Japan, strangely, seems a bit behind in the HDTV game. For a country where it seems you can’t get anything but HDTVs at electronics shops, not as many people seem to have them as you would think.

Worse, Blu-rays are a tad too sparse here. Of course, this being Japan, they are all over-priced, even more than standard DVDs. $42 is a usual price for a new release. But I can stock up back in the U.S., especially since Japan and America are now in the same region–but then, the videos won’t have Japanese subtitles for Sachi. Damn.

No, the real problem is video rental shops. They have wide floors with dozens and dozens of racks filled with DVDs. However, only recently did they expand their Blu-ray sections to two racks from the lonesome single one they had previously. It’s pathetic, really–take Avatar, for example. Huge hit, new movie and all. I go to the local video rental shop, the closest one to us, a place called GEO. You know how many Blu-ray copies they have? Four. All rented out all the time, of course (I’ve stopped by this place several times before). So I go to the north side of the next train line over, quite a distance away (I’m looking for exercise these days, and I had the time for it then), and find the next-closest rental shop–again, a GEO store. How many copies of this recent blockbuster do they have, in Blu-ray, the logical viewing choice for a movie of that type? Two. Again, rented out. The DVD version they have dozens of, practically a rack full of them, most not rented out. But they have two Blu-ray copies.

I asked the guy at the counter, even though I knew what the answer would be. It was the same last year at Tsutaya in Ikebukuro: “Not enough people have Blu-ray players.” Bull. First of all, if nobody has the players, then why are so many of the Blu-rays always rented out? You have to be lucky to grab a recent release in these places. Sure, Blu-ray adoption is not strong yet, but it’s way stronger than their supply of titles merits. Second, probably a big reason people don’t get them is because they know the rental shops don’t have squat in their Blu-ray sections.

So I move on, knowing there’s a Tsutaya a little further down the road. Fortunately, although they also still have just a 2-rack Blu-ray section, they at least have caught on to the recent-releases idea, and when you check the regular DVD racks, the recent hits all have multiple Blu-rays tacked on at one end. So Sachi and I got movies to watch this week.

Still, it’s annoying that Blu-ray somehow is getting passed over. Of course, if the discs cost half of what they do and you could find a decent selection at rental shops, then maybe people would find reason to start using them more. Just saying.

I’ve been meaning to try out the local version of Netflix, Tsutaya has this thing called DISCAS. Before now, I have always been stopped cold by their indecipherable home page, very badly designed, which even their shop people could not figure out for me. But now I just went back to it, and it seems much more user-friendly. And their Blu-ray section seems pretty well-stocked (over 700 titles, not bad), certainly much more so than the brick-and-mortar shops. ¥980 ($12) a month to have four discs out at any–oohhhh, no. Four discs rented out per month. You don’t get to see all you want so long as you return them quickly enough. You just get a set limit. Hmm. They also have an 8-disc plan for about twice that cost.

Found another service called Posuren (“Postal Rental”?), but it seems to be the same deal as Discas, as are DMM and GEO–they all seem to be following the Discas model. There’s Rakuten Rentals, ¥100 a pop, but they have a ¥300 delivery fee; it gets mitigated by renting many at a time, but there’s a 10-day limit on keeping them.

Anyone know a better service? Something more Netflix-like? So far, I’m not impressed–they seem to have little advantage over going to the actual store, some have prohibitive delivery costs, and the potential hassle factor (contracts, late fees, etc.) could mitigate that further. If there’s nothing better than this, I’ll probably opt for going to the store….

Last week, Sachi and I headed to Saku, Sachi’s hometown. This time we decided to go the rental car route, seeing it as much more convenient than train and having relatives cart us around. The costs were close–The rental car, including all insurance and extras, was about ¥23,000 for a 3-day rental, while the train fare would have been ¥26,000. Add gas and tolls, and the rental car total went up to about ¥35,000–but add the convenience of going where we wanted, when we wanted (runs to the store for eats, and even a Costco run added to the end of the trip), and especially not requiring Sachi’s family to act as our chauffeurs for the 3-day period, and I call it a worthwhile expense.

The rental car business annoyed me some. Not the main process–it’s pretty painless, just fill in the usual name & address thing, and you’re in the car. But the last-minute added charges for you-have-no-idea-what-this-is-but-you-can’t-risk-not-getting-it kind of stuff. They carefully don’t mention it until you are ready to walk out the door, and are undoubtedly up against a schedule, like I was, and had no time to run through all the minutiae. (I had visited days earlier to make the reservation, and had even asked about the price, and they didn’t bring it up.) They say it’s insurance and other serious-sounding and maybe even legally-required kind of stuff, and it’s certainly made to look like you need it, but–even if you spoke the language well enough–I’m pretty sure many other novices would also have been intimidated, like I was, into paying for it all. I am fairly certain that most of it was not needed, but I had no way to tell, and no time to sort through it, especially as I’m certain it would have involved all kinds of technical language. I blame myself–I have rented cars before, I just forgot about this. It’s more than the kind of thing travel agents do, hiding the taxes and so forth until you’ve more or less committed–this is more of a real con game. And I felt like a first-class sucker. Good lesson.

