Conservatives are busily trying to enact laws that will work to rob Americans of their right to vote solely because those Americans tend to vote Democratic, dishonestly claiming it is to stem “voter fraud.” However, conservatives themselves are the ones most often guilty of actual election fraud. From caging college students and victims of foreclosure, to felons lists, other types of purges, and worse, right-wingers’ attempts–all too often successful–to steal votes result in the theft or invalidation of hundreds and even thousands of votes at a time. Their targets: the poor, the elderly, the young, minorities, women–any group more likely to vote Democratic. Because if you vote for Democrats, then obviously there’s something wrong with you, and you don’t deserve to vote. This trend is only strengthening, with Republicans committed to embedding their election fraud into state and federal laws.

The latest revelation: in last year’s gubernatorial election in Maryland, former Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich Jr. was challenging Democratic incumbent Martin O’Malley, and was losing. On election night, more than a hundred thousand voters in heavily black Democratic districts in Maryland received recorded “robocalls” telling them to stay home. Voters heard a woman’s voice tell them, “I’m calling to let everyone know that Governor O’Malley and President Obama have been successful. Our goals have been met. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight. Congratulations and thank you.”

Republicans love this kind of deception, because they believe in social Darwinism: if you can be fooled, then you deserve to be fooled. Whenever Democratic voters are confused by ballots or deceived by robocalls, right-wingers cackle at how stupid they are, and feel this justifies the deception.

Indeed, the calls in Maryland last year came from operatives working for Ehrlich, the Republican. Now, two Ehrlich operatives have been indicted on charges that they attempted to illegally suppress votes.

Worse, a document has been discovered, referred to as the “Schurick Doctrine,” which lays out a plan to suppress the votes of African-Americans:

The plan, according to the indictments, “centered on what was termed ‘The Schurick Doctrine,’ which was designed to promote confusion, emotionalism, and frustration among African American Democrats. . . . The plan stated that [t]he first and most desired outcome [of the Schurick Doctrine strategy] is voter suppression.”

The defendants are claiming that the Schurick Doctrine was rejected as “too expensive” and was not carried out–but this does not explain why the robocalls seemed designed exactly along the plans the doctrine dictated, or why Paul Schurick, the Republican behind the doctrine, was in constant telephone contact with the man behind the robocalls throughout election night.

A defense being forwarded for the election fraud: free speech. Really. They are actually trying to use constitutionally protected free speech as a defense for attempting to deceive more than a hundred thousand voters, robbing them of their right to vote.

To these people, “free speech” is a punch line. The party line is that they cherish and protect individual freedoms, but they do more to violate them than anyone else–and want these rights to be effective only when they can be used to protect themselves from prosecution when they are found out.

This is the modern conservative movement: fraud, deception, perversion of civil rights, among many other things just as repellent and obscene. If you vote Republican, that’s a big part of what you are voting for.

To give you an idea of how out of proportion things are: in the state of California, if you go to a music shop and steal, say, three music CDs–let’s say with a total of thirty songs on them–worth about $48, and you are caught, then you will probably be charged with an infraction and fined a maximum of $250. No civil suit would be filed.

If, however, you go online and use filesharing to download the exact same thirty songs, you stand to be sued for $4.5 million, or 18,000 times the penalty for the same theft in physical form. Nor is that a meaningless number–that is the actual amount per song–$150,000–that many people have been sued for.

In theory, the difference is supposed to be due to the fact that file sharers distribute as well as download (ergo “sharing”). However, to reach a proportionate level of penalties to the physical theft, each file sharer would have to distribute a full copy of each song to 18,000 different people–something which is not just unlikely, but absurd. It’s roughly two terabytes of data (assuming less than 4 MB per song), which, with a rather high-speed 10 Mbps upload capacity running non-stop at full speed, would take two and a half weeks to accomplish.

Obviously, no one but the most dedicated file sharer imaginable could come close to uploading enough songs to merit the penalty–even if one assumes that file sharers participate as fully as any given average file sharer would, which means in reality that they would likely send small portions of some of the songs to a relatively small group of people (hundreds, perhaps, but more likely dozens).

This is even ignoring the logical impossibility of each file sharer being personally and fully responsible for the petty theft of 18,000 other people. Supposedly each fine is to cover the loss to all people shared to, but each person shared to also is equally liable–meaning that the penalties may be applied thousands of times over against the same people, amounting to vast multiple-jeopardy. At the very least, we see penalties for theft which are so absurd as to be criminal in and of themselves.

So, what merits the vastly disproportionate penalties?

In the end, one thing: money paid to lobbyists, who contribute to political campaigns, thus buying the ability to write laws saying whatever the hell you please. Laws passed by people whose duty, in theory, is to serve the very people the laws so disproportionately punish. Democracy at work.

Add to this that these penalties could be taken from people who downloaded nothing, but simply did not have the technological prowess to understand that their wireless network, set up by someone else, was not password-protected, in a lawsuit filed clear across the country in a courtroom they could not afford to reach, much less pay for an attorney to defend them.

There is something intrinsically wrong with a system which, even in theory, would allow this to happen.

Have you noticed that, in particular when Sarah Palin is concerned, the definition of a “Gotcha Question” seems to be, “Any question a conservative politician answers badly”? In other words, the definition of the question depends not on the question, but on the answer.

Take, for example, the most recent question Palin responded to about her museum visit. The question was, “What have you seen today and what are you going to take away from your visit?”

Sorry, but that’s not a “Gotcha Question.” I could answer that without ever having seen the museum; the stock answer would be that it was a rich cultural and historical experience which all Americans should share, yadda yadda. Palin tried to get specific, and, as a matter of course, came out sounding like an goofus. She “got” herself; the question was not the problem.

Neither was one of the first questions asked to Palin to be so categorized:

And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

What that boils down to is, “What do you read to stay informed?” Again, not a “Gotcha Question.” Even if you don’t want to be honest, just cite the major papers in Alaska, maybe online sources like The New York Times, stuff like that.

The fact is, these questions are not only far from being “Gotcha Questions,” they are arguably softballs, the kind of questions that politicians love to get because they can be answered quickly, uncontroversially, and can easily be used to segue into their favorite talking point. “What do you read to stay informed?” could be answered by citing one news source as an example, and then highlighting an article which the source published recently that concerned an issue you want to make a point about. Politics 101. Kindergarten stuff. That Palin went all deer-in-the-headlights did not make the question a “Gotcha,” it simply demonstrated how shallow and inept she is.

Conservatives, however, rail against these media questions as if the questions themselves were really objectionable, when, in fact, the media is nothing more than a convenient scapegoat upon which to heap blame and scorn whenever they wish to excuse or disguise their own failures. When you say something stupid, blame the media. Gingrich did this when he was asked about Medicare and gave his opinion. His opinion turned out to be highly unpopular with his party, and so Gingrich blamed the interviewer.

You know that it is dishonest when the judgment rests on political preference, and not on the facts. A similar example would be “legislating from the bench,” which should refer to judges who create laws where none exist (which right-wing judges do most often of all), but conservatives use it to mean “any legal decision we disagree with.”

The fact is, a “Gotcha Question” is one which is specifically designed to be tricky or devious, fully intended to trip up the respondent and make them look bad. If the question is easy and the respondent fouls up anyway, that does not reflect on the question. Now, if an interviewer had asked Palin, “On which continent would you find the nation of Papua New Guinea?” that would have been a “Gotcha Question”–as few Americans, probably even few politicians, would know the answer to that question–but flubbing a geography question could easily make a politician look dumb even when they aren’t.

Another kind of “Gotcha Question,” the worst kind, in fact, is the question designed to force a respondent into a lie which can then be exposed. If you have the goods on someone, but don’t let them know that you do, and them ask them a question about it that you know they will lie to–that’s the ultimate “Gotcha Question.”

Conservatives are entirely political in their judgment of such questions. They would without any doubt whatsoever despise such a question if a conservative were so set up, but there is as little doubt that their favorite question of all time remains, “Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky?” That was a “Gotcha Question” because the prosecutors knew Clinton had, they had evidence on it they could use, they did not inform Clinton of this, and they knew, even hoped, that he would lie under oath about it. That’s the “Gotcha Question” of all “Gotcha Questions.” But ask a right-winger if they think it was unfair, and they will deny it vehemently. They adore that question, will defend it utterly, and have no problems with it.

