calls his Weblog a Diary of a Kasumigaseki Bureaucrat (Kasumigaseki is the Tokyo district where most government offices are located) took the trouble of leafing through the panel's draft report that had been published online earlier in the month and discovered that many of the Kyodo report's descriptions didn't match what the panel actually said in its report.

For instance, the blogger noticed that nowhere in the report did the panel actually advocate calling on people to use their real names in cyberspace, or to drop using screen handles. Rather, it outlined a more subtle argument. It noted that the prevalence of anonymity in Japan has led to an atmosphere in which many feel that it doesn't matter what they do or say in cyberspace so long as they are not caught. To that end, raising the credibility of the Internet in Japan will require an improvement of general public "morals" online. Consequently, the report said, "It is necessary to teach [children] how to interact naturally with each other in cyberspace, using either their real names or some kind of assumed name." Thus, he noted, the Ministry accepts anonymity, so long as it is practiced with good "morals."

Well, that's somewhat less creepy (even if Japan's plan to promote the use of Internet filtering software is apparently still in effect).

JMR goes on to quote Nikkei BP columnist Hiroyuki Fujishiro's reaction to the Kyodo report's misrepresentations:

"What we learned this time," said Nikkei BP's Fujishiro, in response to questions from JMR, "was how irresponsible is the reporting of the existing media (newspaper and television). In addition, bloggers, who are usually critical of the existing media, believed the Kyodo report without even checking its sourcing and on that basis criticized the Ministry. This reveals the problem of media literacy among bloggers, but also the continuing large influence of the conventional media.

So, as a blogger, I made the mistake of passing on a report from a leading Japanese news service without independently verifying its content. Point taken.

In the past, I've been aware that rumors flying around the blogosphere might actually be wild distortions of the truth. But it seems I was remiss in not applying the same level of healthy skepticism to actual wire reports.

Very well. From now on, Riding Sun readers are advised to bear in mind that any mainstream media articles cited here may not necessarily be accurate.

Well, he must've done something wrong

2005-07-17T13:23:00.000+09:00

Liberals have been demanding that White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove be fired over the past week, saying he committed treason by exposing the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

I haven't written anything about the whole Rove story, since I felt I didn't have enough information about it to support a strong opinion. And, as admissions made today by major mainstream news sources indicate, neither did anyone else:

The Washington Post:

But as the story hurtles toward a conclusion sometime this year, there are several elements that remain uncertain. The most important — did anyone commit a crime?

And the New York Times:

So far, there is no proof that Mr. Rove committed any wrongdoing, let alone anything illegal: while he spoke to two journalists about Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. operative whose husband went to Niger on a fact-finding mission about weapons of mass destruction, the accounts so far suggest Mr. Rove merely confirmed what the journalists already knew.

But hey, why let the facts get in the way of some good old-fashioned partisan outrage?

Dinner with Debito

2005-07-16T13:03:00.000+09:00

I had dinner last night with Curzon of Coming Anarchy and Joe of Nichi Nichi, as well as a bunch of other folks, which goes to show that bloggers are not just nerds who sit at home in front of their computers. Sometimes we're nerds who go out for sushi and beer.

The guest of honor was Debito Arudo of debito.org, a former American who changed his name from David Aldwinkle and became a Japanese citizen, something which is not easy to do.

Debito is probably best-known for his lawsuit against a bathhouse in Hokkaido that barred foreigners from entering. Of course, since David is a Japanese citizen, he could fairly point out that the bathhouse owner was simply excluding people who didn't "look" Japanese. Debito won the intitial lawsuit, although his victory unfortunately had little impact on racial discrimination by other businesses in Japan.

If you're interested in reading more about a genuine modern social activist, I highly recommend Debito's website, as well as "Japanese Only", his book on the bathhouse lawsuit and discrimination in Japan (available here from Amazon.com's Japan site.)

How to stop Islamic terrorism

2005-07-15T18:08:00.000+09:00

In the wake of last week's London terror bombings, Japan's left-leaning Asahi Shimbun suggests a possible solution to the problem of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism:

Unlike Osama bin Laden and his contemporaries who personally experienced conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the suspects of the London attacks grew up in an industrialized country in a free and open environment. What drove them to commit such dastardly acts?

The Middle East situation and the Iraq war may have provided an incentive. Two slogans are typically chanted: That the United States and Britain invaded Iraq with powerful military forces, causing innocent people unbearable pain and Israel continues to inflict terror on the Palestinians. Perhaps they felt that Islamic culture was under attack.

If we sit back and do nothing, it will be increasingly difficult to contain terrorism.

Sure, those aren't very catchy "slogans". And, if you feel your culture is "under attack", blowing up buses and subway cars full of commuters is a poor way to defend it. But the important thing is that if the U.S. packs up and heads home from Iraq, and if Israel lets itself be pushed into the sea, we'll all be okay. Noted.

Also worth noting is that Japan has shown little interest in whatever root causes motivated its own domestic terrorists.

FOLLOW-UP:
The BBC weighs in on how to stop Islamic terrorism, and it decides we need beagles. Lots of beagles. (Found via Kathryn Judson.)

Counter culture

2005-07-14T16:58:00.000+09:00

It's just plain embarrassing when Apostropher scoops me on Japanese news items. If he keeps doing it, I am going to be watching closely for interesting developments in North Carolina politics, just to show him up.

Anyway, the 'pos takes note of the latest burst of gratuitous invective from Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara. The Associated Press reports:

A group of teachers and translators in Japan on Wednesday sued Tokyo's outspoken nationalist governor for allegedly calling French a "failed international language," a news report said.

Twenty-one people filed the lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court, demanding that Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara pay a total of 10.5 million yen ($94,600) compensation for insulting the French language in remarks last October, national broadcaster NHK said.

In their suit, the plaintiffs accused Ishihara of saying: "French is a failed international language because it cannot be used to count numbers."

"It's natural for different languages to have different names for numbers and different ways of counting them, so it's unacceptable for him to insult French in this way," Malik Berkane, who heads a French-language school in Tokyo, told reporters at a news conference.

Now, French numbers can be a bit odd, what with, say, "ninety-eight" being quatre-vingt-dix-huit, or, essentially, "four-twenty-ten-eight." Gets a bit unwieldy. (Then again, the phrase "Four score and seven" worked pretty well for Abe Lincoln.)

But regardless of how cumbersome the French counting system may be, Ishihara is ill-positioned to criticize it. Counting in Japanese presents its own infamous challenges.

The actual numbers themselves are fairly straightforward and predictable. "Two" is ni. "Ten" is juu. "Twenty" is ni juu. And "twenty-two" is ni juu ni. Simple.

But if you actually want to count something, Japanese requires you to add one of a bewildering array of "counters" to the end of those numbers. Sometimes, the counter modifies the number itself. Other times, the number modifies the counter. And yet other times, they both change.

For example, "two", as we have noted, is ni. "Person" is hito. So you might think "two people" is ni hito. And you would be wrong. It's futari. (Except sometimes, when it's ni mei, but let's not go there.)

Jeremy Hedley provides an excellent summary of the fun to be had with Japanese counters here:

Counters in Japanese are so elaborate and obscure that a group of comedians has been able to make a TV show out of them. I don't mean to reinforce stereotypes of Japanese weirdness, but sometimes it can't be helped: here's how it goes.

There are half a dozen guys dressed up like bõsõzoku (delinquent motorcycle gang members) and they sit on souped-up motorcycles that have been set up on a kind of merry-go-round with the camera in the middle. As their merry-go-round rotates, each member comes into view and says their piece. They play a game where you have to aggregate the count of things or objects and then say either the same object or throw out a different one. The next person has to increase the count by one using the correct counter for the object the previous person said.

If someone makes a mistake, a group of sumo wrestlers appears from backstage and beats up the offending player.

I'm not making this up.

The difficulty derives from Japanese having a bewildering variety of counters for different objects. In English we can simply say "one dog," "two dogs"... but in not in Japanese. For smaller animals you count "ippiki, nihiki, sanbiki..." and for larger animals you count "ittõ, nittõ, santõ..." Birds have their own counter: "ichiwa, niwa, sanwa..."

There are counters for long thin things (bottles, pens, neckties), flat things (pieces of paper, towels), larger flat things (tennis courts, ponds), machines (tractors, cameras), small ships, larger ships, planes, hand tools, books, newspapers, letters and forms, large buildings, apartments, houses, vacant lots, events, bundles (spinach, beans), other bundles (flowers, rice), slices, cups or glasses, mouthfuls of something, plates of something, suits, socks, sets of things (tableware, decks of cards), and then a variety of ordinals depending on whether we're talking about first place in a competition, in class, in a list or order, in a generation, and so on apparently ad infinitum.

