Sachi heard a weird sound in the dryer, and discovered why she must check my pockets before doing my laundry: there was an ink pen and a USB flash memory stick in the pockets. Miraculously, the ink pen did not leak in the wash (must have been the tight cap), but we both figured that the USB flash stick, my 1-year-old 1GB Kingston “Data Traveler,” was toast.

Nope. Still works perfectly. There’s a lot to be said for solid-state technology.

Stumble it!

C&L covers what could be a typo in an AP story about Veep speculation:

Surprisingly, the typo is still up there as of this publishing; the AP must not be paying much attention today.

Stumble it!

I seem to recall a time when each party gave the other a break during convention time; when one party held it’s convention, the other would tone down its events and let the other party have its day. Not today’s GOP:

Democrats won’t have the show to themselves next week during their convention.

The GOP says it’s planning a rival post near the Democratic National Convention and will put on speeches by prominent GOP opponents including former presidential nominee and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Republicans haven’t said exactly where they’ll set up, but party leaders say they’ll have an arena for rival speeches near downtown’s Pepsi Center, where Democrats gather Monday.

Speakers include Tuesday Romney, a former rival to GOP nominee John McCain. Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney, considered a potential vice presidential choice for McCain, will speak in Denver before heading to Nevada on Wednesday. Romney handily won Colorado’s Republican presidential caucus in February.

At some time we apparently will be informed as to when and why Mitt Romney acquired the nickname “Tuesday.”

Seriously, however, this may not be new, but it is certainly an indicator of how the GOP is dragging down the election process, one step at a time. Not that this tactic is the worst of it–in fact, it’s about as mild as such tactics go. It seems almost innocuous compared to stuff like Corsi’s book of smears and its being propped up by right-wing organizations and heavily publicized by Fox News–a new tradition begun four years ago, and likely to continue from now on. The savagely negative campaign seems now a set right-wing feature, along with the covert email campaigns spreading disgusting innuendo. No, scheduling competing noise-making events during the Democratic convention (which the media will of course obligingly cover) is dirty pool, but pretty bland next to most new GOP tactics.

Still, it’s in the same general category, and simply reinforces what we’ve known for some time now: the GOP will do pretty much anything to win elections. “Ungentlemanly” is the least of the offenses.

Stumble it!

The latest nugget from the McCain campaign, after NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell does nothing but report objective facts:

In a letter to NBC News president Steve Capus, Davis said that the network’s “level of objectivity … has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain.” He requested a meeting with Capus to discuss news standards and objectivity.

“We are concerned that your news division is following MSNBC’s lead in abandoning nonpartisan coverage of the presidential race,” Davis wrote.

So, I suppose that the McCain campaign has held Fox News’ feet to the fire, then? No? Gee, I wonder why not.

MSNBC, which features partisan shows on both sides of the spectrum, even at its worst still cannot compete with Fox in sheer depth and volume of partisan “reporting.” To claim NBC News is even close to either one in terms of being partisan, much less partisan against McCain, is pretty absurd. Mitchell just said that “McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama,” a statement which was 100% correct, and deserved to be noted.

The McCain campaign is now demanding that NBC execs meet with them so McCain’s people can browbeat them in person and dictate how they report the news. Of course, this request has almost no chance of being honored and McCain’s people know this, just as they surely must know that their accusations are completely ludicrous. The entire idea behind this line of attack is purely a “working the refs” tactic, painting the media as being anti-McCain (when the opposite is true) so McCain looks better. If they can trick the public into believing this, then whenever people hear a story about McCain which is not good, they’ll believe it’s not true; when they hear a story which is good, they’ll believe that it’s actually better. This is nothing new, it’s the whole strategy behind the “liberal media” uber-lie. It would be laughable if only it were not working so well.

Stumble it!

Here’s a video from Comedy Central, a recent “Threat Down” from the Colbert Report. While #1 is about the iPhone (with a zinger aimed at the Zune), the entire list is just great–I had Sachi wondering why I was slapping my knee over here.

Stumble it!

This is just getting ridiculous. From the campaign of John “I’m Too Humble Ever to Mention My War Hero Status” McCain:

The New York Times’s Elizabeth Bumiller got a hold of McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace who took umbrage at the charge. “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.

Yeah, because it would be physically impossible for a former prisoner of war to ever cheat. Just ask McCain’s first wife.

But really, how blatant can you be about injecting McCain’s military service into every single public statement? How much of a non-sequitur does it have to be before people start laughing?