Anyway.

The drive was pleasant enough, though we got into trouble because of the GPS. This is a usual thing, getting a rental vehicle with a complicated gadget which even for regular users can be a pain to figure out. I kept on giving it the destination, and it kept on insisting we take local roads. Again, I felt stupid–I really should have researched the route ahead of time. The thing was, when we first set the route, it looked OK, and seemed to match what Google Maps said we’d be doing–going past the expressway to circle around and find an entrance, or “interchange” for the expressway (since Japanese expressways are all toll roads, they don’t have exits as often as U.S. freeways do). But after we passed a rather clear route to get on the expressway and the Nav System kept insisting we keep going on route 254, a narrow and crowded avenue with slow traffic, it was clear that it was leading us the wrong way. Driving half-blindly, I took the route that seemed best to me, and got on the expressway. Then we got the usual nonsense with the Nav System insisting we leave the expressway at every new exit and take normal roads. But we did have fun telling the Nav System to bugger off whenever it did so.

We stopped at a rest station along the way to get some grub and I took the time to figure out the right way to program the device. It turns out that when you program the destination into the system, it seems ready at one point, but there was a button rather misleadingly labeled, down a list that was topped by a “calculate route” button, but the lesser button led you to a menu which allowed you to specify toll roads, turned off by default–seems rather dumb with rental cars so often used for long-distance driving like we were.

Then we got to the ryokan:

While in Saku, we usually stay at a ryokan, a countryside inn. This is an experience you have to have if you visit Japan. These are buildings that have a very traditional look and feel–definitely not the business-hotel variety of lodging. The ryokan is usually surrounded by manicured gardens, has an almost hunting-lodge-meets-classic-Japanese-decor lobby, an obligatory inner garden, and rooms decked out with tatami, tokonoma, sliding doors, shoji doors for the windows, floor chairs and mats, low-set wood tables, and of course futons. Cut out in the corner of the image below are the slightly out-of-place Hi-def TV and the air conditioner.

Alas, I forgot to get photos of the most ryokan-ish part of the stay, dinner. Ryokan dinners are a cacophony of more than a dozen separate dishes, including miso soup, pickled vegetables, sashimi, grilled fish, vegetable dishes, shellfish, shaved beef cooked on rounded frying plates, eel on a bed of rice, and other bits and pieces. The fish is iconic, basically a small fish (maybe 6-8 inches) skewered on a stick, covered with salt, grilled whole, head and fins and tail and all. I am infamous with Sachi for not liking most of what these dinners offer up, and since it’s important to Sachi that we eat together, it’s a sticking point against staying in places like these, even though they can be central, even essential, on trips like this. Sachi and her mother, fortunately, claimed that they really weren’t in the mood for the beef or sashimi or many of the veggies–all things which I liked–and claimed to be hungry for the stuff I didn’t like. What a coincidence! They protested that really, they weren’t just doing this for me, but I wasn’t fooled.

Breakfasts aren’t much different–mussel soup, a hunk of dry cold, fishy-tasting cooked salmon, salad–you know, normal breakfast fare. Fortunately I can get by without breakfast.

A nice point about ryokans are the baths. This one, however, was a tad more exposed than I prefer. The ladies’ bath is downstairs and out of view, but the men’s bath is upstairs. You walk in to the dressing room, undress, and walk into the bath. Now, the inn is situated on a river in the midst of a small town. And the men’s bath has floor-to-ceiling clear glass windows. Here’s what it looks like when you walk in:

Pretty big windows. You look out, and realize that you are standing, buck naked, in direct view of, well, the neighborhood.

Charming.

Sachi later pointed out that since we were the only ones staying there that day, I could have used the ladies’ bath with her. She mentions this after I finished my bath. Swell.

This segment from Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show is simply too good to pass up posting here. After having shredded Fox’s tissue-thin logic in their smears against the New York Sufi community center / mosque, Stewart & Co. today caught them in an act of hypocrisy of the worst kind: accusing the mosque of taking money from a Saudi they claimed had terror connections … but they “neglected” to mention that this same Saudi is part-owner of Fox News itself. In fact, they “neglected” to mention the guy’s name, so it would be harder for viewers to look it up and discover the link back to Fox. In classic Daily Show form, they then proceed to hilariously rip Fox a new one. Enjoy:

Me, I vote for equal measure of both Evil and Stupid. There’s room enough for everyone here.