What's worse is that some counters are pronounced the same as others, but are spelled differently. For example, houses are counted "ikken, niken, sanken..." but vacant lots are counted "ikken, niken, sanken..." with a different kanji for "ken"!

If you ever want to drive yourself to very brink of insanity or beyond by learning another language, Japanese counters are an excellent place to start.

There's also the fact that Japanese counts large numbers differently than Western languages do. Instead of counting by thousands ("I won twenty thousand dollars!"), Japanese counts by ten thousands ("I won two ten-thousand dollars!").

It also counts really large numbers by hundred-millions instead of billions. I have gone to financial results meetings of big Japanese companies, where the executives' comments in Japanese are simultaneously translated into English. People can listen with those one-ear headsets, like at the UN. On one memorable occasion, the professional translator screwed up converting some Japanese numbers (i.e., forty hundred-million) into English numbers (i.e., four billion). She had to go back and restate them, to her great embarrassment.

As Apostropher observes, suing Ishihara over his remark is pretty silly, but the remark itself was silly, too.

FOLLOW-UP:
Here is the Japanese TV show Jeremy Hedley was talking about. No video clip of the skit in question, unfortunately.

Japanese ISP's hand over user data

2005-07-14T12:59:00.001+09:00

Just days after a Japanese copyright owners' group pushed for a tax on MP3 players to compensate its members for profits supposedly lost to file sharing, the Asahi Shimbun reported that Japan is cracking down on file sharers themselves:

In a first for Japan's beleaguered music industry, five individuals have agreed to pay compensation to five record companies for unauthorized distribution of music on the Internet through file-swapping programs.

According to the Recording Industry Association of Japan based in Tokyo's Minato Ward, the five agreed to pay a total of about 2.4 million yen (about $21,600) to five record companies.

The five individuals expressed remorse and apologized for their illegal activities, the association said Wednesday. They also submitted written promises never again to conduct similar acts that violate copyright laws.

What's interesting is how the record companies got in touch with the file-sharers. Basically, the companies just asked their ISP's to cough up their personal information, and the ISP's did:

Based on the provider liability limitation law, eight record companies asked 13 Internet service providers to disclose information, including names and addresses, of 44 individuals who had been illegally distributing music using file-swapping software in 2004.

The information on nine of the individuals was disclosed.

The record companies sent written complaints seeking compensation from eight individuals. The companies only recently obtained information on the ninth individual.

A lawyer for the record firms met with five of the individuals, who agreed to pay compensation. The amount was based on the number of songs they had made public on the Internet, the association said.

According to the association, the record companies intend to continue negotiations with the three others who have not responded to the complaint. Lawsuits are a possibility, the association said.

Japan's Provider Liability Limitation Law (Japanese text here), enacted in 2002, gave private parties broad powers to force ISP's to disclose users' personal information.

Let's say you're a Japanese ISP. Someone claims one of your customers is infringing upon their rights online. This person demands that you tell them the user's personal details, so he or she can be named in a lawsuit. In a nutshell, under the PL3, you, the ISP, must disclose the information. Apparently, no subpoena, court order, or other independent assessment of the merit of the infringement claim is required.

It's not clear to me why the Japanese ISP's disclosed nine user names, but not the other 35. And, of course, I am not a Japanese lawyer, and I am not familiar with how the PL3 has been interpreted by Japanese courts. But the Asahi article suggests that either courts have been siding with plaintiffs against ISP's, or some ISP's are simply handing over their users' information without even putting up a fight.

Perfect for cruising around Townsville

2005-07-14T00:16:00.000+09:00

Reader Rick Adams passes along the following picture of an unusually-painted Kawasaki Ninja 250:

Mango tangle

2005-07-13T16:33:00.000+09:00

Previously, I blogged about China's attempt to give Taiwan a pair of giant pandas, ostensibly to foster "cross-Straits affinity". Of course, it's difficult to drum up much affinity in a nation you are simultaneously threatening with military action, and Taiwan rejected the gift (although it later seemed to soften its position).

The gift pandas were not China's only goodwill overture. It also proposed opening its market further to fruits grown in Taiwan, like mangoes. However, a recent story from Taiwan's Central News Agency suggests that this gesture is getting an equally cold shoulder:

Last year, Tainan County exported 501 tons of mangoes, worth US$2 million, to Japan. Following the inauguration of two heat/steam fruit-disinfecting facilities in the Chuochen and Yuching townships in early July, exports are expected to grow to 1,500 tons this year, totalling US$10 million, according to the county government.

Asked about China's offer to open its market wider to Taiwan fruits, Su said China is only one export outlet for Taiwan fruits. He added that although China has offered tariff-free treatment for many Taiwan fruits, it is not a good market for high-priced agricultural products. He suggested Taiwan work to make inroads into markets where consumers have more spending power and are more receptive to higher value fruits.

Translation: "Aww... that's so cute that you want to buy our produce, but we'd rather sell it in countries where the people aren't so poor." Ouch.

Porco Rosso and survivor's guilt

2005-07-13T15:17:00.000+09:00

You might have thought it would be impossible to discuss Miyazaki's anime and a failed Navy SEAL mission in the same post, but you're not Steven Den Beste.

The MP from the Al Qaeda party

2005-07-13T10:38:00.000+09:00

Via LGF, BBC world affairs editor John Simpson argues that Britain should deal with Muslim terrorists the way it dealt with the IRA:

The first British response to IRA violence was the worst. The IRA was identified as an enemy which had to be destroyed.

In 1972, the British Army fired into the crowd at a big demonstration in the city of Derry, killing 14 innocent people.

There were undercover killings of IRA volunteers later, and a team of three IRA people were summarily executed when they were caught on an operation in Gibraltar.

All these things did was to convince many people in Northern Ireland that the British Government operated on the same low moral level as the IRA itself.

Fortunately, there was another strategy as well; and this one worked. It was to treat political violence like any other crime.

Of course, firing on crowds of innocent people is counterproductive and morally repugnant. But at the other extreme, the "treat terrorism like any other crime" strategy ignores the fact that terrorism is different from other crimes — precisely because terrorism seeks to achieve political goals. And in practice, the approach that Simpson recommends actually resulted in Britain giving in on key issues as a direct result of Irish Republican Army terrorism.

Robert Pape, an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, describes Britain's later history with the IRA as one of appeasement:

If you look at the pattern of violence in the IRA, almost all of the killing is front-loaded to the 1970s and then trails off rather dramatically as you get through the mid-1980s through the 1990s.

There is a good reason for that, which is that the British government, starting in the mid-1980s, began to make numerous concessions to the IRA on the basis of its ordinary violence. In fact, there were secret negotiations in the 1980s, which then led to public negotiations, which then led to the Good Friday Accords.

If you look at the pattern of the IRA, this is a case where they actually got virtually everything that they wanted through ordinary violence.

The degree to which Irish terror attacks have succeeded in forcing political change is indeed stunning. Former IRA terrorists have even been elected to the British parliament as members of Sinn Féin. Yet the IRA has never completely abandoned violence. Only a few months ago, in February, it refused to decommission its weapons.

Is this the outcome Simpson wants? A few MP's from the Al Qaeda party, acting as apologists for further atrocities?

No soup for you

2005-07-13T08:59:00.000+09:00

April's anti-Japanese riots in China may have died down, but now (via Fark), the following Reuters story suggests that Chinese are once again carrying the whole anti-Japanese thing too far:

Japanese customers must apologise for their country's wartime occupation of China before getting a seat at a restaurant in former Manchuria or find another place to eat, Japan's Kyodo news agency said on Tuesday.

No Japanese had tried to enter the restaurant in the northeastern Chinese city of Jilin since it started the new apology policy and hung a sign that read "Japanese people barred from entry".

"We totally welcome those Japanese customers who can correctly view history," the manager, surnamed Tian, was quoted as saying.

"But as for those customers who still refuse to admit to history, we want to say we don't like them."

Staff at the Western-style restaurant were told to ask Japanese customers who walked through the door to give their views of Japan's 1931-1945 occupation of parts of China, including the northeast, and to turn away those who did not apologise and share the owner's opinions, Kyodo said.

FOLLOW-UP:
Michelle Malkin reports on the case of Aage Bjerre, a pro-American restaurant-owner in Denmark who has now been jailed for refusing to serve French or German customers during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Know your Japanese road signs

2005-07-12T22:51:00.000+09:00

Matt at No-sword offers evidence that motorists in Japan don't always obey road signs.

Big Ben, on the other hand, scrupulously follows them.

Movies, not marketing

2005-07-12T15:51:00.000+09:00

This Associated Press story about the the new Fantastic Four movie claims its $56.1 million opening weekend gross heralds the end to Hollywood's summer-movie slump:

The latest superhero movie may have been just fantastic enough to snap Hollywood's longest modern losing streak at the box office.