What was being discussed was the fact that John McCain broke his word (I guess former prisoners of war can do that). The venue was an evangelical church where both candidates would be interviewed separately by a pastor. McCain and Obama were supposed to arrive before the event started, and the second to be interviewed would be put in a room where he could not hear the questions; John McCain promised to honor that deal–but he broke his word. McCain sauntered in well after Obama’s turn had started, and had the opportunity to listen to what at least some of the questions would be, and how Obama answered them.

That was a violation of honor right there; Obama went first in the debate and took the questions cold; McCain, who was supposed to be in a “cone of silence” (the “moderator” announced such on the air) was in his car at the time, where he could have easily been prepped–and even got dishonest credit on the air for doing so. When he arrived:

Warren told CNN Sunday evening, “we flat out asked him” if he heard any of the questions. The McCain campaign “confirmed that McCain did not hear or see any of the broadcast” in the motorcade or after he arrived.

Even if McCain wasn’t lying, the way the question was worded would have allowed his staff to hear the questions and prep him on how to answer without “telling” him what the questions were. There are just so many ways McCain could have been dishonorable in this situation. The fact that he was supposed to be sequestered was an expression of how he was supposed to prove that; he failed to do so.

But hey, McCain is just a guy who will lie his ass off, pander to voters, make racist innuendo, break promises, run a massively negative campaign (another one of those broken promises), break the law, flip-flop on any issue he thinks he’ll gain votes from, cheat on his wife… but he would never cheat in a debate because he was a prisoner of war.

You know, I think it’s getting close to the point where McCain is milking this P.O.W. thing so much that it’s time to stop being gentlemanly and start looking closely at the details of his military service and his actions while a prisoner of war; fair is fair–if McCain were to leave it in the background, then no matter how much anyone else brought it up, it would be honorable to leave it alone. But if McCain drags it out in every other utterance (he mentioned it several times himself during the event), then it’s no longer sacred ground, but fair game to question.

Stumble it!

For those of you who wanted to see, hear, and/or read more about the lecture by Mr. Tadamasa Iwai from last month, my apologies for the delay–I have been quite busy between work and the wedding and personal activities–but finally we’ve got the whole lecture right here, in one multimedia package.

To remind everyone of the nature of the lecture, Mr. Iwai is 87 years old, and in his youth, was an officer in Japan’s suicide soldier (“Tokko”) regiments during WWII. Most people know about the kamikaze, the suicide bombers, but not many know that there were several types of suicide soldiers. Mr. Iwai experienced life in two such regiments: one where soldiers were essentially a human guidance system aboard a torpedo, and one where soldiers were trained to wait underwater in diving suits so they could attack enemy boats from below by hitting them with mines. Mr. Iwai survived, and came to deeply regret what happened and how he participated in it.

First, for those of you who just want to read: the translation of Mr. Iwai’s lecture by Jane Goldstone and Yuka Sugiyama. This actually is more than was in the live lecture, as Mr. Iwai went over time, and so in order to allow for student questions, he wasn’t able to finish his written remarks. If you want the whole lecture, you should watch the video and read the lecture notes.

Translation of Mr. Iwai’s Lecture (RTF file, 28K)

A few excerpts:

The suicide divers were a commando unit created to destroy and sink American Armed Forces approaching the Japanese shoreline by waiting to attack at the bottom of the ocean. They would wear special underwater suits and carry bamboo rods with small mines on the end which would detonate on contact. If the attack were a success, the attacker would also die in the explosion. In June of 1944, after the overwhelming victory of the American forces in Okinawa Japan was facing the prospects of US soldiers landing on the mainland. This is the reason behind this military tactic. …

Even peering through the glass, from the almost upright angle, I could only see a few meters the sea bed ahead of me, and nothing of what might be above. Given this situation, how was it possible to place the mines on the bottom of the incoming boats? We young officers all agreed that this simply wouldn’t work. but in the Japanese Navy at that time, you had to do your best to obey orders, no matter how foolish they were.