So, then, what does that make their viewers? Not good at fact-checking, to be sure. But probably, more likely, simply people who want to believe a certain set of things and so look for a news source they can fool themselves into thinking is credible so they can tune in and hear their worst suspicions not only vindicated but actually evolved to even further levels of paranoid delusion. These are millions of Americans who boast of knowing “facts” but really just are intellectually whacking off to the hardcore stuff. They believe the dialog to be realistic and letters to the magazine “forum” to be real-life true stories. Oh yeah, baby!

No, the viewers aren’t necessarily evil–they’re just intellectually lazy and/or dishonest in the pursuit of a nightly ideological climax.

But Fox? Evil and stupid. And crazy. Ergo, high ratings. It follows.

Wow, this is a cool new dodge I hadn’t thought of. So long as a cost is in place for a decade, you no longer have to pay for it. (Medicare, Social Security, National Defense–existing policies! No longer a problem!) So says Mitch McConnell, when asked how he would suggest paying for $3 trillion which would otherwise be added to the debt by extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich:

Well, what, what, what, what are you talking about, ‘Paid for’? This is existing tax policy. It’s been in place for 10 years. What they’re talking about is raising taxes…

See? Now, let’s say that I have bills to pay. But I also hate working 40 hours a week. It just taxes me too much, saps my energy and all that. It’s just too much stress. So I cut my work hours from 40 a week to 15. I plan to keep it that way for ten years, and then go back to work full-time. Over that time, I rack up an impressive amount of debt. But I feel better. Then, after ten years, I hate the idea of taxing myself 40 hours a week that I figure I’ll just make my current situation permanent.

So then some a-hole financial planner says I have to start taxing myself at the rate of 40 hours a week again, or else how am I going to pay for those bills? Bad stuff is about to happen, he tells me. In fact, that’s what I’ve been saying myself, that after all these years, that huge debt is going to ruin me. But I couldn’t find a damned one of my costs I would be willing to cut.

But now I have Mitch McConnell’s sterling brand of logic! I don’t have to change a thing! Because my 15-hour-a-week schedule is “an existing tax policy, it’s been in place for ten years,” there’s going to be no impact on my debt! That financial moron is talking about raising my taxes, for no apparent good reason! What an ass!

In fact, I feel that he’s to blame for all of this! My debt, the threat of working more–it’s entirely his fault! Yeah, I was feeling just dandy until that guy started telling me how bad things are and how I have to do this tax thing, he must be the one responsible for all those debts in the first place. And working 40 hours a week? Who ever heard of that? He’s trying to tax me more!

Thank you, Mitch McConnell. It’s so swell to think like a Republican.

Republicans are making hay out of Obama’s 10-day vacation, of course. Saying he is the “Clark Griswold” president, a reference to National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, and that he doesn’t “deserve” a break. After all, after this vacation ends, Obama will have spent a total of eighty days on vacation so far! How lazy can you get?

Let’s see. At this point in his presidency, Ronald Reagan, also facing a long, worrying recession, was in the middle of a 17-day vacation, having spent a total of 77 days at his ranch alone, and a total of 110 days altogether, if you include Camp David and his 5-day vacation in Barbados.

At this point in his presidency, George H. W. Bush, immediately after Iraq invaded Kuwait and after he sent troops into the field, took off on a 4-week vacation at Kennebunkport, having racked up a total of 91 vacation days thus far.

And let’s not forget that at this point in his presidency, George W. Bush, as our troops were on the ground in Iraq, and as Bush was trying to gin up evidence and ramp up the call to start the ultimately disastrous Gulf War, took a full-month-long vacation, having racked up an impressive 225 total vacation days.

Of course, all opposition parties make political hay of the presidents’ vacation, and we all know that presidents work through these “days off.” It’s the image that makes for good political attack fodder.

The thing is, Obama has taken the least time off than any other president in recent history (not since that evil guy Carter took less time off during his campaign to destroy America), and the last president, a Republican, took so much time off that it makes Obama look like he has a pretty strong work ethic. As a result, Republicans are looking even more like hypocritical doofuses than they usually might.

An interesting take I’ve heard spoken here and there recently is that at least part of the focus on immigration, “anchor babies,” and the repeal of citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is on “demographics.” In this case, “demographics” is a very polite way of saying “race.”

A famous factoid most people know about is the projection that by 2050 less than 50% of the country will be non-Hispanic whites. That projection seems to be pretty significant to some people. I remember back in the 90’s, reading the posts of a right-winger on GEnie who was unabashed in his expressions, stating baldly that such trends scared the crap out of him. And while few in this day and age will say it outright, I think that this is a more and more common sensibility among conservatives in the nation.