The comic-book adaptation "Fantastic Four" raked in $56 million during its first three days, apparently helping to end a swoon in which domestic movie revenues had been down 19 weekends in a row compared to last year's.

The article has Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, saying the following:

"Comic book movies, if properly marketed, are exactly what mainstream audiences want to see in their summer movies."

In a separate article, Wired describes the sheer magnitude of Fantastic Four marketing:

Fox has secured more sponsorship partners for Fantastic Four than for any film in the studio's history - including either X-Men movie or even the final chapters of Star Wars. SBC will create Fantastic Four TV, print, and radio ads. Burger King will air its own Fantastic Four commercials for both adults and kids. Kraft will hawk Fantastic Four Lunchables. Chiklis will appear as the Thing in TV spots for Samsung phones, delivering the craven tagline, "It's fantastic!"

It's distressing that Dergarabedian, and Fox itself, put the emphasis on skillful marketing instead of, well, skillful filmmaking. All the marketing in the world can't turn a bad movie into a sustained success. At the most, it can conjure up a big opening weekend.

And sometimes, it can't even do that. Calling Fantastic Four's opening weekend a smashing success is an exercise in lowering the bar, as other recent movies about Marvel super heroes have done much better:

Movie
Spider-man (2002)
Spider-man 2 (2004)
X-Men 2 (2003)
The Hulk (2003)
Fantastic Four (2005)
X-Men (2000)

Opening Weekend Gross
$114.8 million
$88.2 million
$85.6 million
$63.1 million
$56.1 million
$54.5 million
(Source: Box Office Mojo.)

Bear in mind, too, that the above figures are not adjusted for inflation. In constant dollars, Fantastic Four would easily fall to the bottom of the list.

In a USA Today article, a Fox executive claims the supposedly stellar performance of Fantastic Four means movie critics, who slammed the film, are out of touch with audiences:

"I don't think reviewers reflect audiences anymore," says Hutch Parker, head of production for 20th Century Fox, which released Fantastic Four. "They don't seem to understand that sometimes audiences are just looking for a popcorn film."

Maybe so, but as its relatively disappointing opening weekend indicates, Fantastic Four isn't it.

FOLLOW-UP:
Via Defamer, Wm. Steven Humphrey says some of the Fantastic Four's marketing isn't all that good, either.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
Defamer notes more botched Fantastic Four marketing here.

China jails moms who have a second baby

2005-07-12T10:59:00.000+09:00

Kyodo News reminds us what kind of people rule China:

Mrs Tao, 29, and her husband always knew there was something funny about the two-story yellow house in Cuxi Village, their hometown in Fujian Province in southern China.

At the house, attached to the township government compound, used to hang the sign "Population School." At some point the sign disappeared.

On April 14, when Tao went to Cuxi for a visit, she discovered what the house was for. That morning, a local family planning officer asked Tao, a former primary school teacher now living in Shenzhen, to see the deputy township chief.

They wanted to know whether rumors were true that she had given birth to a second baby, a violation of China's one-child policy, a measure under former Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping to keep the world's largest population in check.

They knew Tao had a 5-year-old girl. Tao denied the second child. The deputy township chief ordered a spot medical check, which showed signs of a recent birth. Suddenly township government representatives she had never met asked her to go with them to the yellow house.

Read the whole thing.

Ram buffer

2005-07-11T19:44:00.000+09:00

The Associated Press reports:

First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

I hereby name this news story "Most likely to be used in a political analogy by op-ed columnists".

A bit harsh

2005-07-11T09:26:00.000+09:00

I am strongly in favor of tough penalties for morotcycle thieves, but even I have to think this, reported in last Thursday's Philippines-based Freeman, is too much:

A man was sentenced to 16 years in jail after Regional Trial Court Branch 6 Judge Anacleto Caminade found him “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” of stealing a motorcycle.

On January 2, 2000 at about 12:45 am, together with an unidentified person, Benjamin Lipar allegedly stole a Yamaha RS motorcycle with plate number GY 3531 worth P100,000 [about $2,500 at the time].

When arraigned, Lipar entered a plea of not guilty.

In his testimony, Juanito Siton said he parked his motorcycle about two meters away from a drugstore along Leon Kilat street as he was about to purchase some medicines.

Before he left his vehicle, he said he saw two men wearing crash helmets. When he was on his way to the pharmacy, the two men sped away onboard his motorcycle.

...Siton said Lipar’s small crash helmet was not able to cover his entire face making him recognizable.

Another good reason to wear full-face helmets, I suppose. Still, Lipar is lucky he wasn't in Burundi.

Kofi Annan's second act?

2005-07-10T21:23:00.000+09:00

In the wake of his scandal-plagued tenure as UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan seems to be preparing for a second career as a retail magnate:

But in fact, Kofi Collect is not Mr. Annan's backup option; it's a women's fashion brand introduced last year by Japanese clothing company Sanei International.

Hit by rebels, Nepal bans riding two-up

2005-07-10T20:36:00.000+09:00

The BBC reports:

Authorities in Nepal have banned passengers from riding on the back of motorcycles in the capital Kathmandu for security reasons.

A government statement said that the country's Maoist rebels had been using motorcycles to launch attacks.

Some 12,000 people have died in the 10-year Maoist insurgency that is aimed at replacing Nepal's monarchy with a communist republic.

Pillion riding is already banned in other parts of the country.

The BBC's correspondent in Kathmandu says the latest security measure has come amid speculation that rebels could target government installations and security personnel in the capital.

If these guys are ready to do drive-by shootings, does the Nepalese government really expect them to obey a new law against carrying a passenger?

Japan may get "self-defense military"

2005-07-10T01:27:00.000+09:00

The Asahi Shimbun reports:

A Liberal Democratic Party commission approved a set of outlines Thursday that include revising pacifist Article 9 of the Constitution to stipulate Japan's right to possess a "self-defense military," lawmakers said.

Article 9 currently states that Japan will never maintain "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential."

Of course, Article 9 notwithstanding, Japan has long maintained a massively powerful military force in all but name: its jieitai, or Self-Defense Forces.

The proposed constitutional revision, therefore, is largely symbolic. However, it might make it easier for Japan to participate in collective defense with allied nations — for example, to shoot down missiles North Korea fires at America, something Japan had previously said it would not do.

Mickey Mouse operation

2005-07-09T23:38:00.000+09:00

Support straps on the monorail to the Tokyo Disney Sea theme park:

Official claims Al-Qaeda targeting Japan

2005-07-08T17:56:00.000+09:00

Agence France-Presse quotes a Japanese official as claiming that Al-Qaeda is targeting Japan for a terror attack:

Yoshitaka Murata, who heads the National Public Safety Commission, said there "is information that Al-Qaeda is targeting Japan as we host US military facilities."

This wouldn't be the first time Al-Qaeda has had Japan in its sights. Last year, the Associated Press reported on a French Al-Qaeda agent who had been hiding out in Niigata.

Back in 2003, messages sent to Arabic-language newspapers in London, allegedly by Al-Qaeda members, warned of terror attacks against Japan and other nations supporting America's occupation of Iraq.

And the AP also reported that senior Al-Qaeda figure Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, after being captured by U.S. forces, claimed the group had plans to attack Japan during the 2002 soccer World Cup, but could not carry them out because it lacked a sufficient network of operatives in the country.

Finally, this article and this one, both published in January 2004, provide some background on Japan's recent experience with terror threats.

Why I commute by motorcycle, pt. VI

2005-07-08T17:46:00.000+09:00

Reuters has more on the Tokyo Metro's response to yesterday's London terror attacks:

The Tokyo Metro subway system said it was increasing patrols of its stations and had removed all garbage cans as a precaution.

...Japan is especially worried about its transport system, used by hordes of workers who pour into Tokyo from surrounding suburbs each day.

More than 590 million commuters passed through Shinjuku Station, Tokyo's busiest, in 2000 — roughly 1.6 million a day.

But security experts said that, try as Japan might, it was impossible to protect against every eventuality, noting that legal limits on surveillance activities made gathering detailed intelligence more difficult than in some other countries.

"Japan has sent its military to Iraq, the same as England and as Spain, which were both hit, so there's certainly a motive," said Jun Yamazaki, Japan unit president of risk consultancy Control Risks Group.

"But the only way to prevent absolutely everything would be to become a police state."

This post is the sixth in a series about the inconveniences and risks of commuting by train in Japan; previous entries are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I hope the current situation never yields a candidate for Part VII.

FOLLOW-UP:
AFP has more on how subways are fast becoming the preferred target of terrorists.