This is why we young subordinates continued to practice diving in Okinawa, fully aware of how ridiculous it was. The training also came at great price. As I mentioned before, one could lose consciousness by not performing the correct breathing techniques or fall into a confused state of mind. One problem was a leak in the purification tank. If this happened, it was almost certain that the diver would die. …

Now, I’d like talk about the Pacific War when Tokko were considered necessary and why I became a part of them. It is not easy for me to talk about these things. Among my mistakes in life, this is the one that brings me the greatest pain. I feel I must talk openly about these things to today’s youth because I don’t have much longer to live. The mistake I made then could be made by others now. In fact, in my opinion, it is already happening in various ways. …

Even though I was opposed, in my own immature way, to the prevailing ideology and to Japan’s war objectives, I soon gave up and did nothing to oppose them. It was under these social circumstances that I obediently responded to the draft. I cannot defend myself against allegations that this was a cowardly compromise. Even if I had tried to resist at that time, it would only have led to my own destruction. It is certain that no real result would have come of it. “While critical of the war and the ruling system that had brought it about, and knowing that I would die, I still signed up without opposing it”. This was the beginning of my path strewn with contradictions.

Next, the video. This is what took so long: I had to find the time to download the 2-hour lecture, edit it, save it as an .m4v file, break it into 10-minute segments for YouTube, then upload each section with tags, descriptions, etc. Not an easy task; it took most of a whole day.

Here is the first segment; the rest of the segments are available below the fold (there are 12 of them, so they would make for too long a post if they all showed up on my main page).

If you want to view all 12 directly from YouTube, just do a YouTube search for “LCJ Lecture” (or just click that link), and you’ll find them.

One note: parts 1-8 are the lecture itself, Mr. Iwai speaking and Jane translating; parts 9-12 are students asking questions (in Japanese), Mr. Iwai answering, and then Jane translating the question and answers.

As promised, the other segments below the fold.

Read on …

Stumble it!

Today, Sachi and I had planned to take a long bicycle ride from Ikebukuro to Shakuhi-Koen, a ride which we figure would have taken about an hour each way, at least. However, threatening rain made us change our plans, so we decided to do a little birdwatching at Kasai Rinkai instead. The main idea was to get out and get some exercise.

We took the Yurakucho Line to Shin-Kiba, and on a lark, decided to walk the rest of the way–just one station, after all. Of course, from Shin-Kiba to Kasai Rinkai is a huge walk, across a big river and in a non-populated area near Tokyo Bay. To add to the festive mood, it was drizzling throughout–refreshingly cool, but very damp and not too cheery.

After walking at least a few kilometers like this, I saw a bird which might have kicked off a great birdwatching day–a Eurasian Jay, right there in plain sight. I got out my camera, and promptly discovered that the battery was dead. I would have replaced it quick… but just then realized that when I had made a quick bag switch at home before leaving, I had neglected to take an extra battery with me. The first time I go birdwarching in a long time, I get a great bird right off the bat… and I find that I won’t be taking ANY photos today. I was royally pissed at myself.

Sachi and I walked through the park anyway, and of course, there were more birds, very close up even, than I have caught at the park in a long time–which did not make me feel better, of course. Then it started to rain harder, and our umbrellas were too small for the task. Plus, our feet were really tired.

To cap it al off, the soft drink machine at the train station was half sold out and the drink I was left getting was lukewarm. And then a group of thoroughly drunk college students were making complete asses of themselves just a few feet away, wrestling each other rowdily over the edge of the platform, almost falling off several times. The photo below catches them at one of their less idiotic times.

But hey, we got a lot of exercise, anyway….

Stumble it!

Another thing we did yesterday was to look for wedding rings. We went to several places, including LaLaPort in Toyosu (they had OK rings there, but not great), the Ginza (expensive!), and Akasaka, but we found the perfect rings in our front yard, so to speak—Sunshine City, just a few blocks from home.

The rings we found are very nice platinum bands with a simple yet attractive pattern, with rings in exactly our sizes at a good price. I’m including an image below, but it shows up a problem with the iPhone’s camera: macro shots are definitely not a strength. Hopefully you can get at least a very basic idea of what the rings look like from this.

We won’t have the rings for another two weeks, however, as they’re being engraved.

One reason I like the ring I’m getting is because it’s light and thin. With the promise rings Sachi and I have had for more than a year now, mine is so big that it hurts when my hand is squeezed (happens more often than you’d think), and you can’t hold liquid in a cupped hand. The new ring is a lot slimmer and doesn’t hurt my hand when under pressure. And it looks a whole lot nicer!

Stumble it!

Sachi and I went to Subir yesterday to set some more wedding details, and hit upon our first snag: our planner had promised us a bilingual wedding Emcee, a promise we had planned most of the wedding around. However, when we met with the planner yesterday, it was immediately apparent that,while charming and able, she did not speak English very well at all. Kind of made the whole session uncomfortable, actually. We told the planner and she’ll be looking for a new Emcee.