The sense of persecution among whites, especially white male Christians, has been marked for some time now. Despite currently holding disproportionate power and influence, we hear complaints of the opposite–that this demographic is being persecuted mercilessly.

It does not really seem like too much of a coincidence that soon after a black man became president for the first time, that we started hearing right-wingers angrily exclaim, “we want our country back.” This was a kind of scary thing to hear, because in pretty much every decent sense, we had never “lost” the country so that it had to be taken back. Even when liberals had won the presidency and controlled Congress, I don’t think I heard anyone but political strategists put things that way, and they meant in a purely political sense.

Here, there was the strong, undeniable implication that a national identity had been lost. Not just a political identity, but one of color. Our jobs were white, our leaders were white, our country was white–but now we’re seeing the non-whites start to take over in very real ways. These people had felt it starting to slip away, and then Obama gets elected.

Suddenly, key issues that right-wingers used to focus in on begin to fade, issues like abortion, gays in the military, prayers in the schools, and the pledge of allegiance.

Instead, we saw the emergence of a completely new, radical political surge, one which was almost purely populated by whites. A party who believed the president was an alien, his birth certificate was not legitimate no matter what, that he was born in Kenya. And we started hearing more and more and more about three issues: immigration, blacks, and Islam.

Really, why immigration? Of all topics to gain prominence, why that one, and why now? It’s not because of the recession–it’s not as if there are many whites who want to pick strawberries, become nannies, do yard work, or sew garments in sweat shops but are turned away because the damned immigrants have pushed them out. It’s not as if our economies are actually taxed by illegal immigration–on the contrary, all the evidence says the opposite. Maybe it could be the result of exhausting other culture-war issues and this one was imply next in line, but I doubt it.

And the New York mosque? Muslims in general? Even after 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment didn’t seem as high as it is right now. Where did that come from all of a sudden?

And how about all the stuff about black people? Why did ACORN take on such sudden significance when it had been around for about four decades? Why so much intense focus on the NAACP recently? Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones, Henry Louis Gates, the “New” Black Panthers… strangely, black and white race conflicts were front page news, and were focused on intently. And most of them involved a negative public up-swelling, accusing them of wrongs, calling for their ouster.

Strangely, most of the top issues were in some way related to race, to aliens in our midst, and how they are making things wrong.

There was the abrupt, almost jarring about-face on problems that have existed for years and the right-wing considered tame, but suddenly they are crises and, somehow, all Obama’s fault. No matter that deficits truly started getting out of control under Reagan and Bush 43; Obama’s to blame. Unemployment was clearly a Bush artifact–but since it did not magically dissolve under Obama, he’s to blame. The debt, suddenly, will wreck us, as if it weren’t going to before, and since the right wing suddenly realized this under Obama, he of course is to blame. This recession could not have more clearly started under Bush and the stimulus could not more clearly have started to reverse it–but of course, Obama’s to blame for it all. And our rights–despite the fact that they were decimated under Bush, and Obama at worst has perpetuated some of Bush’s policies that threaten them–somehow Obama is the one who has deprived us of all our rights. And our money! He’s stealing our money! Doesn’t matter that taxes are at a historic low, that he has actually cut taxes for most of us, nor that the worst he would do would be to allow taxes for the rich to return to where they were in the 90’s like the Republicans planned; no, he’s taxing us to death!

This is also why news like Afghanistan, at any other time a big opening for the opposition, is not an issue–the president pushing a war, against Muslims, no less? That doesn’t fit, so they act like it doesn’t exist.

No, there seems to be a special reason why immigration, Islam, and color, of all hot-button issues, have suddenly catapulted to new heights, and why all things economic are suddenly of notice. The country is changing color, and it’s suddenly ruining us. It’s their fault. It’s because of that threatening, polysyllabic prognostication of doom: demographics. just look at the president, for chrissakes. Everything was going fine before he took over.

A lot of white Americans are seeing the future, and I think it scares the crap out of them. And if there is anything that conservative politicians are good at, it is seeing the fear in people’s hearts, playing on it, setting it afire, and then capitalizing on it.

Sachi and I are on our way back from her home town after a few days with family. We rented a car (cheaper than the Shinkansen, I think), and we’re at a rest stop.

I went straight for the Starbucks, of course. Crowding the place: a gaggle of nuns.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it just seems a little … off. Somehow.

I must not be at all in touch with right-wing sensibilities these days; right-wing bloggers chose Jimmy Carter as the #1 Worst American in history. Barack Obama is #2, though one would expect him to be #1, considering how the right wing is so thoroughly vilifying him. But Carter? Really? What for, inflation? The Iran Hostage Crisis? Or is it just because he looks so bad being so proximate in history to the greatest shining beacon of awesomeness in all the universe, Ronaldus Magnus?