Rich Hall wants his shoes back

2005-07-08T01:01:00.000+09:00

The Mainichi Shimbun reports:

Three people suffered injuries early Thursday morning after falling to the bottom of an elevator shaft when they walked through the open elevator doors not realizing that the elevator had failed to arrive, law enforcers said.

Police said that when the doors of an elevator on the first floor of the six-story "Sunshine Chugo" building in Nagoya's Nakagawa-ku opened, two men and a woman stepped inside, thinking that the elevator had arrived.

However, the elevator was still on the fourth floor of the building at the time, and the three, aged between 21 and 22, fell into a 1.5-meter deep hole. They suffered light back and arm injuries in the incident.

(If you don't get the title of this post, then you obviously don't remember this classic Saturday Night Live skit from 1984.)

Tokyo Metro on alert after London attacks

2005-07-08T00:14:00.000+09:00

Like the UK and the US, Japan is a G-8 nation with troops in Iraq. And it's aware that it fits the profile of an al-Qaeda target. The Mainichi Shimbun reports (in Japanese):

ロンドン同時爆破テロを受け、地下鉄を運行する東京メトロは７日夜、全職場に警戒強化の指示を出した。

My translation: "Responding to the simultaneous terror explosions in London, the Tokyo Metro, which operates the subways, has, as of the evening of July 7th, urged extra vigilance at all posts."

Terror attacks hit London

2005-07-07T22:00:00.000+09:00

Breaking news — terrorists have bombed London's transportation system. The Associated Press reports:

Three explosions rocked the London subway and one tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday. The blasts killed at least two people and injured about 190 in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called a series of "barbaric" terrorist attacks.

Blair said it was clear the attacks were designed to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The prime minister said the meeting of world leaders would continue but that he would return to London.

"Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world," said Blair.

A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" posted a claim of responsibility for the blasts, saying they were in retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FOLLOW-UP:
LGF links to a UK aggregator site with plenty of posts. Instapundit also has a huge link roundup.

Emerging market

2005-07-07T18:31:00.000+09:00

In the L.A. Times, Barbara Demick has a stunning two-part piece (Part 1) (Part 2) about life in Chongjin, North Korea's third-largest city. Her report is based on interviews with over 30 residents who made their way to China to work or beg for food, or who defected to South Korea.

Demick begins by focusing on the mid-1990's famine in which some 2 million North Koreans starved to death:

Chongjin residents learned to recognize the stages of starvation.

First, the victims become listless and too weak to work. Their vision grows blurry. They become bone-thin, then startlingly, their torsos bloat.

Toward the end, they just lie still, sometimes hallucinating about food.

While some people seem to fade away, others die in agony, their intestines blocked when they can't digest substitute foods, such as corn powder and oak leaves. Particularly lethal to children's digestive systems are ersatz rice cakes — molded out of a paste made from the inner bark of pine trees.

As Demick reports, the utter failure of Kim Il-sung's Stalinist regime forced the development of a rudimentary, if still illegal, market economy for those who can afford to participate:

Shoppers can buy 88-pound sacks of rice emblazoned with U.S. flags, and biscuits and corn noodles produced by three factories in Chongjin run by the U.N. World Food Program — all intended to be humanitarian handouts.

Some people cut hair or repair bicycles, though furtively because these jobs are supposed to be controlled by the government's Convenience Bureau.

"They will bring a chair and mirror to the market to cut hair," Kim said. "The police can come at any moment, arrest them and confiscate their scissors."

Another new business is a computer salon. It looks like an Internet cafe, but because there's no access to the Web in North Korea, it is used mostly by teenagers to play video games.

More products are available, but inflation puts them out of reach for most people.

Click here for the Times' rare undercover video (WMV format) of an illegal North Korean market.

The MP3 tax

2005-07-07T13:56:00.000+09:00

The Yomiuri Shimbun reports on efforts by a Japanese copyright owners' group to impose extra fees on sales of MP3 players — to make up for profits supposedly lost to online file-sharing:

With the growing popularity of portable digital music players, such as the Apple iPod, copyright owners groups are urging private copying royalties on the items be included in the retail price of the players, as is done with minidisc recorders and similar devices.

The system of adding royalty fees to the price of certain products was introduced in 1993 with the enforcement of amendments to the Copyright Law.

...However, the current system does not include portable digital music players — commonly called MP3 players — on its list.

The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) claims that, like users of MD recorders and other devices, users of portable digital music players should pay royalty fees.

The JASRAC royalty fee plan is severely flawed, and it's surprising that it's been in effect for so long on other types of music players and recordable media. First, it charges all users of these devices, even those who only use them to listen to legitimately-purchased or uncopyrighted recordings. Second, it is applied not as a replacement for copyright restrictions, but on top of them. You're still not allowed to copy music... but you're also being charged a fee on the assumption you're going to do it anyway.

But the scheme in Japan, with a miniscule charge of 400 yen (about $4) on each player, seems positively idyllic compared to what's going on in the Netherlands. As the Register reported in April:

A Netherlands proposed tax on MP3 players could devastate sales of hard disk players, and set up international waves over copyright legislation.

...If this legislation comes into play, the surcharge will be as much as €3.28 ($4.3) per gigabyte. This might put €180 ($235) to the price of a top end iPod.

I'm no economist, but I've got to think that slapping an extra tax of about 50% on something can't be good for demand. And in the end, that may be the worst part of these MP3 tax proposals: Instead of promoting the development of a legal, affordable market for downloadable music, they're propping up an outdated business model based on obsolete technology.

Palestinians terrorize themselves

2005-07-06T20:43:00.000+09:00

What would life be like for Palestinians if they had a state of their very own, free from cruel Israeli oppression? The Associated Press gives us a clue:

Shooting into the air, dozens of masked gunmen cut short a rock concert by a popular Palestinian singer in the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday night.

Defying the burning tires and chants against him, the singer, Ammar Hassan, was whisked onto stage 45 minutes late. He opened his show with a song about "Holy Jerusalem" in an apparent effort to appease the gunmen. Less than an hour later, however, guards ushered him off stage.

Of course, the AP takes pains to make clear the gunplay was not the logical effect of Palestinian society's poisonous cocktail of death-worship and militant Islam. No, when Palestinian gunmen threaten Palestinians, it's the fault of — you guessed it — Israel:

The concert was the opening of a festival meant to bring normalcy to the largest city in the West Bank, hard hit by Israeli army operations and curfews in more than 4 1/2 years of Palestinian-Israeli violence.

So, what were these guys so riled up about, anyway?

"This is the not time to have parties like this in Nablus," said one of the masked gunmen, who would not give his name. "We lost a lot of martyrs and lost a lot of friends, and this is not appropriate for Nablus."

The irony, of course, is that if they had staged more rock concerts and fewer terrorist attacks, they wouldn't have so many "martyrs" to get all snippy about.

Cruisers crash less than crotch rockets

2005-07-05T22:20:00.000+09:00

Via Biker News Online, The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies has published the results of a study it did on which types of motorcycles are most and least likely to be stolen or crashed. Here's the top five most- and least-crashed bikes:

Most Likely to be Crashed
1. Suzuki GSX-R Series
2. Kawasaki Ninja Series
3. Suzuki TLR
4. Yamaha YZF Series
5. Honda CBR Series

Least Likely to be Crashed
1. Yamaha Virago Series
2. Honda Rebel Series
3. Suzuki Savage
4. Harley-Davidson FXR
5. BMW R1200C

Steve at Biker News Online notes:

What I find interesting is that the most-crashed bikes are all crotch rockets, while the least-crashed are all cruisers.

...I've been reading several news articles over the past year reporting there is a growing problem of older Americans buying up big-twin bikes, and crashing them. Yet here, we have statistical data showing that it's actually the crotch rockets, typically ridden by young riders, that are most often involved in crashes.

Interesting, but not surprising, when you consider that first-time buyers of sportbikes include people like this guy.

The Simpsons redeems itself

2005-07-05T21:11:00.000+09:00

Count me among the people who think The Simpsons began a long, slow, painful decline into irrelevance (and just plain not-funny-ness) sometime around its sixth or seventh season.

However (via Simon World), a recent episode about Homer, Marge, and the kids in China suggests the show can still serve up meaningful satire. I haven't seen it, but this detailed summary, complete with screen grabs, at TaiwanIndependence provides the gist:

I was surprised by the intensity of the anti-Communist references. There's more at Asiapundit and The Horse's Mouth.

Japan to promote Internet filtering

2005-07-05T18:51:00.000+09:00

Hot on the heels of recent news that Japan will discourage people from using the Internet anonymously comes another disturbing announcement. Kyodo News reports:

The government said Thursday it will promote the use of filtering software against what it judges to be harmful information over the Internet, in a bid to prevent such incidents as group suicides and production of explosives via use of the Internet.