In contrast, being asked questions like “What do you read?” and “How was the museum visit?” simply don’t even come close to being “Gotcha Questions.”

As Jon Stewart pointed out, “It doesn’t make it a got-cha question just because it got-ya.”

Despite the fact that Palin’s representatives were allowed to block any specific emails being released if they wished, the right wing is seriously offended by the FOI release of Palin’s emails as governor. Seeing as how she was rather steeped in scandal at the time, it seems like a natural thing to happen. But don’t tell right-wingers that; despite Palin having virtually no hope for becoming president, or that it appears that nothing even approaching salacious will ever be gleamed from the release, they are furious that her privacy is being invaded like this. One reaction:

Greta Van Susteren, a Fox News journalist and one of the few members of the media trusted by Palin, labelled the treatment of Palin “a media colonoscopy” and suggested some news organisations were on “a mission to destroy”.

The Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine, on the National Review, suggested this:

Today reams of e-mails sent by Sarah Palin during her time as governor of Alaska will be released to the public. Before the full media circus begins, here’s a proposed rule to guide the discussion: anyone who wants to criticize the content of the Palin e-mails must first make all of his or her own e-mails available for others to read. Sound fair?

Strangely, I don’t recall any such objections being made when a conservative think tank in Michigan demanded the private emails of a large number of college professors in Michigan, despite there being no reason to do so save for union-bashing and intimidation of academics in general. Nor do I see any of them releasing their own private Twitter and Facebook records before jumping onto the right-wing scrum eviscerating Anthony Weiner.

As for being on “missions to destroy,” Andrew Breitbart, virtually a one-man mission-to-destroy machine, gets nothing but praise and air time from these right-wingers. So I don’t think they oppose the idea of being on a mission to destroy, but rather just object when it happens even a little bit in the other direction. That’s unforgivable.

Computerworld, as usual not seeing the whole picture:

Apple’s decision to sell the Mac OS X Lion upgrade through its own Mac App Store won’t hurt the company’s bottom line but will certainly impact traditional retailers, a market analyst said Friday.

“The Best Buys, the Staples, the PC Connections, they all still have a decent Mac software business,” said Stephen Baker of retail research firm NPD Group. “This will have an impact on all those guys. [The release of an OS upgrade] is always a good opportunity for them to connect to customers, get them into the store and thinking about upgrading their devices.”

That may be, but the real impact of Lion’s upgrade mechanism will be that it forces Apple users to use the App Store at all–something which many are doubtlessly avoiding as they hang on to traditional outlets. Once they are forced to use the App Store to download Lion, they may start looking around, could start finding some good deals, and might recognize that the App Store is a handy one-stop method of buying apps, as well as the later realization that it keeps them up-to-date on upgrades. If they also start seeing lower prices in general, they may start doing what shoppers did when firms like Amazon and Netflix swept them away–rarely if ever going to a brick-and-mortar store to buy media again. Apple started encroaching on the retail market with their own brick-and-mortar stores, now they are simply taking the next logical step–for Apple.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing for consumers? Depends on who you ask. The App Store does tend to be a convenience, and can help you find lower prices (perhaps because of its DRM nature). But what about competition? Well, frankly, there’s less of that in the Mac world. Especially with Apple’s stuff–they tend to control prices pretty firmly. There is probably a lot less comparison-shopping out there for Apple stuff than there is for PC stuff. One rather unfortunate side of the Apple world is that sellers assume that Apple users will pay higher prices for everything. I see this in Japan; stores like Labi, for instance, charge way more for Apple gear, despite it being essentially that same stuff as PCs use.

I think the argument could be made that Apple, despite its reputation for premium price tags, is actually saving consumers more–especially when it comes to stuff Apple doesn’t make. They made it a lot cheaper to buy music, no doubt about that–you usually don’t have to buy an album to get the one or two songs you want anymore, and albums themselves are now a lot cheaper digitally. And they made software cheaper with the App Store, especially on mobile platforms. And while some Apple stuff can be pricey, Apple does have its bargains. The iPad was certainly priced to move. And Apple’s office suite traditionally cost only $99, which may have led Microsoft to price their own suite down to a similar level–except now, in the App Store, the suite can be had for $60. And the OS upgrade for Apple, which previously was $130 and cheaper than Microsoft even then, is now $30, as we discover that Snow Leopard was not just an aberration. Let’s see Microsoft match that. I have a feeling that if they priced Windows Ultimate at $50 and MS Office at $75, they might not have as good a profit margin. Apple gets away with it because their profits are driven by hardware; Microsoft doesn’t have that cushion.

The only thing we can be sure of is that Apple will continue to try to slowly rake more and more business its way. Whether it will gain enough market share to let it charge more, or start charging more when it is able, is anyone’s guess. While certainly an outfit bent on making large profits, Apple is clearly not a consumer advocacy organization–but they do seem better at paying attention to customer needs than Microsoft.

Some before-and-after images taken during or just after the tsunami, and in the past week or so, showing the extent of progress made in the post-tsunami clean-up.

Hilarious idea from Chris Hayes, via Josh Marshall: David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer should make an “It Gets Better” commercial for Anthony Weiner. Marshall suggested adding Newt Gingrich, John Ensign, and others of similar ill repute in sex scandals. I say throw in John McCain.

In elections over the past twenty years or so, the media has rather noticeably leaned to the right. It forgives the right-wing candidate egregious faults and fallacies, and focuses disproportionately on those of the left-wing candidate.

In 2000, Gore’s Internet quote (which he never made) and his alleged “lies” (such as precisely which of many forest fires he had visited the scenes of with exactly which people) were hyped up as indicative of Gore’s “problem with the truth,” but far more serious issues and lies on the Bush side, including his drunk driving conviction, his record on education in Texas, his past with drugs, and much more, were given short shrift. Most of the tilt, however, was in smaller things–the kinds of photos the press chose to use, the polls they chose to quote, the specific stories they paid attention to. It added up.

This propensity showed up in 2004 as well (one small example: attention was given to the Swift-boaters, but not to Bush’s clearly faked security alerts), but flared significantly in 2008. McCain was allowed to duck and quickly forget all kinds of lies, flip-flops, and scandals, while Obama was criticized in the media for stuff that was far more tame, or even not true.

Case in point: On offshore drilling, McCain did a complete 180 within days, but the media more or less left him alone for that. Obama, meanwhile, was charged as being a flip-flopper when he did not change his policy or goals, but said he might accept a compromise with Congress on the issue. Earlier, McCain had even violated campaign finance laws but was given a bye from the media–while the press sounded huge alarms when Obama made the completely legal move of foregoing public financing of his campaign.

I laid it out at the time:

Think of it this way: what if Obama were the Republican and McCain were the Democrat? What if the Republicans had a youthful, charismatic, African-American candidate who was a great orator, and the Democrats were running a septuagenarian fuddy-duddy with a weird laugh and a so-so-speaking style? What if the Republican was outspending the Democrat four-to-one in advertising? What if the Republican was the one with consistent policies and the Democrat had flip-flopped on almost every issue? What if the Republican promised bigger tax cuts to the middle class, and the Democrat’s proposals were the ones promising to explode the deficit more? What if the Republican had a solid if not-so-exciting running mate while the Democrat chose a lightweight, far-left whacko? What if the Republican had a solid campaign organization running a competent 50-state policy while the Democrat’s campaign was in disarray? What if the Republican was standing tall while the Democrat was lying left and right and running a pathetic smear campaign?

Take all that, and then add the idea that the election comes after an 8-year Democratic presidency mired in war, corruption, and policy disaster ending with the biggest economic downturn in generations, and the Democrat was running on essentially the same policies as his predecessor?

I mean, seriously: are you freaking kidding me? The Republican would be ahead by huge margins. A landslide would be confidently predicted. There would simply be no question.

As I then pointed out, there were no end to the times you saw McCain do something stupid or repellent, and could say, “if Obama had done that, he’d be toast.” The media didn’t really care. They had their narrative, and were sticking to it. Yes, they do want an election to be more of a horse race than a blow-out–though when put to the test, I have no trouble believing they’d be OK with the Republican having a comfortable lead, and would not bother tilting back the other way to make it closer.