But then, this list has Ted Kennedy beating out Timothy McVeigh, and Margaret Sanger tied in infamy with John Wilkes Booth. It is, in essence, not a poll of the worst Americans, but a poll asking “which liberals do you hate and want to smear by mixing them with criminals and other miscreants?” Even at that, one has to wonder why these people despise Jimmy Carter so much. He may have been a less-than-ideal president, but certainly not as destructive as Bush–even by right-wing standards–and as a former president, has been one of the most decent and humane that we’ve ever seen.

Deservedly, this list has been getting slammed as being completely insane–by many on the right as well as the left.

Took them five months and one week. Not the quickest ever, but many report a six-month wait. I’ll be heading down to the Immigration center this week to get the status change. I’ll still have to get re-entry permits–but there are reports that those will be done away with soon (if not already?):

[T]here will be an extension of the maximum length of permission to reside in Japan from three years to five, the abolishment of the re-entry stamp system required to leave the country and return, and — most significantly — the replacement of the Alien Registration Card issued by ward offices with a new Resident Card to be managed by the Immigration Bureau.

If that happens, I think I’ll still have to visit immigration when I get a new passport, but otherwise, the regular trips will become another thing to reminisce about.

Update: Here’s the official page at the MOJ concerning the new changes (specifics here). Says the re-entry permit thing will take effect within three years of July 15, 2009. Whether that means July 14, 2012, or some time before that I can’t tell–they seem to hint that it’ll be 2012.

Well, it’s official: now that Obama has spoken out in approval of the Cordoba House project [Clarification: he did not “approve it” or even “approve of it” per se; he only supported their right do so], Republicans are grabbing the issue as an election-year theme. Never mind that this should be an issue of religious liberty. Never mind that this is a clear appeal to lump together all Muslims under the terrorist label and use them as a political scapegoat.

Who cares about any of that when you can get people to vote for you?

Count me as disgusted. Not surprised, just sickened.

So, having a mosque community center with an inter-faith chapel built by peaceful, anti-terror Sufi Muslims within a few blocks of Ground Zero is not OK, but having these establishments within a few blocks of the same site is just fine (several are NSFW):

Pussycat Lounge & Hamilton Room
A-1 Metro Parties
Adult New York Escorts
New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club
Male Strippers
Adult Models Dating and Escorts

I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few of those places started business after 9/11. I’m pretty certain that if another strip joint or escort service were to go up in the area, no one would object.

Glad we have our respectfulness for the sacred nature of the site in order.

Also, it was found last week that since 9/11, Muslim prayer sessions have been held regularly in an inter-faith chapel within the Pentagon.

Along the same lines of my comments of the repeal-the-Fourteenth-Amendment movement, whether or not you agree with the idea of Muslims of any stripe keeping a respectful distance, the fact remains that such feelings are not what this discussion is about. This is election-year politics. If the demagogues felt that the community center was not a good target and the strip clubs were, then it’d be all about the strip clubs. The public row is fueled not by indignation, but by stark, aggressive, uncaring opportunism.

Addenda: I forgot to mention that the Imam behind the NY project was tapped by Karen Hughes of the Bush administration for overseas tours representing a more moderate Islam. Also, Obama finally threw his hat in, probably now seeing the matter as being resolved enough for his comments to not inflame things and wants to help put the matter to rest.

I have written about Republican projection before–if you hear right-wingers accusing the left of something, you can be pretty sure that (a) it’s either exaggerated or untrue, and, more to the point, (b) either they or someone else on their side is doing it or wants to do it.

Not too long ago, some distorted conspiracy theory from the Bachmann/fringe/loon camp was being spread about how Obama was using census data to set up “internment camps” built by FEMA (and I’m sure ACORN fit into it somewhere too, I must have missed that meeting), all to put people he didn’t like–that is, Republicans foolish enough to openly admit their party affiliation to a census worker–into them.

Nutty, huh?

Well, in the latest round of “how will we deal will the immigration crisis” paranoia, guess what some right-wingers want to build? Yep: internment camps. Asked if what she wanted was something like the Japanese internment camps of WWII, she said, “Something like that.”

Good thing Obama built those FEMA internment camps–we’re pretty much ready to go now.

Went to the doctor’s office today. Got a great report–blood sugar levels down to almost normal now (they had been creeping up), falling a significant amount since my last check-up 3 months ago, following a yearlong trend. Then I found a folder I thought I’d lost on my desk at work, and cashed in a ¥10,000 check that was in it (cable TV company rebate for joining). Then came home still early in the day, and had a nice & tasty dinner. Also, summer vacation started this week.