The government will map out procedures and criteria for police to ask Internet service providers to disclose information on the senders of messages on planned suicides. It will also try to educate people about the dangers of "harmful online information," and enhance consultation services about it, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said.

What we have here, I fear, is another example of a phenomenon I discussed here, which we might as well call the Padded Room Principle.

According to the PRP, people need to be protected from themselves, and it's the state's job to do it. Therefore, the state tries to remove as many risks and hazards from everyday life as possible, even if it curtails our personal freedoms as a result — much as a mental institution may lock patients in a padded room where they can do themselves no harm.

As I mentioned in the above-linked post, the PRP has inspired efforts to ban pointy kitchen knives and to install electronic speed limiters on motorcycles. And now, in Japan, it's leading to an attempt to filter "harmful" information from the Internet.

Doing so would be a bad idea. First, due to the constantly-changing nature of the Internet and the limits of filtering software, any attempt to screen out certain information will unavoidably block some innocuous sites, while leaving some "harmful" ones untouched. Second, filtering presents the risk of a slippery slope. It may be target suicide plots and bomb-building how-to's today, but it could easily, and surreptitiously, be expanded to block unpopular political websites tomorrow. And finally, as with all PRP-inspired initiatives, filtering reduces the need for people to take responsibility for their own actions. Instead of counting on people not to build bombs, Japan will undertake the futile challenge of making sure no one knows how to build one.

Japan's plan also includes some worthwhile suggestions. Warning people about certain types of websites and providing consultation services to those who may be considering suicide are good ideas. They give people the information they need to make better decisions. Filtering tries to makes those decisions for them.

FOLLOW-UP:
Citing an AsiaMedia article, Nart Villeneuve says Japan's plan "is targeted towards urging 'schools and public offices' to install filtering software, not nationwide filtering."

Happy 4th of July

2005-07-04T23:26:00.000+09:00

Plenty of bloggers have been, um... inspired by Jessica Simpson's stirring display of patriotism on the cover of GQ, just in time for Independence Day.

Well, lest you grow concerned that we Americans here in Japan feel left out of the July 4th festivities, rest assured that certain Japanese publications are doing their best to make us feel at home. Here's the current issue of Baikichi:

And here's the latest Custom Lowriding:

Happy birthday, America.

Trudeau slams bloggers

2005-07-04T18:41:00.000+09:00

John Cole points out a recent Doonesbury strip in which Gary Trudeau takes aim at bloggers:

The irony is that many bloggers have high-powered careers as professors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. Others (like James Lileks or Michelle Malkin) actually do have "real jobs in journalism". And still others, like Glenn Reynolds or Hugh Hewitt, hold down jobs in academia and journalism, and maintain blogs on the side. Heck, even some of Mr. Trudeau's fellow cartoonists are blogging.

Writing about current events is something these people do as a hobby or a sideline. If anything, they demonstrate that you don't have to be a professional journalist to come up with interesting or entertaining observations on the issues of the day. Perhaps that's why an elite media type like Trudeau feels it necessary to denigrate their efforts.

FOLLOW-UP:
Nick Stewart has more (via Instapundit).

BoingBoing blogger in Metropolis

2005-07-04T15:47:00.000+09:00

This week's issue of Metropolis, a free English-language what's-going-on-in-Tokyo magazine, features an op-ed on the futility of digital rights management by BoingBoing blogger Cory Doctorow.

Throw the book at 'em

2005-07-04T12:44:00.000+09:00

Found via Fark, here's a story that will shock any two-wheeler out there:

WYOMING (AP) — A western Michigan motorcyclist is recovering from injuries after crashing into plastic wrap that had been stretched across a roadway as a prank.

Jim Anderson suffered a fractured rib and internal bruises after he hit the industrial-strength wrap at about 1:20 a.m. Saturday while riding his Harley Davidson home. The 48 year old said he thought the plastic wrap was fog.

Wyoming, Michigan Police say three teenage boys told police they put the wrap between two sign posts as a prank not expecting something as small as a motorcycle to come down the street.

Police haven't decided whether to charge them.

Now, the truly shocking part of this story, to me, isn't what the kids did. It's that the cops haven't decided whether to charge them with a crime.

These kids intentionally set up a road hazard, and a man was seriously injured (fortunately, not killed) as a direct result. How severely they should be punished is a separate issue. But is there any logical argument as to why they shouldn't even be charged?

FOLLOW-UP:
This sort of thing has happened before.

Tipping point

2005-07-03T23:59:00.000+09:00

Japan is famous for its nationwide no-tipping policy. By and large, there is no need to start asking yourself how much to tip the waiter, the pizza delivery man, the coat check attendant, the taxi driver, and so forth. It makes life a lot easier, and more pleasant. They tell you what to pay, and you pay it. Done.

All of which left me baffled by the following sign, outside a Tokyo station restroom:

In a country where nobody tips for anything, who's going to tip for using a train-station toilet?

Off to the beach

2005-07-01T23:24:00.000+09:00

I'm going to Shimoda for the weekend, to lay on the beach (weather permitting) and do nothing. I probably won't have any new posts until I get back on Sunday evening, at the earliest.

In the meantime, here are some links to keep you busy:

•   Worried about racism in Japan? Relax, the UN is on the case.

•   Sea turtles are endangered. Endangered by Japanese TV cameramen, that is.

•   Possibly undermining its efforts to boost tourism, Japan will start fingerprinting foreign visitors next year.

•   On the other hand, the Kishiwada municipal government in Osaka is letting foreigners vote in local referenda if they've lived in Japan for at least three years, even if they don't have permanent residency status.

•   If it has a 638cc engine and lets you shift gears manually, is it still just a scooter?

•   You ask yourself, "How much more chrome could it be?" And the answer is, "None. None more chrome."

•   A group of Tokyo residents is opposing Japan's controversial new history textbooks.

•   I'm going to have to check out this movie about a Japanese biker chick.

•   A Japanese researcher has invented a 3-D computer game for the blind that uses no graphics, only sound.

Pepsi's massive Episode III promotion

2005-07-01T13:11:00.000+09:00

With the Japanese release of Star Wars Episode III only a week away, Pepsi has launched a truly gargantuan promotional campaign.

Longtime readers may remember how I collected all the character bottle caps Pepsi put out to promote The Incredibles earlier in the year. There were 24 different caps in that series, which seems to be about par for the course for these things.

Well, for Episode III, Pepsi has produced a grand total of sixty caps:

And despite the way they're shown perched on top of the bottles, they actually come sealed inside opaque foil envelopes, so you can't tell which one is attached to a particular bottle. You'd have to buy hundreds of bottles just to have an even chance of getting all sixty caps, so you'd better be thirsty (or start looking on auction sites).

Now, what are you supposed to do with sixty little figurines? Put them in a giant display rack shaped like the Death Star, of course:

It's yours for just 4,500 yen plus 5 Pepsi proofs of purchase, which you should already have if you've been buying hundreds of cans of the stuff.

And that's not all. There are also chip clips, character cans, and a very cool R2-D2 drink cooler. Kanpai!

Halfway there

2005-06-30T22:25:00.000+09:00

I've blogged previously about why I'm not a big fan of Daniel Libeskind's Freedom Tower design, which had been expected to be built on the site of the former World Trade Center towers.

The NYPD had some reservations, too. It seems Libeskind's plan would have left the tower too vulnerable to attack by terrorist truck bombs, and also would have been difficult to evacuate in an emergency.

Now, the New York Times reports on the new, improved design, by architect David M. Childs, unveiled yesteday at a press conference:


Libeskind design	Childs design

Much better. Childs' version has a sense of proportion, heft, and majesty that was sadly missing from Libeskind's ill-conceived effort. But it's still missing something: an identical second tower standing right next to it.

Donald Trump, who has lobbied to rebuild the towers exactly as they were, only taller, understood the psychological importance of once again seeing two buildings rising majestically from the ashes of Ground Zero. One tower, no matter how well-designed it may be, cannot help but remind us of its missing twin.

Warblogger enlists in Army, wins argument

2005-06-29T22:58:00.000+09:00

PASSAIC, NJ (Rooters) — Jordan Kulundzic, MD, won an argument about the Iraq war today by enlisting in the US Army.

Kulundzic, 34, a resident gastroenterologist at Passiac Beth Israel Hospital, also maintains the conservative blog "I’m All Right" (imallright.blogspot.com).

Yesterday, that blog became the site of a heated political debate when a commenter, identified only the screen name “ihatebush209”, challenged Kulundzic’s support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

"I wrote this really long essay about why I support the war in Iraq," Kulundzic said. "I thought I had covered every angle, including the need to be absolutely sure that Saddam had no WMD’s, the moral case for liberating the Iraqi people, and the long-term strategic importance of spreading democracy throughout the volatile Middle East."