Well, it was bound to start sometime for 2012, and it has now. The Washington Post and ABC released a poll which showed Romney ahead of Obama, 49% to 46%–within the margin of error. Romney ahead, they declare; Obama has “lost his bounce,” the headlines shout. Do a Google News search, and about 500 stories come up.

Quinnipiac releases a poll which shows Obama ahead by six points, 47% to 41%, but only a few dozen sources in Google News carry it. The most prominent is the L.A. Times. Guess how they cover it? The headline: “Mitt Romney more competitive with Obama in poll, but religion remains a sticking point.” That’s the headline. “Mitt Romney More Competitive with Obama,” and the reason he’s not doing better is because of religious bigotry.

Worse, despite being an article about the Quinnipiac poll, it doesn’t mention that Obama leads Romney by 6 points until the tenth paragraph. Almost as an afterthought or something. People reading the article might even come away with the impression that Romney was ahead, especially if they stopped reading about half-way.

Yeah, no tilting here.

This is just the beginning. Be prepared for a long road cluttered with crap like this.

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz got into trouble somewhat for comparing Republican attempts to change voting laws to Jim Crow laws of old:

[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and – and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally – and very transparently – block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it’s nothing short of that blatant.

Andrew Sullivan, for example, puts Wasserman up for a “Moore Prize,” for “divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.”

Really?

Divisive? Are you divisive for trying to illegitimately suppress voters of the other party, or for calling that out? Bitter? Are you bitter for trying to suppress the opposition just because the opposition wins sometimes, or for getting upset when Democracy is subverted? Intemperate? Is it a sign that you lack control when you overtly attempt to steal elections, or when you make all-too-fitting analogies to richly illustrate the injustice being perpetrated?

I do not see this as inappropriate at all–and am rather surprised that Wasserman took it back. Sure, the Republicans are not trying to suppress only black votes, and when they are, it is not because of the color of their skin. Remember the Michigan Republican back in 2004 who said, outright and repeatedly, that they had to “suppress the Detroit vote”–Detroit being a predominantly black city in a predominantly white state? Remember back in 2000 when Katherine Harris arranged the “felons list” in Florida that just “happened” to illegally disenfranchise thousands of legitimate black voters?

Yes, they are trying to pass laws that would stop blacks from voting–but not for the same reasons as the original Jim Crow laws. Those laws only targeted blacks.

This is worse.

Republicans are trying to suppress the votes of many groups this time–not just blacks, but most minorities, in addition to women, the poor, and college students.

In short, anyone who votes Democratic. I would not suggest that either Pappageorge or Harris were racists–I think they would have been just as happy to disenfranchise white Democrats.

How is that better than Jim Crow laws? It is a bit different, to be sure–Jim Crow laws were more focused on oppressing people than they were on changing the results of election. But is the new Jim Crow really better? In both cases, a specific class of people are being oppressed–blacks with old laws, liberals with the new laws. They just widened their scope.

Is it much better that now the reason behind it is an attempt to corrupt and subvert Democracy and grab power illegitimately rather than just to oppress a group because of racism?

And while the focus of the laws are political rather than racist, the methods are essentially the same–find some indirect way to identify the people you are oppressing as different, and use that as a filter, creating laws which intend to rob people of their votes based on that filter. If you are a college student (which means you’re more likely to vote Democratic) you change your address when moving back and forth in the summer; if you got screwed in the foreclosure game you’re more likely to vote Democratic, but you also had to move–so make laws that penalize people who change their address. If you are poor and have to work long, hard hours and it’s difficult to get around and spend time on non-essential tasks–make laws which require people to get special IDs, and restrict voting hours, making it harder for them to get through. And yes, suppress black votes as well, because they vote Democratic. And take down any organization which is doing the reverse of what you are doing–trying to enable minorities and the poor to vote.

Shame on Andrew Sullivan and all those who think it’s bitterly divisive to call out Republicans for what is essentially Jim Crow II, Jim Crow on a much wider scale, for no less hateful a motive–and certainly an even more corrupt one. This new effort by the right wing deserves to be called “Jim Crow,” and much worse.

Now that we’ve been here almost two months (Has it been that little time? Were we really still in that 21st-floor apartment in Ikebukuro only a little more than a year ago? Jeez…), it’s probably about time to do a wind-up on the whole home-buying process here.

For me, buying a home was a no-brainer. If you pay rent, you get nothing back, assured. You buy a home, and yes, something terrible could happen and you could lose it all–but it’s much less likely that you would come out worse than you would if you instead paid a hundred grand per decade and got nothing back. For about a quarter of a century I paid rent, more than a quarter of a million dollars I won’t ever see again. For the first half of that, I was moving about and buying a house was not a really strong option anyway, and for three quarters of that time, I didn’t really have enough for a down payment anyway. But after getting married and having enough for a fairly healthy down payment, it really didn’t make much sense to keep renting.

When Sachi and I moved in together, we were both working, and could afford a more expensive place; we got our Ikebukuro apartment, on the 21st floor of a big building that was a few minutes away from pretty substantial shopping, about a 15-minute walk from one of the biggest stations in Tokyo. We paid about 250,000 yen a month in rent (roughly $3100, ouch). Some time into that, Sachi stopped working and started studying, and out of inertia we stayed, until it was pretty clear that we simply could not sustain that. By that time, we had already started contacting real estate agents and looking at properties.

Knowing that we would not get a house immediately, though, prompted us to move to a cheaper apartment, so we moved to Hibarigaoka. The apartment was much bigger (about 90m²), and was 60% of the cost, or 150,000 yen ($1870). We were still 15 minutes from an express station, but it was a 15- to 20-minute express train in to Ikebukuro, moving us that much farther out. This was much more in line with our budget, relieving some of the pressure to make a purchase that much sooner.

One thing I looked forward to: the mortgage payments on a house amount to somewhat less than the rent for a place just as big. We could own a nicer place than our apartment and pay less, and much of what we paid would eventually come back to us. In more ways than one, this promised to be a money-saver.

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When you first start looking, the first thing to consider is the location. In Tokyo, that means focusing on train lines and stations. Ideally, you want something which has good options for transportation, and that means a train line convenient for where you expect to go to work, but also easy transfers or line conjunctions that allow you to go almost anywhere else with as little difficulty as possible.

We first started looking in a place called Kosugi, just across the Tama River from Tokyo in Kawasaki. It’s on the Tokyu Toyoko Line, which runs between Shibuya and Yokohama, with through connections to the Hibiya Line and, in a few years, the Fukutoshin Line–meaning that you could step on a train in Kosugi and it would be bound directly for the Hibiya or Fukutoshin Line destinations.

We looked at places in Kosugi itself, which has excellent shopping and, being close to the river, nice park areas, but discovered that we were late to the game–Kosugi has been a popular area for some time now, has been expanding, and so is fairly expensive. We found that in stations a bit further out, like Hiyoshi or even Kikuna (both express stations), nicer places could be found.

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The next thing you want to decide on, in Japan, at least, is whether to get a house or a mansion, what the Japanese call a condominium. Mansions are very popular in Japan, and do have some attractions: they are usually located closer to the station, you don’t have to worry about maintenance or do any yard work, and often you get a nice view, if you can get a unit high up enough. For me, however, this wasn’t enough. While mansions are often located close to stations, you could get homes close in, too. I also found that mansions really did not provide any price advantage–in fact, for the same price and general location, houses tend to have more floor space. With mansions, neighbor problems are more an issue than with a house; you share walls with them, and more people are closer to you. Also, mansions come with rules that must be obeyed, and you can’t just do anything you want with the property without having to get other people’s consent.

But most of all, it just didn’t make sense as an investment. For me, the house is a possible fallback for retirement; when we’re 65 or 70, we could sell the place and that would help augment our retirement finances. With a mansion, after living there for 20 or 25 years, what you have is an old apartment in an old building–not the most attractive purchase. Even with a home purchase, after that long, the building is worth very little if anything at all–and with a mansion, the building is pretty much all you’ve got. Some mansions have communal agreements to completely renovate the structure every x-number of years, but that not necessarily a deal-saver. In the end, owning a mansion is essentially like owning a small sliver of land that is inextricably locked in with dozens of other land-sliver owners.