Other than that, we had a good time. We planned the flower arrangements with the first person we’ve met aside from ourselves who has an iPhone here in Japan. And we got to preview dessert trays, even though we probably won’t evense them for the wedding (we have a cake, after all).

Stumble it!

I spoke to this in the comments of a recent post, but I believe that it is an assertion worthy of its own post. That being: Obama is not really getting more coverage than McCain.

Yes, I know, there was a study showing that he does, as there was a similar study showing that Obama’s coverage has been far more negative than McCain’s, despite McCain fumbling and gaffing far more often. But the missing piece comes from the recent Boston Globe story where they showed that the most-often-used word on John McCain’s site was “Obama.” Put all of those pieces together, and the whole picture clicks into place.

The media is likely giving quite equal amounts of coverage to Obama and McCain–but since McCain’s campaign is mostly about Obama, expressing him in the negative, the increased coverage of Obama–more of it negative than with McCain–is simply a result of McCain’s own focus. At least.

I still maintain that McCain is getting a better break because the media pays less attention to him. If the media ignored attacks completely and just focused on each candidate’s actions and policies, and gave each candidate equal time and fair coverage, then John McCain would likely be far lower in the polls than he currently is. When your campaign is a jumbled mess of attacks, policy reversals, senior moments, and gaffes, the media is doing you a huge favor by not paying much attention to you. This effect is amplified because McCain’s pre-standing image is one of a bipartisan maverick, an image that the media still perpetuates despite increasingly large collections of evidence that prove the contrary. Of course, the media goes even further with McCain, actively covering up his gaffes and other negatives in addition to simply ignoring them.

I would also like to touch on how the media covers races. As I mentioned, there would be a great deal better quality to our media coverage–and to the campaign in general–if the media simply outright ignored every negative statement made by one candidate about the other; better still to ignore such statements from pundits. Such partisan attacks are usually highly inaccurate, and the media is supposed to focus on accuracy. Let each candidate define themselves, and then have the media pick up a long-lost responsibility: independent fact-checking. In short, the media should focus on how each candidate proposes to run things, and then do an unbiased, fact-based assessment of these claims. While this may sound like a pipe dream, it is, the last I checked, what journalism is supposed to be about.

That would leave the questions of “equal coverage” and “fair coverage.” Equal coverage suggests that the media should spend exactly the same amount of time covering both candidates. So long as that coverage is truly accurate–and recent coverage has been tilted far more in McCain’s favor, far from accurately–then I am OK with the idea of equal time. If the media wants to have one hour of coverage on Obama giving a stirring speech to 200,000 people in Berlin, and spend another hour with McCain in the cheese section of a local supermarket followed by a press conference in front of the “Fudge Haus,” then fine. But barring that, coverage should be fairly measured in terms of what merits coverage. If McCain is incapable of doing anything worth reporting on, then he should not complain, unless he wants the media to cover him doing nothing interesting, or as is more often the case, doing things badly.

Then there is “fair coverage.” There has been a tendency in the media to try to give both sides equal representation, as if both sides had equal positives and negatives, just as many good ideas and bad ideas, and exactly the same merit and disgrace. This tendency has only really been prevalent since Bush took office and Republicans have been doing 99% of the bad stuff out there–you never saw the media trying to balance coverage of Clinton’s scandals with anything they found on the Republicans. This is mostly a running-scared knee-jerk response to false charges of a “liberal media.” And the idea is indeed flawed–both sides are not always going to be equal. Fair coverage does not mean that you try to give equal positive and negative coverage to each side, it means that you report on exactly what each side has been doing, focusing on them, and not on what they tell you to focus on. If Obama has been speaking to huge, cheering crowds and making clear sound policy decisions, and McCain has been making appearances before small groups and gaffing a lot, the media should not be covering up for McCain and attacking Obama so their coverage seems “fair.”

Similarly, when there is an issue up for discussion and one side is obviously wrong, it should not be given equal respect. Offshore drilling, for example, has been pretty conclusively proven to have almost no value in the context of our current energy issues–it would take many years before any oil production came from it, and that production would have an impact so minimal that daily price fluctuations could completely cancel it out. And yet, in political coverage in the media, the idea is treated with respect as if it weren’t proven to be nothing but an empty pander. Simply because one side says an idea has value doesn’t mean that it does, or that you should accept the claim, or let it pass without pointing out its obvious lack of worth.

Stumble it!

A recent McCain campaign quote:

In the Senate, Barack Obama has voted in lockstep with President George W. Bush nearly half the time.