“But then ihatebush209 just tore my arguments to shreds,” he said.

ihatebush209’s comment read, "Hey, mister Keyboard Kommando, if you like the war so much, why don’t you go and fight it, you little chickenhawk? Buc-buc-buc bu'CAW!!!"

Kulundzic remembers feeling dejected at seeing his efforts so easily dismissed.

"I felt terrible," he said. "That guy had me beat, fair and square. All my well-researched opinions on Iraq were worthless so long as I wasn’t personally fighting there. And those fake chicken noises made his counter-argument all the more effective."

But later that evening, Kulundzic recalls, he realized how he could win the debate. The next day, he enlisted in the Army, announcing his decision on his blog.

"ihatebush209 posted another comment almost immediately," Kulundzic said. “He says that now, since I’ve joined the Army, he realizes I was right about Iraq all along. My own individual decision to enlist completely undermined his entire argument against the war."

Kulundzic’s relatives, friends, and colleagues have all expressed shock at his sudden career change. His wife, Kulundzic says, is upset not only that he will be heading off to war, but also that, on his much lower military salary, the couple will have to put their house up for sale and pull their two children out of private school.

Kulundzic shrugs off her concerns.

“Honestly, it was an easy decision to make,” he said. “Proving myself to Internet trolls is worth any price. And as soon as I step off the plane in Baghdad and head out on patrol, my support for the war will finally become valid."

FOLLOW-UP:
More comments over at Balloon Juice and Crooks and Liars.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
Jon Henke wonders whether Democrats and liberals will be signing up to fight in Afghanistan, an invasion that many of them fully supported.

Japan to encourage real names on Internet

2005-06-29T01:33:00.000+09:00

I'm not the type of person the Japanese government has in mind with respect to the following, and I can't see it ever actually affecting me. Regardless, as an anonymous blogger in Japan, I find it particularly offensive. Kyodo News reports:

The government will begin a campaign to encourage people to use their real names when writing articles or posting information on the Internet to help reduce crimes that are committed due to the Net's anonymity, government sources said.

...The government has decided to launch the campaign as Internet users can easily access information deemed harmful for youth via the Net, such as how to make a bomb and recommending group suicides.

The communications ministry has judged it necessary to encourage people to turn to Internet sites with less anonymity in order to reduce Net-related crimes, the sources said.

Let's begin on a simple, practical level and note first that encouraging people to use their real identities online might actually promote crime, by letting criminals track down and attack the people they meet online.

Second, the ministry's plan to fight crime involves treating all citizens like criminals. Because some people use the Internet to break the law, it argues, no one should remain anonymous online. If a few people end up abusing a particular freedom, the solution is not to deny it to all.

Third, the campaign is doomed to be hopelessly ineffective. Even if honest Japanese obey the government's wishes and dutifully use their own real names while posting online, criminals will, quite obviously, still adopt aliases when carrying out their illegal schemes.

But finally, and most fundamentally, the ministry's plan is no less than an attack on free speech itself. The right to speak freely, as American case law has made clear, includes the right to speak anonymously, including on the Internet.

As the Supreme Court ruled (pdf file) in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995):

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation — and their ideas from suppression — at the hand of an intolerant society.

A more recent, Internet-focused lower-court example is here.

Japan is obviously not bound by American law, but it presumably values the same principles that led that law to develop as it has. I hope Japan reaffirms its appreciation of the importance of free speech and backs away from a misguided campaign that seems to have very little to do with fighting crime, and a great deal to do with chilling the free exchange of ideas.

FOLLOW-UP:
No sooner do I finish lauding America's firm commitment to protecting anonymous online speech than I find this NPR story (by way of Planned Obselescence and Unfogged) saying that the federal government is trying to force website domain name owners to accurately identify themselves in the WHOIS database, which is publicly accessible.

China seizes Japanese history textbooks

2005-06-28T23:17:00.000+09:00

China has gone beyond merely criticizing the Japanese history textbooks it doesn't like, to actually seizing and confiscating them — at least the ones used by Japanese schools in China, that is. The Mainichi Daily News reports:

Chinese authorities in Dalian confiscated more than 120 educational books that a Japanese school imported from Japan, on the grounds that some books showed Taiwan as a separate country from mainland China, it was learned Tuesday.

Officials at the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said that it was the first time that one of the eight Japanese schools in China had had educational materials seized by Chinese authorities.

...In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoya said that the Japanese government might ask China to explain which law the authorities based their actions on when it confiscated the educational materials.

Of course, any such request might seem pointless, since China is governed by the threat of force, not the rule of law. It no more needs a specific legal ground to justify its actions than a baseball player needs a particular bat to hit the ball. But with China increasingly seen as a nascent superpower, any efforts to call attention to that fact are welcome, and that may be just what Hosoya has in mind.

Like crack for your ears

2005-06-28T20:16:00.000+09:00

Tired of listening to a rich array of diverse musical genres? Looking for just one insanely catchy tune to drill its way into your skull for good? Want that song to be a cutesy bit of J-pop fluff?

You're in luck. Either of the following should do nicely.

First up, here's what's come to be known as "Shii's song". (It's based on "The Boat Song" from Lunar The Silver Star Story, an old Japanese role-playing videogame.) This version features English lyrics and a nicely-done Flash animation starring Shii, one of the cat mascots of Japan's most popular web forum, 2ch.

Next, this (in Windows Media format) is the Internet commercial for Love Songs: ADV Futaba Riho 19 Years, a "relationship simulation game" in which you help 19-year-old college student Riho find true love while ogling pictures of her and her sexy roommates. (If that sounds a little lecherous to you, consider that there's an earlier game in the series, in which Riho is all of 14 years old. And no, I haven't played it.)

Before you listen to either one of these songs, bear in mind that you will not be able to get it out of your head. Ever.

You have been warned.

Reuters: Schindler's List is "pro-Zionist"

2005-06-27T22:53:00.000+09:00

Reuters reports on an upcoming Steven Spielberg film about the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

To give us a little background on Spielberg, Reuters helpfully provides the following description of some of his past work:

Best known in Israel for "Schindler's List," a Holocaust epic that ends with a pro-Zionist message, Spielberg...

I remember the end of Schindler's List. If you've ever seen it, you do, too. Roger Ebert described it perfectly when he included Schindler's List in his series of essays on the greatest movies of all time:

The film's ending brings me to tears. At the end of the war, Schindler's Jews are in a strange land — stranded, but alive. A member of the liberating Russian forces asks them, "Isn't a town over there?" and they walk off toward the horizon.

The next shot fades from black and white into color. At first we think it may be a continuation of the previous action, until we see that the men and women on the crest of the hill are dressed differently now. And then it strikes us, with the force of a blow: Those are Schindler's Jews. We are looking at the actual survivors and their children as they visit Oskar Schindler's grave.

The movie began with a list of Jews being confined to the ghetto. It ends with a list of some who were saved. The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.

This incredibly moving scene is a celebration of life and of the human spirit. Necessarily, it is set in the Christian cemetery in Jerusalem where Schindler was buried, and so Yerushalayim Shel Zahav ("Jerusalem of Gold") is sung in the background. It's safe to say that 99.9% of the people who watched the movie didn't even understand the lyrics, which are pretty innocuous anyway. But for Reuters, that's enough to turn the sight of a few Jews fortunate enough to escape Hitler's madness into a "pro-Zionist message".

Unbelievable. Apparently, to Reuters, a movie is pro-Zionist if some Jews are still alive at the end.

FOLLOW-UP:
Reuters may already be trying to pull its foot out of its mouth on this one. The same story, via Drudge, originally appeared here, with a Reuters byline. Although less than a day old, it's already disappeared. Via Google News, I was able to find the same story on the Stuff.co.nz site, as linked above. (I've saved a screenshot in case it, too, falls down the memory hole.) The Stuff version of the article has no byline at all, which appears to be the way that site usually runs wire stories. However, Reuters is still mentioned in the text of the article itself.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
Pro-Zionist messages may be subtle, but the anti-Zionist ones are usually pretty easy to spot. (Via Solomonia)

Unseen Japan

2005-06-27T19:30:00.000+09:00

The Mainichi Daily News has posted the winners of its "Unseen Japan" photo contest here. Entrants were asked to submit a photograph that "visualizes a rarely seen side of Japan." (It's a bit disappointing, then, that the winning shot is a picture of a taxicab.)

There's some more information on the contest here.