Buying a house made much more sense. You own the whole land, which is at least two-thirds, maybe three quarters of the whole cost. The resale price will be at least the value of the land, and establishes a base value that rises or falls no more or less than that of a mansion. In the end, the options for selling are more attractive. In addition, with a house, you make your own rules, for the most part. (For example, we can get any dog we want, while most mansions either forbid any dogs or limit the size you can own.) There are fewer immediate neighbors. There is more floor space. Yes, there is yard work and other maintenance, but it’s your house. That intangible counts for quite a bit.

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By this time, you should be thinking about the house loan. When I first applied, I was rejected. Sachi already was engaged in a loan with her family, and could not act as my co-signer. I had a good chunk of change for a down payment, and I had a good, steady, well-paying job I had held for a dozen years. However, they told me that my visa standing was the deal-breaker. Although eligible, I had not applied for permanent residency. Do that, they told me, and they would consider giving me the loan. So I did, and eventually got that loan. I am not sure if having the permanent residency outweighs the co-signer benefit, if I would have been approved on a working visa had Sachi been able to co-sign for me. She couldn’t, so it never came up.

The loan is also important to consider because it helps determine your price range. For such-and-such a down payment, with a loan stretching out so many years, at such-and-such a monthly payment, you could calculate the price range you could afford.

Interest on the loan is very low; we’re paying a shade over 1%–though that could increase over time. Japan’s interest rates are usually a good deal lower than American rates, in any case. Also, property taxes are very affordable here (again, that could potentially change, but does not appear to be about to do so).

When we did the calculation, we got our price range, which was not too bad. We could afford a place not too far from a decent station, with maybe between 80 and 100 square meters of floor space. That was what we felt we wanted, minimum. So far, so good.

Another consideration in getting the loan is the insurance check. If you cannot qualify for life insurance of a certain kind or level, they won’t want to give you the loan. Which means you have to be in at least reasonable health for a person of your age.

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So, by now, I knew I wanted a house, and once I got permanent residency, my chances at getting cleared for a loan were good. By this time, we had settled in Hibarigaoka, and found that we liked it as a prospect better than the Kosugi area. We had also checked out many other areas, but were limited by various preferences. One was that I didn’t want to live too close in to central Tokyo, as I value floor space more than proximity to town–but Sachi preferred closeness, and would not accept a place too far out. That gave us only a narrow range, a kind of irregular ring surrounding central Tokyo. I preferred west of central Tokyo, as my work is on this side of the Yamanote, and I have always lived in this general area and I like it.

While we looked at areas on the Keio and other lines, this area stood out better. The Seibu Ikebukuro Line is a good one; aside from going into Ikebukuro, there are direct through connections to the Yurakucho and Fukutoshin subway lines. Between those three lines, you could make connections to go almost anywhere with a minimum of fuss. Compare this with the Seibu Shinjuku Line, for example–that line has no through connections, and the terminus, while in Shinjuku, is a bit of a walk to any other train line. The Seibu Ikebukuro, at least, now gives me a direct train to the station closest to my job. While we looked at properties between Shakuji Koen and Kiyose, Hibarigaoka appealed to us as an express stop with good amenities and reasonable prices. A direct express train takes 30 minutes to get to Shinjuku, while a local train takes 42.

Hibarigaoka is also a fairly nice station area. There are two department stores and many restaurants and other businesses in the area. Parks are not too abundant, but there are enough in the neighborhood, and a whopping big one on the south side of the station. Eventually, we narrowed our search down to this area.

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While selecting a real estate agent can be more or less a crap shoot, it can be important. Using more than one is a bit redundant, as they all tend to have the same list to choose from.

A warning, though–and this is where the only major down point came in our experience–no matter how nice, helpful, or resourceful the agent is, never forget that their only concern is to get your money. We let ourselves forget this, and paid for it.

We chose a realtor close to where we lived, Seibu Kaihatsu to be specific. The agent we got was as congenial and helpful as you would expect, especially here in Japan. He showed us a variety of locations, was patient and generous with his time, and had a very friendly and easygoing manner.

But at one point, he screwed us, and good. In net terms, it may not have cost us a penny or changed our final decision at all, but at the very least he royally pissed me off and robbed me of much of the joy of buying my first, and likely only home.

It was, in fact, when we had narrowed our search down to our current house. I was content to search for as long as it took, so I could get the right place. I was ready to spend a few years in the search, if need be. It was hard to do–you would see a place that was almost what you wanted, and had to gamble between getting a good place and waiting for something better which might not ever come.

When we got to this place, we were mostly sold on it. It was the right size, distance, and general location. The floor plan could have been better, or so it certainly seemed, but for the price, it was pretty attractive.

It was at this point that the agent sold us on putting down a deposit with the developer that had built the house. And here’s where he screwed us: he led us to believe that this was just something to hold the property, so no one else would take it, while we looked at it and made the final decision. He knew we were first-timers, and by this time, had a sharp sense of what we knew and didn’t know.

When he put this idea forward, the idea sounded plausible; the property could still be showcased, but putting money down would demonstrate that we were serious enough, and they could get interest off the money in the meantime, something which a corporation making many such transactions might appreciate more than a private seller.

Still, I was suspicious; this was, after all, a million yen (about $12,500), and while that might have been enough to profit the holder in terms of interest income while not costing them much in sales opportunities, it was still an appreciable chunk.

So I asked the agent, to be clear–if we decide not to buy, we get the money back, right? His answer was in the usual floral language in which clarity evades me, but between Sachi translating and my re-asking the question, the answer came through as a clear “yes.” So we got the money and came in to make the deposit.

When we did so, I began by asking again: if we decide not to buy, we get all of the money back, right? We have one month to look and think, and if we say, “we don’t like the house,” the developer returns the whole deposit, yes? The agent assured us, though he pointed out that the 15,000 yen ($187) in revenue stamps would not be returned. No mention of bank loans or any contingent events, just “yes, the money is refundable.”

Then he laid out a lengthy contract, and we went over it line by line. Again, my suspicion was roused–why such a big contract for just holding the property while we thought? In the back and forth, Sachi said that the realtor explained this was to set things up, so if we decided to buy, we would be ready to go. It sounded strange, but I really had no idea how things were done.

When we got to the part about refunding the deposit, the language in the contract was far less than clear. One last time, I asked the question, putting it as clearly as I could. If we decide not to buy, the million yen, though not the revenue stamp fee, gets returned in full, right? I tried my best to establish that it was contingent on our decision to buy or not. Again, he answered in the affirmative. No mention of conditionals. This is not just my memory–I was taking notes, I have them right here. I remember phrasing my question as carefully as I could and asking Sachi to translate. I even remember feeling a bit sheepish about repeating it so much, but I wanted to be sure.

So we signed. By now, you must think we were huge suckers. Maybe we were. But we had built up a relationship with this guy, he seemed to be working a good deal for us (he had talked the developer’s price down by about $50,000), and he had repeatedly assured me on this particular point. I simply hadn’t considered the idea that he would lie to us so baldly.

A few weeks into this “consideration” period, I started finding a few concerns. Nothing that was deal-breaking, but things that I wanted reassurances over, and points which I felt we could negotiate with the seller over. I mentioned these to the agent as we viewed the house one day, and after the viewing, I had to go to work, while Sachi went to the realtor’s office to go over some details.

I got a distressed call from Sachi later that afternoon: the realtor was suddenly claiming that the deposit was non-refundable, and if we backed out of the deal, we would lose not only all of that money, but also a significant sum to cover his commission.

I was livid. I called him up and complained. He came to our apartment, by this time it was 11:00 pm, and we had a confrontation. The guy was as unrepentant as he was dishonest–politely and firmly. He claimed, to our faces, that what he had told us was that we could get the money fully refunded only if the bank refused to give us the loan. Otherwise, we were committed and would lose the money if we decided to back out.

He called it a “misunderstanding.” I call it “bullshit.” The three times I had asked, he never mentioned a bank loan. I know the vocabulary for that, and had he mentioned it, I would have known it and asked about how it played into it. I had asked him three times, and though my Japanese is not perfect, I knew I had expressed, clearly, that I saw this as hinging purely on our decision to buy or not. He simply stuck to his story about the bank loan contingency.

In the end, we had nothing but words which could not be proven–our word against his. He had a signed contract, which, if a lawyer were to read it, said what he said he told us. But the language was not clear–Sachi, for example, read it directly, but did not see the catch–only in hindsight, being told what to look for, did she notice that contingency.