That’s right! Every single vote by Barack Obama was with President Bush, except for most of them! While John McCain voted out of lockstep with President Bush a whopping 5% of the time!

I swear to god, you can’t make this crap up.

Stumble it!

When Bob Schieffer hailed John McCain as a man of character because he was shot down over Vietnam, Wesley Clark (after having spent a few minutes praising McCain as a “hero”) said that that did not qualify McCain for president; that was without a doubt not swift-boating, no matter what the wingnuts want to claim.

The latest book by noted sleaze merchant James Corsi, however, is the epitome of swift-boating–not because it was by a former associate of Obama’s who claimed to know him. a usual key ingredient in the definition. It is swift-boating because the author of the book is the original swift-boater himself, and the book carries the signature quality of being jam-packed with errors, innuendo, and mostly bald-faced lies. This time, not even the media will give this book any credibility, but that won’t stop the Republicans from trying to float a “popular” campaign based on it.

The book will premier as #1 on the New York Times best-seller list (one can only assume the editors had to swallow hard when labeling it as “non-fiction”), but not because people are buying it–rather because right-wing organizations are buying it in bulk quantities likely for no better reason than to artificially put it on the “best-seller” list and so inflate the book’s cache with the mindlessly-inclined. McCain’s quip on the book: “You gotta keep your sense of humor.” Yeah, right–like he’d react better if a book of the same caliber on him came out. Maybe he’d like to comment on this YouTube commercial–slimy, even though factually accurate.

This is the essence of the conservative run for the presidency: don’t just lie, but lie about the lies. Yet another reason not to vote Republican–unless you would like this kind of thing to define your personal politics.

Stumble it!

Huh. The #1 word on Obama’s site, according to a Boston Globe feature, is “Obama.” The #1 word on John McCain’s site? “Obama.”

Of course, Obama’s site is filled with positives about himself, and McCain’s site is filled with negatives about his opponent.

Kinda tells you something about each candidate, doesn’t it?

Stumble it!

Smashing Magazine has a “top ten” good-things article about the Mac, and #2 is intuitiveness. I couldn’t agree more, but the example they use–installing apps by drag-and-drop–brings to mind something which is somewhat less than intuitive about how that process often works, and I thought I might take a crack at explaining and hopefully simplifying it here.

If you’re a PC-to-Mac switcher, you may have noticed some difficulties in installing apps using files with the “.dmg” filename extension. It’s because how the “.dmg” (“disk image”) works can confuse people. Software developers will often use disk images as a way of conveying their software to users, so you’re bound to encounter them–like when you download Skype or Firefox.

Disk images are what the name implies: virtual images of a physical disk. Double-clicking on a .dmg file will cause a disk image to appear on your Mac, just as if you had plugged in a physical disk, like a USB flash memory stick, an external hard drive, or a data-DVD. Except that the virtual disk is not physically there–it’s just a representation of the data in the .dmg file.

What’s hard to visualize is that the .dmg file and that virtual disk image are the same thing–one of them (the virtual disk) being an accessible but temporary version of the other (the disk image).

A bit more confusing is the added step of copying the software from the virtual disk to your Applications folder. So, you downloaded the .dmg file, opened it up to show a virtual disk, and then copied the software from the virtual disk to your Applications folder on your hard drive. You can see how this gets a bit confusing.

After saving the application on your hard drive, you then have to close or “eject” the virtual disk, thereby “closing” the .dmg file. Then you can choose to store the .dmg file for later use, or (more likely) delete it from your disk by putting it in the trash.

After you get used to all of this, it becomes second nature, and just another level of metaphors to use. Before you get used to it, however, some difficulties can occur.

Problems arise when people take a different path to using new software presented in a .dmg file: instead of dropping the app into their Applications folder, they simply open the program on the virtual disk image and use it that way. And that works–most apps can operate from any location, even a virtual one. This is common when app developers make the stupid move of not including an Applications folder shortcut in the virtual disk with a cue for the user to copy the app there; since many virtual disks also disable the window sidebar which contains the usual shortcut to the Applications folder, it can be doubly discouraging to taking the correct action. So a lot of people will simply try to use the app directly from the disk image’s virtual disk.

The problem: when you eject the virtual disk (or just shut down your computer), the virtual disk, and the app, are no longer available, and users are left to wonder where their app disappeared to. (Answer: it’s tucked inside the .dmg file, and if you tossed that, then you tossed the app too–which is why you should have copied it to your Applications folder.)