The mystery of the disappearing rabbit

2005-06-26T19:01:00.000+09:00

In the pantheon of famous web memes, along with the Dancing Baby and the Numa-Numa guy, a place must surely be saved for Oolong the rabbit:

His owner, Hironori Akutagawa, has posted dozens of pictures of Oolong on his own website. One of these was modified by an anonymous fan into the above graphic, which has come to be widely used on web forums to express bewilderment at someone else's comments.

Oolong was, of course, best known for his ability to balance things on his head, which Hironori refers to as tougei (頭芸), or "head performance":

According to Hironori's comments on this site (in Japanese), this is far from a unique talent. He's had several bunnies over the last 24 years, all of which could do it. He starts training them while they're still young, by petting them and, when they are relaxed, placing a light object on their head. For the bunnies, it's almost an extension of the earlier petting, and therefore feels natural.

After gaining widespread attention through this page on Syberpunk, Oolong garnered his very own Wikipedia entry, was featured in the New York Times, and even inspired copycats. It’s perhaps not much of an exaggeration to say that he brought joy to thousands of people around the world.

Sadly, Oolong died on January 7, 2003. But Hironori soon obtained a new rabbit, Yuebing, to carry on the head-balancing tradition. Apparently, after a rocky start, Yuebing was making some progress:

However — and here is where the mystery begins — the last post on Yuebing's website is dated March 1, 2005. After years of posting, on average, several times a month, Hironori has posted no new photos for almost four months.

I have no idea what's become of Yuebing or her owner. An email I sent to Hironori has thus far gone unanswered. I hope they're both well. If anyone has any leads or information, please let me know.

Pataki's empty Ground Zero promise

2005-06-26T14:42:00.000+09:00

I've blogged previously (1, 2, 3) about the International Freedom Center's plans to build a "Freedom Center" at Ground Zero, which would catalog America's sins, like slavery and segregation, along with the Soviet gulag, Chinese re-education camps, and the Holocaust.

Now, Wizbang points out another potential threat to the solemnity of the 9-11 memorial. Apparently, New York's Govenor Pataki has allocated space at Ground Zero to the Drawing Center, a SoHo gallery that, in the past, has featured virulently (and predictably) politicized art. Example: "Homeland Security", which depicts a jet airplane dive-bombing the crotch of a naked, spead-legged woman.

As New York's Daily News wrote in a June 23 editorial:

Works such as "Homeland Security" belong nowhere near the sobering pit where the twin towers stood, but the prospect of such a sacrilege arises because Gov. Pataki and his lower Manhattan minions have given space there to a SoHo art gallery called The Drawing Center. What were they thinking? Did they even take two minutes to glance through The Drawing Center's catalogue, which, besides "Homeland Security," also features such artistic creations as:

• The infamous hooded Abu Ghraib figure, the wires falling from his wrists to arrange themselves into the word "Liberty."

• A connect-the-dots organizational chart fancifully linking George W. Bush to Osama Bin Laden and former Texas Gov. John Connally and some oilman here and some financier there.

And so on and so forth. In short, it's plain as day that The Drawing Center does not bring to the downtown planning a single-minded respect for the memories of the dead - which is, after all, the point of a Ground Zero memorial, we would think.

The good news is that Pataki realizes that installing a blame-America-first exhibition atop the graves of the 9-11 victims is not a savvy political move. The Daily News reports that on Friday, he issued a statement concerning what type of material will, and will not, be welcome at the memorial site:

Gov. Pataki drew a line in the sand yesterday, declaring he will tolerate no America-bashing on the sacred soil of Ground Zero.

..."We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11."

He added, "The Daily News did a good service by pointing out some of these things. We do not want that at Ground Zero; I do not want that at Ground Zero and to the extent that I have the power, it's not going to happen."

..."Sure, there can be debate," Pataki said when asked if his tough stance jeopardized free-speech rights. "But I don't want that debate to be occurring at Ground Zero."

Sounds good, in theory. But once the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center gallery are built, what is to stop the people behind them from doing whatever they like? Their statements on the matter, from the same Daily News article, are hardly reassuring:

Tom Bernstein, the Freedom Center's chairman, pledged in a statement to preserve that sanctity. The center "must, and will, honor humanity's march toward freedom and highlight America's role as a beacon for freedom throughout the world."

The Drawing Center released a statement saying it would work with the state to resolve the "inevitable tensions" between "remembrance and cultural activity."

Nowhere in these statements is there any kind of assurance that the two groups will avoid the kind of controversial material at issue. And why should they? They know they'll able to play the First Amendment martyr role if any attempt to condemn them or their exhibitions is made.

Sadly, I fear that Governor Pataki, despite his fine words, is either lying or being played for a fool. His promise to preserve the solemnity of the Ground Zero memorial site is as empty as the gaping footprints of the fallen towers themselves.

FOLLOW-UP:
Over in the Wizbang comments, SoHo resident Michael Negroponte, who has some interesting relatives, accuses the Daily News of McCarthyism.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
The Dread Pundit Bluto has more.

The conspiracy theorist next door

2005-06-26T10:15:00.000+09:00

In my office last week, I walked past a co-worker's desk and noticed he — let's call him Joe — was reading a website with pictures of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The pictures of the buildings were overlaid with lines and arrows, like John Madden had gone to work on them with a telestrator.

I feared the worst, but had to make sure.

"What's that you're reading?" I asked.

"Oh, it's a site that says 9-11 was planned by the government."

Joe, I should point out, is a college-educated American, fluent in English and Japanese, and who by all accounts is very good at a complex job. He's no dummy. He's also married and has a young son. We're not talking about a guy who sits in a dingy basement watching X-Files reruns and listening for the secret messages the FBI is broadcasting through the fillings in his teeth.

"Do you believe that?" I asked.

"Well, it's really interesting."

"What about that videotape of Osama Bin Laden taking credit?"

"They say he's working for the U.S. government. That's why we haven't caught him yet."

This went on for a while longer. For every fact, Joe had a convenient explanation: The Saudi hijackers were trained by the CIA. The towers were blown up by explosives. smuggled into the buildings at night. The Pentagon was hit by a missile, not a plane. The people on the missing plane were flown out to sea and killed. Flight 93 was meant to be shot down all along, to show we stopped one. The government killed Americans to give us a reason to invade Iraq. The hijackers were Saudis, not Iraqis, because using Iraqis would have been too obvious.

Finally, I had heard enough.

"Joe, that's nuts, and I'm actually offended that you believe this stuff."

"Hey, I just think it's interesting. You should talk to Bob downstairs. He's completely sold on it."

"It's as upsetting to me as if you were denying the Holocaust."

"This is different."

"You really think the government killed almost 3000 Americans so it could invade Iraq a year and a half later?"

"Well, this kind of thing happens throughout history. Hitler had the Reichstag burned so he could blame it on his opponents and seize power for himself."

That's right — two sentences after saying 9-11 wasn't like the Holocaust, Joe compared Bush to Hitler.

What drives educated people to ignore Occam's razor, constructing elaborate conspiracy theories when the facts are plain as day? Why do they prefer wild speculation to sober analysis?

And, if they must reject the facts in favor of paranoid tales of their own invention, why do they cast their own government as the villain? At least Arabs have the esprit de corps to blame 9-11 on Israel, not their own leaders. It just seems right to them that evil Jews would be behind such a terrible act. Yet apparently, to many Americans, it just seems right that Americans themselves would be behind it.

Global warming alert

2005-06-25T00:41:00.000+09:00

I don't have much to add to this one. The Chicago Tribune reports:

There aren't too many places where you can celebrate the 4th of July weekend by hitting the slopes, but Utah is one of them, thanks to a record amount of snowfall.

Typically, skiing and snowboarding ends by mid-to-late April. One area, the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, often stretches it to late May. But on Thursday, Snowbird announced it will be open weekends until Independence Day. That has happened only once before, in 1995.

...July will mark the ninth consecutive month of skiing at the resort, located about a half-hour south of Salt Lake City. A combination of early and consistent snowfall, a lack of powder in the Northwest and a residual tourism bounce from the 2002 Winter Olympics have combined to make this the longest and busiest season in Utah history. Attendance is up 12 percent over last season's record of 3.4 million, according to Nathan Rafferty, a spokesman for Ski Utah, a marketing association that promotes the state's skiing industry.

...The season got off to a rousing start on Nov. 5, when Snowbird had its earliest opening ever. The most recent dump — a half-foot — fell June 12. In between, storms regularly blanketed the Wasatch Range, and a chilly spring has insulated the snow that was already on the ground, maintaining the base. From start to finish, the mountain received 633 inches — a whopping 52 feet of snow.