Clearly, the realtor knew this to be a hook he could use, and I have little doubt he has used it often. I am pretty sure that many Japanese would either quietly eat it, or even see themselves to blame. And yes, I was to blame as far as you can be to blame for getting scammed–but in the context of fair dealing, we were right and this guy was wrong. That didn’t help us, though–we were now in a position of either buying the house, or losing tens of thousands of dollars. Of course, as much as we could, we took the mindset of accepting the loss rather than getting a place we didn’t want–but it is impossible to truly know that it had no effect on our final decision. Maybe, free of any penalty, we would have given up on what could have been an acceptable choice, opting instead to keep looking. And maybe we wouldn’t have found anything as good, who knows.

However, this was not just about that. Buying a house is cool. It’s fun. Yes, there is worry, stress, second-guessing–but all of that is ameliorated by the joy of buying a home you can call your own.

That joy was pretty much crushed by what the agent did to us, souring the entire experience. I am pretty sure that we would have bought this house anyway–but now I cannot be absolutely sure. I will always think back on the purchase of this home as possibly being a decision that was coerced.

Furthermore, since we were committed to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, we suddenly had no negotiation leverage. For example, the house was not supplied with some amenities that houses sometimes come with–screen doors, hanger rods in the closets, little stuff like that. Things that would cost us much more than it would the developer, stuff we could not include in the loan and would have to be paid for up-front. I was mentioning some of these things to the realtor in the context of getting the developer to throw them in as part of the package–and that’s probably what prompted him to let on to what he had done to us.

Maybe it was just this one agent, maybe this kind of thing happens wherever you go. But my advice: steer clear of Seibu Kaihatsu. And whatever agency you do choose, don’t sign a thing and don’t hand over a single yen unless you know you’re ready to buy. Maybe this would have been obvious to you and we were just dumb hicks, but all the same, keep in mind that the agent is not your friend.

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That drama aside, let’s get back to the general narrative on home-buying.

So, we decided to buy a house, not a mansion; we settled on the Hibarigaoka area; and we knew what our general price range was.

There are three common options you can go for in buying a house: used, pre-built, and building on land.

Used is difficult, as homes for sale tend to be older and flawed in some ways. Structural damage, musty smells, custom changes by previous owners which may not suit you, etc. We visited some used properties, but didn’t see any used buildings that had been renovated and looked like new. No warranties on the structure. Insurance would likely cost more. Older structures often don’t live up to current building codes, and might not weather things like earthquakes as well. The building might not take more modern accessories, like fiber optic cabling or cable TV connections. Locations were good and prices were low, but the houses were no great deals.

Buying land is a nice option, if you can find the land, get a builder you can trust, and get the design you want. That way, you get to design the house yourself and ask for the little custom changes that you might not get otherwise. A little room under the stairs for the dog. A bath closer to the master bedroom. Exactly the garden space you hoped for. A door from the kitchen to the outside. A dishwashing machine or western-style oven. A better living-dining layout to take the best advantage of space. More closet space. A small loft. The home office in just the right place. Ethernet jacks throughout the house. An electrical socket outside for outdoor tool use or even Christmas lights. And so on. There are firms that will listen to all the things you want and design a place to your specifications. It might end up costing a little more, but might be worth it in the end. We were following this parallel track until the agent derailed us with his “misunderstanding” about the deposit.

The last option is to buy a pre-made home. Developers will buy a property and build homes, based on what I don’t know, but I assume that at least part of it is based on what they can assemble most economically. The big advantages are in terms of overall price and immediate move-in–you don’t have to start monthly mortgage payments to the bank while the structure is planned and built. On the other hand, it will probably never be exactly what you wanted in a house. In our place, for example, I don’t think I would have made the shower in a straight line-of-sight with the front door, so as to cause an accidental flashing if a shower exit, open bathroom door, and unexpected caller all happen at the same time. Smaller details about the pre-built home might not fit exactly–the shade or quality of the flooring, the type of wall coverings, the moldings or railings, the choices for built-in appliances, etc.

You might want to look for any possible deals among those categories, not ruling any one of them out.

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After those basic decisions, it’s a matter of looking and getting to understand the details involved. there are a lot of variables, and you have to weigh them all in your final decision. Here’s a basic list:

Distance from the station: a classic Japanese consideration. Unless you plan on having and regularly using a car or cars, this will be something you will have to take into account. You don’t want to be so far away that it is a major trek, especially as shopping tends to be clustered around stations. However, the closer you are to the station, the closer you may be to train noise, including railroad crossing alarms. We wanted something closer in than a 15-minute walk, but preferred closer than 10.

General neighborhood: what shops are close by? What is the general quality of the area? Are there things that could affect resale value? For example, our house is built on land that could, in twenty years, be bought by the city to put in new roads. It’s part of a city plan that may or may not ever come to fruition. Even the address can make a difference–we live a block away from Niiza City in Saitama Prefecture–but our Nishi-Tokyo address, in Tokyo Prefecture, adds value to our home.

Immediate neighborhood: Japan often has irregular zoning. Your house might be next to a small factory, a schoolyard, a cemetery, or a karaoke bar. Is there any business nearby which has trucks coming in at 4:00 a.m., making loud beeping sounds? Do the neighbors have little kids? Are there noisy pets? Our place is right next to the parking lot of a fitness center; the cars don’t make much noise, but the warning buzzer as cars leave is a bit of an annoyance. There’s also a Muay Thai gym a few doors down across the way; you can hear the punching and kicking in the evening if you have the windows open. But we’re OK with these, for the most part. (Mostly we’re waiting for the new home construction next door to stop.) Access is also an issue–we’re rather easy to find, but we earlier turned down a place that would have involved difficult directions and resulted in many a lost house guest.

You have to look at the location in four dimensions, in fact. A private parking lot just to the south could become a construction site at any time, and if it’s big enough, it might be a mansion that will block out the sun or at least ruin the view, if you have one. Our south side has another house under construction, so we know what will be there, for the near future in any case.

Size of the plot of land: We hoped for at least 100 square meters (1076 square feet). One thing to keep in mind is what amount you are allowed to build on. Many properties restrict the footprint of the building to be no more than 50% of the property area. Others allowed 80%. The size of the plot also restricts the total floor space in the building–often restricted to no more than double the maximum footprint. If you get a plot of land too small, you can’t always just build higher; it may determine the floor space available to you.

Shape of the plot of land: Some land plots are not your basic rectangles. Some have arms stretching out to give street access. You might have a larger plot but be unable to utilize a good chunk of it. Also watch out for regulations about certain areas required to be empty on the street side, or leaving clearance to adjacent lots, etc.

Outdoor amenities: Is there a parking space? Most places have one, but often it’s noting more than just concrete to squeeze a car onto it. Is there a garden space, and if so, is it in sunlight enough to plant what you want? Is the balcony space what you need? Where will you park your bikes? Can you put a shed somewhere if you want?

Layout: How is the house interior designed? That living-dining area may look spacious, but when you actually try to place furniture in it, you might find that a good amount of that area is unusable–you can’t put anything there without blocking passage, and it just winds up being wasted space. Look at the living room–where will the TV, sofa, chairs, etc. go? There may not actually be a way to set things up the way you imagined. My solution was to set up the floor plan on InDesign, where I could measure things down to the centimeter, and then try putting furniture in there. That saved me a bad purchase at one point–the floor plan looked nice, but would have been a nightmare to live in. Then there are considerations I mentioned above, like shower-front door placement, and proximity of the bath to the bedroom.

Rooms: What will you use the rooms for? Where will all your stuff go? Will everything really fit? With housing being as cramped as it is in Japan, that’s a real problem sometimes. Will the kitchen be too narrow after those cabinets go in? What space will be left over once you put that double bed where you want it?

I’m sure there are things I am missing here, but these come to me right now as being some of the bigger considerations.

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When you are looking, unless there is some pressing deadline you have no say about, take your time. Don’t feel pressure to take the first acceptable place you see. Ignore the realtor when he claims that most people, in retrospect, realize that the first place they saw was actually the best. Don’t worry about somebody else snatching up the place; that may happen, and so be it. Make yourself comfortable with spending a full year or more looking at places, if need be. Consider it a part-time hobby. Sure, maybe a better place than this one your found won’t come along–but time is usually on your side, or at least this is my impression.