Microsoft has recently posted a list of supposed advantages over the Mac–revisiting the eternal “Mac vs. PC” comparison debate. So, how do they rate? Some hits, some misses, some rather laughable claims. One way the list tries to pad itself out is by comparing hardware–which Microsoft does not produce–in addition to the OS, and because there are a large number of companies making multiple lines of computers trying to fit all niches, Apple by itself cannot possibly match every single one of them. So naturally there will be many things that Microsoft can claim which will sting… but the fact that they had to pad the list like this is kind of telling. Microsoft starts out the list with the major points, but then quickly devolves.

Under the heading, “Macs might spoil your fun”:

It’s showtime – You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless. You can with PCs running Windows 7.

This is a recurring theme in the list: “Many PCs can do things Macs can’t.” True–and many PCs can’t, either. And few, if any PCs can do all of those things–so even with a Windows PC, you still won’t have all the features that are possible.

One odd point in that list: “Memory Stick reader”? Did the Sony Memory Stick suddenly become popular when I wasn’t looking? Macs now ship with SD card readers, which tend to be the most popular type.

But Blu-ray, yes–that’s one that stings. Jobs calls it “a bag of hurt” without being too clear on the why and wherefore. He mentioned the “licensing of the tech,” but that doesn’t necessarily explain why other makers seem to be OK with it. He also mentioned that the format hasn’t “taken off yet,” which shows one Apple weakness–the delay in adopting many new standards. It took way too long to get SD readers, for example, and even the original USB was a bit long in waiting. No doubt USB3 will have a similar lag as well, and probably WiMax too.

Game on – Most of the world’s most popular computer games aren’t available for Macs. And Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360. PCs are ready to play.

The games claim is mostly true–if you’re a serious gaming aficionado, then a souped-up PC makes more sense. That said, Macs can run Windows and do Windows gaming; Microsoft is playing with the difference between the OS and the hardware here, claiming each one is the main topic whenever it is to their advantage. And connecting to an X-Box? Um, OK. If that’s your thing.

One more point comes up here: stuff that Microsoft can claim now but maybe not for too much longer. Macs are making gains in the gaming world, and as student adoption of Macs continues to skyrocket, so will the Mac ports for popular games. And hey, let’s not even mention the iPad or the iPhone here, right?

These points, however, are the main ones–advanced hardware on some PCs and a bias for the Windows OS when it comes to gaming. One could point to similar advantages for the Mac, primarily the hardware/OS/software symphony, excellent tech support, superior user experience, and ability to run all other OS’s in emulator mode. Microsoft of course does not mention points where it is at a disadvantage, nor should it. But they’re there, nonetheless.

Direct TV connection – Most Macs can’t hook up to your TV unless you buy a converter dongle. Many PCs running Windows 7 are designed to connect directly to TVs, so you can watch movies and see photos on the big screen.

Ooooo… you have to pay five bucks for a converter. Deal killer, that. And as with a point above, not all PCs have this themselves, though a lot do. But that can be counted as an advantage for Windows–you can choose between hundreds of varying systems for exactly the specs you want (though that also has its disadvantages built-in as well).

But this point–HDMI out–has a short shelf life: the Mac Mini has HDMI out. Meaning more Macs will have it soon as well. Oh well, so much for that advantage. Add it to the list of things Microsoft can only claim for the moment.

The claims start to get laughable in the “ease of use” category. The main point: if you’ve only used Windows all your life, it’ll take time to get used to a Mac. But then, if you used MS-DOS, using Windows 3.1 took a long time to get used to also. Are you still using MS-DOS? Yeah.

Under “Macs can take time to learn”:

The computer that’s easiest to use is typically the one you already know how to use. While some may say Macs are easy, the reality is that they can come with a learning curve. PCs running Windows 7 look and work more like the computers you’re familiar with, so you can get up and running quickly.

See? “Stick with Windows: it may be harder to use and more frustrating overall, but we’ve got you hooked because it’s the only thing you know. Don’t bother to take the week or so to discover an OS which is easier to use.”

Their next point: very different!

Working smoothly – Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC. For example, the mouse works differently. And many of the shortcuts you’re familiar with don’t work the same way on a Mac.

Oh, wait. Just more specific. Oooh, you’re never gonna get used to the Command key instead of the Control key!

Essentially, Microsoft is saying that Windows has the advantage because it’s different. Not better, just that there are minor differences and you don’t want to have to spend even a few days to get used to different keys. Suckerrrssss!

Use Windows 7 to simplify your life – Windows 7 was designed to make it simpler to do the tasks you do every day, with features that the Mac doesn’t have. For example, the new Snap feature makes it easy to view two documents side by side.

Yes, everything is much simpler than on a Mac! Like installing and deleting softw… um, wait. No, like switching between open windo… ohh. Hmm. Or connecting to a printerrr… well, how about using a USB sti… um…

But hey, you can make two folder windows occupy either half of the screen in Windows like that! Suck it, Apple!