FOLLOW-UP:
Okay, maybe I do have something to add — about 1982 swords-and-sorcery B-movie epic The Beastmaster. It features one truly classic line, but to appreciate it, first we have to set the scene:

Maax, a sinister priest, is standing high atop his temple, preparing to drop a young boy into a pit of fire as a sacrifice to the evil god Aar. Below him stands a throng of fearful villagers, cowed into submission by his portentous pronouncements of Aar's wrath.

The Beastmaster sees what is about to happen and decides he must stop it. Using his power to communicate with animals, he sends a large hawk soaring up over the temple. It seizes the boy in its talons, pulling him free from Maax's clutches and carrying him away.

The villagers are shocked. Perhaps Maax's stories about Aar aren't true after all. Maybe they can afford to ignore this nasty old priest who regularly drops their children to firey deaths.

Sensing he's losing the crowd, Maax realizes he has to think fast, and utters his great line. "You see?" he cries. "Aar has spoken! He wants your children!"

I was reminded of Maax when I read blogger Mathew Honan's report of having to cancel his hiking vacation due to excessive snowfall. Mathew writes:

As the ranger in Yosemite told us yesterday, we haven't had this much snow in 50 years. In short, there's too much snow for us to safely make the trip, at least when we had planned. And rescheduling, well... Just scheduling a three-week trip is pretty tough. Rescheduling, that's just probably not possible.

I blame global warming.

Honan goes on to cite a series of lengthy, and very well-written, articles (1, 2, 3) by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker about the evidence for global warming, such as warmer temperatures, melting glaciers, thinner snow cover, and thawing permafrost. So, warmer weather and less snow are evidence of global warming, but cooler weather and more snow are also evidence of global warming.

Now I'm not saying global warming is bunk. There certainly seems to be a lot of evidence for it. But at this point one might fairly ask what would count as evidence against it. If we were concerned about global cooling (as many experts were in the 70's), then presumably massive snowfalls would serve as evidence of that, too.

Like Maax the temple priest, global warming alarmists appear to be dangerously close to creating an unfalsifiable theory. Even when his sacrifice to Aar was humiliatingly foiled, Maax claimed it only showed that Aar demanded more sacrifices. And even when the snow piles up outside, it's just more proof that global warming is close at hand.

Reporters use blogs, but don't trust them

2005-06-23T11:09:00.000+09:00

NOTE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And thanks very much for linking, Prof. Reynolds.

Previously, I posted about how the relationship between blogs and the mainstream media is increasingly one of interdependence, not parasitism.

Now, via ZDNet, ClickZ News reports on a study done by Euro RSCG Magnet and Columbia University. It showed that many professional journalists are not just reading blogs, but actively using them as an aid to their reporting:

The Euro RSCG/Columbia study shows that more than 51 percent of journalists use blogs regularly, and 28 percent rely on them to help in their day-to-day reporting duties. By contrast, a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project survey showed that just 11 percent of the U.S. population as a whole reads blogs.

"The fact that the media are using blogs for reporting and research... demonstrates that blogs have an enormous potential to not only influence the general public, but to influence the influencers — journalists and the media — as well," said Aaron Kwittken, CEO of Euro RSCG Magnet, in a statement.

Journalists mostly used blogs for finding story ideas (53 percent), researching and referencing facts (43 percent) and finding sources (36 percent). And 33 percent said they used blogs to uncover breaking news or scandals. Still, despite their reliance on blogs for reporting, only 1 percent of journalists found blogs credible, the study found.

I'm going to have to get a new irony detector. My old one just exploded.

FOLLOW-UP:
Bill Quick says the survey bears out a prediction he made years ago.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
Via InakaYabanjin and Slashdot, the Wall Street Journal points out that marketers are reading blogs, too, to see what people are saying about various brands.

Catchy headline

2005-06-21T23:57:00.000+09:00

Instapundit links to this New York Times article on an experimental spacecraft that will be powered by solar wind.

However, Space.com covers the same story with, in my opinion, a much better headline:

Riding the Sun:
Maiden Flight Looms for Solar Sail Satellite

Take Back the Memorial protest

2005-06-21T10:28:00.000+09:00

I'm back in Tokyo, but Riding Sun's research assistant, the beautiful and intrepid Dusky, has filed a report from Ground Zero in Manhattan, the site of yesterday's Take Back the Memorial protest against plans to build a "Freedom Center" adjacent to the 9-11 memorial. Below are her photos. (Links open in a new window):

Apparently, turnout was light, with only about 60 people who lost relatives on 9-11, joined by a slightly lesser number of other supporters. However, about 40 reporters and news crew members showed up to cover the event.

Several of the protesters gave speeches. Michael Burke, whose brother, FDNY Capt. William F. Burke, Jr., was killed by the falling towers, said:

Nobody is coming to this place to learn about Ukraine democracy or to be inspired by the courage of Tibetan monks. They’re coming for Sept. 11.

Edie Lutnick, sister of Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, who lost 658 employees in the attacks, added:

When you come to the WTC site, you will not be immersed with 9/11. You will be met with world politics. No one who has come to the WTC site in the last almost 4 years has asked about world politics. Why? Because it is not the appropriate place. If you want world politics, go to the U.N. 9/11 is about 9/11.

As I noted earlier, I think the U.N. would be an ideal location for the proposed Freedom Center. Ground Zero, simply, should be a place where Michael Burke, Edie Lutnick, and all of us can honor the dead.

FOLLOW-UP:
Jeff Jarvis has a more detailed report.

A kinder, gentler murderous dictator

2005-06-21T03:12:00.000+09:00

Get ready for the latest salvo in the media campaign to undermine any possible rationale for the Iraq war: charming descriptions of the softer side of Saddam Hussein. The Associated Press reports on a story coming out in the July issue of GQ magazine:

Thrust unexpectedly into the role of prison guards for Saddam Hussein, a group of young American soldiers found the deposed Iraqi leader to be a friendly, talkative "clean freak" who loved Raisin Bran for breakfast, did his own laundry and insisted he was still president of Iraq, says a report published on Monday.

...Saddam learned the names of the GIs guarding him, was interested in the details of their lives, which they were not supposed to discuss, and sometimes offered fatherly advice. They conversed in English.

[Specialist Sean] O'Shea said when he told him he was not married, Saddam "started telling me what to do." "He was like, `you gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean.'"

Then he smiled, made what O'Shea interpreted as a "spanking" gesture, laughed and went back to washing his clothes in the sink.

Awww... what a sweetheart. Not since Sideshow Bob's parole hearing has a criminal been so egregiously misrepresented to the public.

Obligatory Downing Street Memo post

2005-06-20T23:33:00.000+09:00

Over the past month, news of the Downing Street Memo has made the rounds, with liberals claiming it proves Bush lied about his reasons for the Iraq war, and conservatives finding it to be of little, if any, informational value. The sheer volume of commentary makes me feel compelled to state my own view on the subject.

I'll assume, for the sake of argument, that the memo is an accurate reproduction. (A reporter supposedly re-typed it from an original which he subsequently destroyed).

And I'll assume it accurately reflects the Bush administration's views at the time. (It quotes no American officials, instead summarizing a British official's assessment of "recent talks in Washington").

However, I don't find the memo's so-called "smoking gun" sentence to be anything of the kind. It states:

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

Fixing facts around a policy does not mean lies are being spun, anymore than fixing lights around a Christmas tree means imaginary bulbs are being conjured out of thin air. (Indeed, the reference to "facts" indicates that we are dealing with, well, facts, not fictions.) Rather, it appears to describe a process similar to that of a lawyer presenting a case to a jury. He cannot invent his own facts, but he can present the existing facts in the manner most supportive of his argument.

True, there have been many different interpretations of that key phrase. What is beyond dispute, however, is that if the memo's author meant to indicate that Bush was lying his way into war, he certainly could have picked a clearer way of saying it.

As it stands, the memo suggests that Bush was committed to removing Saddam via military force if necessary, and wanted to make the strongest argument possible for his position. This is hardly an earth-shaking revelation. Yet people who desperately want to believe it proves that Bush is an impeachable liar will not be deterred from doing so.

Scooping the MSM

2005-06-20T19:39:00.000+09:00

The Chicago Tribune reports that the African island of Mauritius is on its way to becoming the world's first nation with total wireless Internet coverage, essentially turning the entire island into one gigantic "hot spot".

Riding Sun had the story over five months ago. Advantage: blogosphere!

FOLLOW-UP:
When I posted about Mauritius's plans to turn itself into a "cyber-island" back in January, the nationwide network was expected to be up and running as early as March.

So what's taking so long? The Tribune says that the Mauritian government sees the new wireless network as a threat to the huge profits it reaps from its substantial stake in the island's leading telecommunications company — so it dragged its feet on granting the necessary permits.


Logic and its Limits Shaw 1997 (2nd edition)	Freakonomics Levitt, Dubner 2005