Don’t be afraid to ask any and all questions, or to ask to visit the developer’s office, where they’ll explain everything about construction methods, how the house passed inspections, where it rates in terms of those checks, and what features there are–for example, the earthquake-proofing, the insulation methods (our place: styrofoam, apparently), or the techniques to protect against mold or termite damage, and so on.

When you do find a place that you like, then you will do what we were misled into doing too soon: you’ll be asked to put down money as a deposit while the bank considers your loan. The contract is long, and you go over every section with the realtor.

You are going to need a hanko, a “chop,” or seal with your name on it. Usually these are wood or some artificial substitute, about a centimeter in diameter and maybe four or five centimeters long, with a kanji (possibly katakana) impression of your name on the stamp side. It must be registered with the city office–though be careful after that, as the chop will then equal your signature, and if someone dishonest gets it, you could be screwed. In a home purchase, you will be using this chop a lot. I mean, seriously, a lot. Sometimes it seems like every piece of paper needs to be stamped, twice–and there are lots of papers. You will also learn your address pretty darned well, as you will have to write that personally a lot, in this step and most others. And no, no one else can do it for you, it has to be in your hand.

You then hand over the deposit (ours was a million yen, I don’t know if that’s typical but I assume so), and wait for the loan approval. This involves a visit to the bank to make the formal application, with the usual dozens of forms and stamps. You get a lecture on interest rates, and how you can switch between low variable and higher fixed rates for varying periods of time.

After this happens, you’ll also be required to decide on insurance. The cost is pre-paid and is covered by the loan. The main structure of the house comes under a 10-year warranty if you buy new, but you will want insurance to cover various types of damage, including fire, theft, flood, etc. Insurance to pay for damage to other homes if a fire from your home damages them. Optional earthquake insurance, in five-year chunks instead of the twenty for the main insurance. Do you want insurance for the structure only, or for your personal possessions as well? How much coverage?

If the bank approves, then the sale goes forward. If not, then you’re in trouble–because if one bank turns you down for reasons you cannot change (health, financial standing, etc.) then it is considered unlikely that other banks will approve you. Nonetheless, you can try; I was ready to try Citibank, for example, should the Japanese banks say no for some reason. I have no actual idea if they would have been any different, but I would not have given up.

When the loan was approved, we went back to the bank, and, once again, went through an hour or so of writing my name and address a dozen times and applying my chop to each form.

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So, now we have our place–or, at least, are beginning to pay off the 33-year loan. Two payments down, 394 to go. Unless we pay off more quickly–you can pay more than is scheduled, along certain rules and plans. I hope that we can do this, otherwise we won’t own the house until we’re 79 years old. I asked the bank, by the way, if they would agree to a base plan where I paid more per month over a shorter time. They said no.

So now, including property tax and other expenses, we’re paying less per month than we were paying in rent at our last apartment–with roughly the same floor space (some of it wasted on stairs, but not too much). On paper, the place looks small, but as it turns out, the rooms are about exactly what we need–less space would cramp us badly, but more space would not be necessary, so we don’t miss it much. The house has an “LDK”–Living room, dining room, kitchen–plus a spare room (Sachi will use for her home business) on the first floor. On the second floor are three rooms–the master bedroom, my home office, and a third room we use as an upstairs living room, with reclining sofa-chairs and the TV and media stuff. There are toilets on both floors, and the shower/bath/dressing room is on the first floor.

Small things have come up. After the earthquake and resulting power crisis (that hit just after we found ourselves semi-committed, further complicating things), the train lines were irregular for some time–and when they came back to full schedules, they had taken the opportunity to change things. One change: they limited the number of through trains to the Fukutoshin. This is a pain, as now my options are less than they were before. But not a travesty or anything.

That buzzer in the parking lot next door is proving to be more of a pain than it seemed when we were looking at the place before we bought it. It’s livable, and I will probably stop noticing it after a while. But for now, it’s a tad grating. I’d consider going to the place and asking them to consider toning it down, replacing it with something else, or even eliminating it–I’m not sure if it is legally required or not–but I have the feeling it won’t be something they’ll change. Maybe a baffle or dish to focus the sound away from us.

Otherwise, we’re happy. The interior soundproofing is pretty good, so we have relative quiet indoors. Too good, in fact, sometimes–Sachi was yelling at me to come down for dinner and I couldn’t hear her, especially if I was wearing headphones, but even without. It was leading to friction until I went to a home center and bought a wireless ringer–when Sachi presses a button in the kitchen now, I get a chime and flashing light.

The doors are nice–they close silently, and have cool little magnetized gizmos set in the floor to hold them fully open. Water pressure is great, and it only takes a few seconds for hot water to come out-mostly because the water heater (in Japan, it’s just that–it immediately heats the water, and has no holding tank) is situated close to the bath and kitchen. However, aside from the toilet and its hand washlet, there is no running water upstairs. The toilet seats, as I feared when we first saw the finished place, are a shade smaller than usual (a problem for me, not for Sachi), and the bowls are shallow at the front (also a problem for me but not Sachi–now if I lean forward too much, there’s a cold shock!). But the flush is well-designed, and the bathrooms, though lacking ventilation fans, somehow don’t hold odors like our old apartment toilets did.

And finally, sometimes you just realize that this is your house, and that’s pretty cool. Everything is working fine–and yes, I know, wait ten years and things will change–but for now, it’s a new house.

So far, so good.

Well, no touch-screen Macs. Could come in the future, though–they tend to limit the keynotes to fill 2 hours, no more, and this one was full.

Lion, a full OS upgrade, for $30, for up to 5 machines. I’d love to see Microsoft match that.

MobileMe now defunct. Um, do I get a prorated refund?

Looks like there are so many smaller features to both OS X and iOS geared towards the general user experience, it’ll take a while to digest it all. Autosave, Versions, and Resume should make using apps a smoother experience. The Cloud for photos could be a nice way to collect and sift/sort through photos–depends on how they set it up and how flexible it is.

Too much for this late….

I do like Bill Maher’s show, but sometimes it gets me as upset as the CNN show Crossfire used to, in that obvious right-wing lies get spewed without any rebuttal from Maher or his left-wing or moderate guests–even when the lies are obvious and the rebuttals well-known.

His panel guests this week were Melissa Harris-Perry, Rick Lazio, and Larry King. Harris-Perry, the liberal, is a writer and former professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton. Rick Lazio, the conservative, is a former Republican Congressman from New York.

Lazio was spouting all kinds of BS throughout the show. One of his big points was about how the stimulus failed–that it did not accomplish anything, and had in fact a negative effect. He trotted out the tired old statistic that When Obama took office, the unemployment rate was 7.8% and it went up to 10.1% from there.

Forget that Lazio, like all conservatives, forgets to mention that in the previous year, under Bush, the rate jumped from 5.0% to 7.8%–a more significant jump–or that it was on an upward incline when Obama took office, meaning that inertia was bound to carry it that way.

I say to forget that because they are moot points. What nobody said on the panel, and everyone should have known, is the well-known fact that unemployment is a lagging indicator, and it usually takes three quarters for changes in the real world to be reflected in the unemployment rate.

Taking into account an accurate reading of the unemployment rate, we see that Bush took unemployment all the way from 5% in January 2008 to 10.1% in October 2009. That’s three quarters after he left office, so that’s when his effect stopped. Obama’s effects are seen from that point onward–which means that Obama has seen the unemployment rate down from 10.1% to the current 9.1%. That’s still a sucky number, but the idea that Obama’s policies made unemployment increase are a bald-faced lie–and I think Lazio knows that full well. It just makes for an easy talking point that’s much harder to explain is wrong–but shame on Maher and Harris-Perry for not catching something they should, by now, know well.

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But that’s only half the lie shot down–the other half is that the stimulus failed. I have covered that in depth in this post, pointing out that job creation was plummeting to staggering depths and showed no sign of improving–but when Obama came in to office and instituted the stimulus, the numbers turned on a dime, in a way they never do naturally, and shot straight back up in the opposite direction.