Touch and go – Unlike Macs, many PCs running Windows 7 support Touch, so you can browse online newspapers, flick through photo albums, and shuffle files and folders–using nothing but your fingers. PCs with a fingerprint reader even let you log in with just a swipe of your finger.

Touch screen? On your desktop or laptop? They’re gushing about that? Touch is wasted on those, and on devices where touch is actually useful–phones and tablets–Apple is way ahead. Not to mention Apple’s trackpads put just about any PC’s to shame. Guess which is closer to the keyboard and easier to use?

And the fingerprint reader? Hah! Maybe some people like that, but I’ve never met one. I had a student bring in her Windows laptop, and she hated having to swipe her finger every time, and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. A colleague boasted about the feature, but when I asked him, he admitted that he never used it.

The above points fall into the category of “glitzy features which look cool but you wind up not using.” Not really an advantage to the end user.

Microsoft is clearly aware of the fact that businesses are starting to wake up to Apple gear, and especially that Macs are beginning to dominate the education market (mouse over chart at right to see details). In their section titled “Macs don’t work as well at work or at school”:

If most of the computers in your office or school run Windows you may find it harder to get things done with a Mac.

Not really. If a Windows PC’s network connections are not pre-set by the IT staff, I find it far easier to connect using my Mac.

In any case, the claim here is again based on Windows predominance–not that it’s easier or better, but rather coasting on the fact that there are more PCs around than Macs. When the fact is, if you change all your equipment to Macs, it’s far easier to network, connect, and maintain, with less IT costs. Which is why a lot of IT departments steer away from Macs.

Sharing documents and spreadsheets – If you use Apple’s productivity suite, sharing files with PC users can be tricky. Your documents might not look right and your spreadsheets might not calculate correctly.

Once again, “We’re not better–we’re just what you’re stuck with.” And interesting that Microsoft seems to forget that Office is on the Mac. Is that defective too? Besides which, I’ve seen the same issues pop up between people using different versions of the same software on PCs–like Office 2000 and Office 2007–not to mention what happens when you try to use another computer without the same selection of fonts. Especially different languages–something the Mac handles smoothly, but Windows does very badly.

As for portability of documents from computer to computer, let’s not forget that PowerPoint is an absolute nightmare when it comes to sounds and video–something my students discover every semester when they make a PowerPoint presentation on their home computers and then bring it in to work. Even if they keep their audio and video files all together in one directory, copying that directory onto a new computer will cause PowerPoint to forget many of the paths

Giving presentations – You’ll have to buy a separate hardware dongle to plug your Mac into a standard VGA projector. Most PCs with Windows 7 hook up easily.

Again with the $5 adaptor. Does that really make people turn away from a better system? It’s like saying, “Buy a Hyundai instead of a Porsche, because the door handles are smoother!” And while we’re talking about PowerPoint, here’s a one-word argument for the Mac: Keynote.

Protecting your drives – On a Mac, out of the box, you can only encrypt your home folder. With Windows 7 Ultimate, you can encrypt your entire hard drive and even USB drives. So your stuff can be safer wherever you go.

I don’t know about this feature so I can’t speak to it. Except to say that nobody I know uses the feature on either system. This may be something a few users think about, but most people will just shrug and walk away.

We get to funny stuff again in sharing: “Macs don’t like to share.”

Securely share your movies, music, and photos – With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network. With HomeGroup, it’s easy to connect all the computers in your house running Windows 7.

Yeah, but if you have XP or Vista on any computers, tough luck.

As for secure sharing, it’s called WiFi with WPA2–or, in other words, the industry standard. Set it up–easy. Then all the Macs just show in the sidebar. At worst, you have to turn on file sharing in the System Prefs and make a directory shared by clicking a checkbox in the “Get Info” window.

I have not tried “HomeGroup” yet, but from looking at tutorials, HomeGroups seem way, way harder. This tutorial goes over an eleven-step “exercise” (seriously, they call it that) which shows how to create such a network–on one computer. The second page has twenty steps to add another computer.

Simple as pie! Making pie, that is! Very difficult pie!

Is it really more out-of-the-box than that? Because from what Microsoft is claiming, a 31-step process is hardly “automatic.”

After this, it’s just repetition: another section titled “Macs might not like your PC stuff” is a re-hash of “it’s not good because it’s not a PC,” and the “Macs don’t let you choose” is a rehash of the Blu-ray and other media points with “you can’t choose pretty colors” tossed in.

Seriously, if this is all that Microsoft has got to prove it’s better than Macs, they’re in much bigger trouble than even I thought.

What they put up essentially boils down to this:

Macs don’t feature high-end built-in peripherals like some PCs have, and the PC remains a superior gaming platform. PCs also sometimes have cool but useless doo-dads like fingerprint scanners. Macs more often need adaptor cables. The Windows OS has a few nice features which are not found on the Mac.