Some users might drop the app into the Dock while the virtual disk is still open, and then eject the virtual disk–believing they have “copied” the app to their computer. Since the Dock icons are just shortcuts, the app is still not on a real, physical drive–even worse, when you try to open the app, it will react by re-opening the .dmg file automatically and loading the virtual disk again. If you erased the .dmg file, the Dock icon will become a question mark when you try to open it.

So just remember the simple process whenever you get a .dmg file: open the disk image, drop the app into your Application folder, then close/eject the image and then archive/erase the .dmg file. Then use the app you copied into your Applications folder.

Okay, it’s not a “simple” process until you get used to it. But it’s a process you should be aware of. Hope this explanation helps.

Stumble it!

Now John McCain is talking up a new “fundamental mission” of his theoretical presidency: he wants to “restore trust and confidence in government.”

Have you stopped laughing yet? I’m sure you must have flashed on Bush’s big drive in 2000 to “restore honor and dignity to the White House” (any day now!). It seems like Republicans are always about restoring two reasonable-sounding qualities to Washington D.C. If McCain wins, then what will the next Republican candidate want to restore? Youth and vigor? Competency and skill?

Suffice to say that when a Republican talks about restoring something, it’s a sound bet that these areas are where they will most particularly lack.

Aside from questioning McCain’s ability to actually do any better than Bush did at restoring anything to the venue, one also has to realize that in order for McCain to restore “trust and confidence” to government, that means that Bush must have destroyed such things first. Unless he wants to suggest that it was Bill Clinton who was still responsible for the current lack of trust and confidence (which would raise the question of why bush didn’t act on these). More likely, McCain will try to claim that Democrats in Congress were somehow responsible. Or maybe a legal aide.

Stumble it!

Interesting, if flawed, quiz. Of the 24 I guessed at, I got 22 right. Not bad, considering that some images were fudged to separate them from the rest of the title–take the “U” in the third word (“Guess”); when you click on the image, you’ll see how the letter itself was changed in shape, and the surrounding background was completely altered to remove the giveaway clue. A lot you won’t get simply because you’re not familiar with the movie. And, although they had some giveaway fonts (c’mon, I’m not spoiling the “Shrek” answer), they did not include many of the more recognizable fonts, like the ones used in “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Se7en,” Lethal Weapon,“ ”The Right Stuff,“ ”The Sixth Sense,“ and so on. Instead, we get titles like… (see under the fold) Read on …

Stumble it!

After complaining that Obama was “presumptuous” (read: “uppity”) simply to be giving a speech in Berlin, saying that Obama was acting like he was already president, McCain is now acting as if he’s president in terms of his claims and actions in the Georgia crisis, saying that he talks daily with Georgia’s leader, and sending his top surrogates over there to act like McCain White House officials handling the situation. But he’s not being presumptuous! No sirree. He’s just being massively hypocritical, that’s all.

Or maybe he’s just trying as hard as he can to divert attention away from the fact that a top McCain campaign (his chief foreign policy advisor) official is a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government. Tell me, is there any McCain campaign official who is not still currently a paid lobbyist for some party of interest in currently relevant affairs? And when exactly will the media start reporting on this? How many crises have to come up where McCain’s campaign officials are knee-deep in monied conflicts of interest before the press thinks it’s worthwhile reporting that John “Campaign Finance Reform” McCain is neck-deep in lobbyists? Or, for that matter, that McCain is channelling neocon foreign policy?

Sorry, for a second there I was under the impression that the U.S. media had some chance of covering the election with even a pretense of objectivity. My mistake.

Stumble it!

I had been a fan of the web site Japan Probe… until they sold out and started including vapid, annoying blinking and otherwise animated ads. I hate those. So I posted that I would stop visiting the site because of the ads.

Within a few hours, the comment was deleted… and, apparently, another comment as well–the comment count on the post was 5, the number appearing was 3; I can only guess someone else chimed in.

Poor form, indeed. Advertising I can accept; people work at these blogs, and they want revenue. But blinking, flashing, moving ads? Can’t stand ‘em, and won’t. Yanking critical comments? Even worse.

I’ve gotten quite a few offers to put ads on my blog, many actually appearing valid. I just don’t like the idea in general. And if I am ever so hard up that I break down and accept them, I will damn sure have a policy wherein I will not tolerate any ad that moves even a single pixel.

Stumble it!

I photographed this housewife’s pot holder in rural Japan back in 1983:

It should be noted that in Japanese, the word for “cook” (the person, not the action), borrowed from English, is homophonous with the word “cock.” Ergo the likely cause of the mistake.

Stumble it!