Again, we have not yet returned to the place we’d like to be. Job creation is still lackluster–but light-years better than Bush left us with. The stimulus worked, and worked magnificently. The only problem is that we needed more than magnificent, we needed miraculous. And we could have gotten that, had the stimulus had more spending on things like infrastructure and less in the way of tax cuts for people who didn’t need them, as Krugman pointed out. And who was mostly responsible for changing the stimulus into something half as much as it needed to be? Well, Obama let them do it, but in the end, it was the Republicans who short-circuited the recovery. The stimulus itself worked.

Harris-Perry gets credit for making that last point–that we needed more spending–but she did not make the whole point. Granted, she’s not an economist, but she missed the greater argument which could have sent Lazio down in flames.

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Lazio also made the argument that Obama has failed to pull us out of the economy, and used other recessions to make that point, noting that “in 1982, Reagan inherited a 10 or 11% unemployment rate; coming out of that recession, they ended up creating about 14 million jobs.” Guess what? Lies.

OK, first, the unemployment rate was 7.5% when Reagan entered office. Taking the lagging indicator into account, we move to October, when it was 7.9%. Then it became Reagan’s figure, and over the following year, rose to 10.8%. It then stayed in double digits until June 1983, almost two and a half years after Reagan took office, and did not drop below Reagan’s inherited 7.9% until February 1984.

Had Obama performed like that, Lazio would be even more aggressive in his criticism. Instead, he trots Reagan out as the hero standing heads and shoulders above Obama. A liar and a hypocrite.

Also, remember that Lazio held Obama responsible for the unemployment rate the moment he took office–by that metric, Reagan did not lower unemployment below his inherited rate until May 1984–a full year later in his term than where Obama is now. Even more hypocrisy.

Next, the 1981 recession started in July 1981, six months after Reagan entered office. Again, Lazio claims Obama immediately owned unemployment, a 9-month lagging indicator, but Reagan “inherited” a recession that began six months after he took over. I will not argue that Reagan was responsible for the recession, but that Lazio is being brazenly dishonest in comparing the two.

Furthermore, Lazio expects Obama to pull out of a recession twice as deep as the 1981 recession even faster than Reagan pulled out of his.

Worse, Lazio then uses a job creation number–14 million jobs–that spans the whole of Reagan’s two terms in office. Obama hasn’t had that kind of time yet–but in the past 14 months, 1.8 million new jobs have been created. What’s more, if you compare the number of jobs created relative to the 820,000 that were lost in his first month in office, where Bush left him–taking that as a baseline, 20 million jobs are now held that would not have been had we just maintained that level. That’s an artificial number, of course, job loss could not have been sustained long at that level–but it demonstrates the hole Obama has dug us out of.

Another way of looking at it: Starting a full year after each president took office, allowing each one time to dig himself out of whatever hole the previous occupant had dug for him, Obama has created a net total of 1.6 million jobs. Over the same period in his first term, Reagan lost 1.25 million jobs.

Despite the fact that Obama was handed the worst recession since the Great Depression, and when Reagan took office, there was not yet a recession and he had positive job growth.

These lies are blatant, egregious, and hypocritical to the extreme–but went almost unanswered on the show.

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On this show, even Larry King managed to frustrate me. First of all, King tried to take the moral high ground in the Edwards case, making a very pointed remark that “In the era of 24 hour news, he’s judged guilty already, right? I believe in not guilty till proven, so why don’t we wait?”

This incensed me because, back in 2000, when Chandra Levy went missing, The Larry King Show more or less became the Let’s Convict Gary Condit in the Public Eye Show, with Nancy Grace on all the time proclaiming his guilt, with Ann Coulter, Barbara Olsen, and Laura Ingraham echoing her, and King himself casting aspersions. During July and August, King hosted roughly 40 shows on the topic, almost every night, in fact, until 9/11 took over the headlines. He issued a “standing invitation” for Condit to appear on his show, and repeatedly hammered away at how Condit not “coming forward” made him look suspicious.

This, in fact, is what made me stop watching his show. Keep in mind that King stood to profit handsomely were Condit to appear on his show. Keep in mind that King himself was perhaps the primary reason the case remained in the public attention for so long, placing even more pressure on Condit. Also keep in mind that if you have been wrongly accused of a crime and might stand trial, appearing on TV and talking about the case is the most monumentally stupid thing you could ever do, and any lawyer would tell you that immediately.

Nevertheless, King, on his show, said that he found it dubious that Condit was not appearing on TV and spilling his guts–King said that it’s what he would do, and he found it telling that Condit was not doing it, supporting the idea that Condit was guilty, or at least sure looked that way.

So, to have King now acting all non-judgmental, criticizing the TV talking heads for jumping to conclusions, after what he did to Condit–that just struck me as the most hypocritical thing imaginable. Well, almost–Republicans tend to do stuff that bad on a daily basis, but outside of that.

Maybe King has changed his beliefs on this and regrets what he did to Condit–who was eventually cleared of wrongdoing–but he sure hasn’t said so, not that I know of.

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Then he said something almost as stupid:

I’ve been interviewing economists over the years. Answer me something. The deficit. I’ve heard about the deficit for fifty years. Did the deficit ever call you? Did the deficit–what did the deficit ever do to you? I don’t understand what the deficit does…

Hmm. Let’s see. The deficit adds to the debt. The debt is currently over $14 trillion. Last year alone, we paid more than $400 billion just to service the debt, to pay interest on it. That’s a huge chunk of the deficit right there. Not to mention that if we were spending that much on, say, infrastructure, every year, our economy would be in far better shape.

$400 billion could buy 18,000 new schools–or five thousand magnificent new schools, an average of a hundred for each state. Each year. One year of interest payments on the debt would pay for a manned mission to Mars. It could pay to convert most of America to solar energy.

So, Larry, that’s what the deficit has been doing to you. It’s been robbing you, and all of us.

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Which brings up another Lazio distortion–that Bush wasn’t responsible for half the national debt. Technically, maybe–it’s $14 trillion and counting only from Bush’s first day in office to his last, it increased by $5 trillion–but if you count the money that Obama had to spend because Bush committed the nation to spending that money, not to mention the fact that Bush was handed a surplus and was the one who turned that around–then it is more than fair to say that Bush, all by himself, is responsible for half the U.S. national debt., and possibly more.

I swear, I have to stop watching this program. It gets me all wound up and makes me spend hours writing blog posts.

Back in 2003, in one of my very early blog posts, I related the story of a man who got scammed on eBay. He sold his PowerBook for $3000 to someone who turned out to be a serial con artist. As is sometimes the case with Mac users, he was not willing to let it go, and became relentless in hunting down the guy who stole his goods and left him in the lurch. He reported it to the police, who did nothing.

Eventually, he learned pretty much everything about the criminal: his name, address, telephone number, and evidence of other crimes. All the police had to do, literally, was to go to the address and arrest the guy. They brushed him off. He tried the police where he lived, where the criminal lived, the FBI, even the Secret Service on the off chance that counterfeiting involved could be in their jurisdiction. Nothing. A citizen had all the goods on a criminal guilty of larceny and fraud, served him up on a platter, and several different enforcement offices gave him the brush-off.

Fortunately, this guy caught a break–the criminal used a new address at one point which was in the jurisdiction of a smaller police precinct, which did what any police authority should have done–drove over and arrested the guy, who was in possession of more than $10,000 in counterfeit checks at the time. A few hours’ work, and a serial criminal was behind bars. It doesn’t often get easier than that.

I was reminded by this when I saw of similar case in the news today. Over the years, there have been many such stories–people with Apple gear go to lengths to get it back, often with the help of good security software and/or the Mac community–but this one caught my eye because it echoed the 2003 case regarding police attitudes.

A guy in Oakland, CA, Joshua Kaufman, had his Macbook stolen in a home robbery in March. He reported this to the police, who quickly did nothing. Fortunately, this guy had been prepared: he had purchased a $15 app called “Hidden,” which lurks in the background on your computer, and, if stolen, can snap camera images and screen shots, and give network information leading to the location of the person in possession of the computer.

Sure enough, Kaufman started getting this data. With the information provided by the app, he was able to inform the police of all they needed to know: the address of the person with the stolen device and photographs of him using it. Certainly enough for a search warrant, at least.

The police did nothing. Citing a “lack of resources,” they could not be bothered to send a single car to the address and pick up the person.

So Kaufman went a different way: he started a Tumblr page on May 27, telling the story and posting images of the person using the computer and sleeping in front of it, and screenshots of activities suggesting guilt, like deleting the previous user’s account. A few days later, on May 31, a tweet he posted caught fire, and the media started paying attention. (It might have helped that one of the images showed the guy shirtless in bed using the computer, for what the rightful owner did not want to know.)

Where were the police? Ready to spring to action! Uh, only after Good Morning America called them and asked them why they were sitting on their asses when low-hanging fruit was just sitting there.

When they got that call, they finally did what they should have done weeks earlier, and arrested the guy.

How did the police explain their inaction? The case was “incorrectly closed.” Right. The officer went on to say, “It shows that when the system works, it works great. The diligence of Mr. Kaufman is exactly what we need – people who are engaged and are making an effort to reduce crime.”

No, what we need are police who will act on reports. Kaufman was engaged, the police were not.

Now, I understand that police are bogged down. They have more important things to do than to track down lost wallets or follow up on petty theft reports. But I do not think that it is unreasonable to expect at least some effort, even the smallest amount, in response to theft crimes. Hell, if I were a criminal, I would probably feel like I could get away with anything, so long as I didn’t steal from someone too wealthy or influential.

Seriously–when police are given the name and address of someone and proof of the crime committed, even photos of them in the act, but cannot be bothered to do the least that is possible for them–drive over and arrest the person who has been fully identified–then what’s the point of even making theft a punishable offense?

The economy is taking a beating lately, as fears rise that another recession is coming.

Do you think it may have anything to do with the fact that the party in control of passing the budget is repeatedly threatening to wreck the economy unless they are allowed to severely depress it? Or that this party, for the past two and a half years, has been fighting tooth and nail to beat back all attempts by the administration to stimulate the economy, instead insisting on measures that are guaranteed to (a) not create new jobs and (b) wildly inflate the deficit?

Nah. Couldn’t possibly be that.

An airplane leaving Dulles for Africa was turned around, escorted back by fighter jets, and had to burn off fuel for half an hour before landing.

The reason: airline seats.

Well, it was a little more than that. In order to squeeze every last penny out of flights, Economy seats on airlines are now packed so tight that one person reclining their seat can result in the person seated in the row behind being hit by the reclining seat back.

That’s what happened–a passenger reclined, hit another passenger, and a fight broke out. The pilot, following procedure, had to report it and return, despite the fact that the offended/offending passenger had calmed down and the scuffle was over.

There is no real excuse for the passenger’s behavior–no matter what, you do not get into a fight of any kind when on a plane in flight. That’s a rule, and if you can’t follow it, you shouldn’t be flying.

That said, while I cannot condone such behavior, I can sympathize with the general situation. And the solution is not just to have better-behaved passengers.

Honestly, it’s time for a regulation to be set, creating minimum space between seats. If such a regulation exists, then it has to be modified to increase the amount of space. If prices go up, so be it. But this is beyond ridiculous, it is stupid and dangerous, and not just because of potential fights between passengers.

Seriously: time for new regulations on seat spacing.

Yep. Wisconsin State Senator Dan Kapanke said that. It was a meeting with other Republicans, discussing the recall votes. The key quote:

We’ve got tons of government workers in my district – tons. … We have to overcome that. We gotta hope that they, kind of, are sleeping on July 12th – or whenever the (election) date is.

First question: if his district has so many government workers–if that’s who he represents, if those people are the ones he is supposed to be working for and fighting for–exactly why did he decide to screw them over with the union vote? I mean, I think that’s why his kind of job is called being a “representative” of the people, instead of, say, “party hack.”

If he’s screwed because he did something that hurt most of his constituents, then he absolutely deserves to be recalled. What the hell was he thinking?

Worse, he now actually has the cajones to say that he hopes the voters “kind of are sleeping” on election day. Whenever that is.

How did his campaign manager try to explain that comment off? According to her, (a) “some” of the people Kapanke was speaking to were “government workers,” and (b) he was just trying to encourage supporters to come out to vote.

Really. She said that.

First, the meeting was amongst Republicans at a country club. Something tells me there weren’t too many elementary school teachers in attendance. If there were “government workers” there, they were probably fellow party officials.

Second, trying to pass off “I hope my constituents are sleeping on election day” as “encouraging his supporters to come out to vote” is about as asinine an explanation as I can imagine. The campaign manager might as well have said that the senator was just trying to say that he hoped his constituents were idiots and could not tell the difference.

This is the quality of Republicans today: committed only to the party line, contemptuous of pretty much everything else.

Noble, inspiring, logical, and yet sad:

A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. The Skilled Veterans Corps, as they call themselves, is made up of retired engineers and other professionals, all over the age of 60.

They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young.

It was while watching the television news that Yasuteru Yamada decided it was time for his generation to stand up. No longer could he be just an observer of the struggle to stabilise the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The retired engineer is reporting back for duty at the age of 72, and he is organising a team of pensioners to go with him. For weeks now Mr Yamada has been getting back in touch with old friends, sending out e-mails and even messages on Twitter.

Volunteering to take the place of younger workers at the power station is not brave, Mr Yamada says, but logical. “I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live,” he says. “Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer.”

And quite Japanese.

Maybe Palin just can’t help but run again.

After all, “palin,” in ancient Greek, means “again,” or “once more.”

That seems to be the right-wing code word these days. That if you don’t think we’re the best, then you hate America. Pandering and browbeating combined, at their worst.

Thinking that we’re just “good” or even “great” is not enough anymore. However, the distinction crosses a dangerous line. You can’t be content just thinking good things about yourself, you have to believe that you are better than others, that you stand above them, and they below you. The relative association is critical. As “good” is to “best,” so “pride” is to “arrogance,” and “patriotism” is to “nationalism.” Such is the nature of supremacy. Right-wingers are not just saying that we’re a great nation, they must insist–no matter what the facts say, no matter what we have actually earned–that naturally, automatically, intrinsically, America is better than anyone else, that Americans are of course better than everyone else.

It’s funny, because right-wingers usually despise the idea that we have to build up the self-esteem of children by telling them they’re the best no matter what, and give them awards despite not winning anything.

And yet now if you don’t do this at a national scale, you hate America.

Worse, if you are cognizant of Santayana’s warning and recognize the wrongs done by America so we will not repeat them, then you hate America even more–you are one of those filthy heretics who apologize for America. That’s the term used by right-wingers today–not that you “disrespect” America, but you apologize for it. An apology requires an outsider, someone you are apologizing to, bringing us back to the relative exceptionalism theme. If you apologize to those others, if you bow to them, then you are placing yourself below them. Remember, this is a binary choice here–there is no equality, you are either better or they are. You apparently cannot apologize or show respect amongst equals.

No, America must be dominant. It is our birthright, no matter how we rank in actual terms.

This is “American Exceptionalism.” Because it sounds much better than “Nationalism.”

Republicans are gearing up for the 2012 elections by trying to enact as many laws as they can to suppress Democratic votes–requiring photo IDs, shortening early voting periods, and making it harder to register to vote. All of these place a strongly disproportionate disadvantage on voters who most commonly vote for Democrats.

The new laws are based upon unsubstantiated and politically motivated claims of nation-wide voter fraud. It is ironic because the claims themselves are fraudulent; there is no evidence of such widespread voter fraud. Bush spent five years and millions of taxpayer dollars in a nation-wide search to find such fraud and found only 86 prosecutable cases, mostly in small-town elections for sheriff and the like. The claims of nation-wide fraud are mostly based upon temp workers hired by voting advocacy organizations. The temp workers falsify registration forms to get paid more; the false forms are weeded out ahead of time and never result in actual votes cast.

This non-issue is then taken, along with scattered apocryphal stories of voter fraud, to create an imaginary sense of need for controls, passed by right-wing politicians, which will–quite coincidentally we are supposed to believe–favor right-wing politicians. A non-existent crime wave fabricated so that the laws quashing legitimate Democratic votes can be passed. That’s the real election fraud. We need laws to protect us against that.

In the meantime, the greatest case of actual election fraud–Katherine Harris disenfranchising tens of thousands of Democratic voters with a mostly-manufactured “felon’s list” in 2000, resulting in trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost due to the malfeasance of the Bush presidency–goes wholly unpunished. Quite the contrary–Harris was rewarded with a safe seat in the House.