Otherwise, the main reason to buy a PC is because it’s what you know, and you might have slight problems dealing with cross-platform compatibility.

Seriously, I think even I could have slapped together a better case for PCs than that. The problem is less one of running out of things to talk about and more one of bad writing.

Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) was the main one claiming that “pregnant terrorists” come to America to give birth to babies who will later become terrorists, using their birthright citizenship against America so as to destroy it. About as extreme an anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, paranoid right-wing freakout as you could expect to hear.

Imagine everyone’s surprise when the FBI announced that they theory was, as they put it, “never credible.” Me, I think they should investigate Gohmert under suspicion of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, ’cause I bet that terrorists in all parts of the world sure enough heard this theory and just as sure got some pretty good chuckles from it.

As a side note: my own stand on amending the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to prevent illegal immigrants from having “anchor babies” is ambivalent. On the one hand, the provision is somewhat out of date, having been constructed to grant citizenship to former slaves who were born in the U.S. but were never officially granted citizenship. It was not really intended to allow children of people in the country illegally to obtain citizenship, intentionally or otherwise.

As a result, I am not strongly against repealing that provision of the amendment. However, not now. Why? Because right now the movement to repeal is not based upon reason or intent to clarify the original intent of the law. Rather, it is a highly political and racially charged movement of which I want no part.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is simply the most visible right-winger to state it in an only thinly-veiled manner: “People come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child. It’s called ‘drop and leave.’” While Graham attributed the term to immigrants, there is no evidence of such phraseology existing before he said it. What is of specific note here is the term “drop”: the word is used to denote animal birth, as in to “drop a foal” or to “drop a litter.” Using it in reference to people is, in this case, rather blatantly racist, and attributing it to their own terminology is nothing more than an excuse to use such racist terms. And since Graham used that term, it’s all over the place now; many on the far right, taking Limbaugh’s cue, love to use openly racist terms so long as they can point to any pre-existing use as an excuse. Which is one of the reasons I would not agree to repealing the law at this time–not for these reasons, and certainly not with this crowd.

In part, it’s similar to the drive to amend the Constitution so as to allow naturalized citizens to become president–ironically, one that the right wing has abandoned since Obama came to office and they wanted to press the Birther claim. The reason right-wingers were so big on it up until recently was because they were still greatly enamored of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and felt he had a good shot at the presidency, if only it weren’t for that whole Constitution thing. Now, in principle, I think it’d be just fine to allow naturalized citizens that ability; my father is one, for example, and I think he’d have made a better president than some we’ve had, for sure. But I will not stand with the crowd who want to change the Constitution for political reasons.

If we change the Constitution, the intent has to be pure. It should never be a flash-in-the-pan political fad, and it should never have at its roots racist or paranoid delusions. After all, think of cases that are interpreted based on framers’ intent–what would a judge have to conclude when noting that the framers of a constitutional amendment were passing it to win an election by appealing to voters’ racist inclinations?

In the future, when we’ve calmed down a bit, maybe. But not now.

Rand Paul on the “You Have to Be a Christian to Be Good” bandwagon:

I’m a Christian. We go to the Presbyterian Church. My wife’s a Deacon there and we’ve gone there ever since we came to town. I see that Christianity and values is the basis of our society. . . . 98% of us won’t murder people, won’t steal, won’t break the law and it helps a society to have that religious underpinning. You still need to have the laws but I think it helps to have a people who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day to day life.

The clear implication is that if you’re not a Christian, then you don’t believe in law and order and you don’t have a moral compass or a moral basis for your day-to-day life.

How charming.

Okay, all of you actual programmers out there, get ready for amateur hour. I have been working to understand programming better for a while now, and have made a teensy bit of progress. I learned HTML and CSS the natural way–I gleaned it bit by bit off of instructional web sites and peeking at other people’s code (a lot of CSS I learned, in fact, came from editing the themes for this blog). But I wanted to get beyond simple scripting and into some actual programming, something I hadn’t done since I took that BASIC programming class back in 1982.

I figured that my best chance would be to take advantage of the online classes from the college where I teach, free to faculty. Intermediate Algebra was a prerequisite, and though I passed it back in the 80’s (one of my few “B” grades in college), I figured it was time to freshen up, considering that (a) it could help in programming, (b) I have a bit of a phobia about anything more complex than basic math, and (c) I hadn’t used any of it since I took the course and remembered pretty much squat. So I took that class, aced it, and went on to take the next class, “Introduction to Computer Programming.” Which it pretty much was–just an intro course. We never got beyond making little C++ command-line programs. Alas, another Math class–Discrete Math–was required before taking any other programming courses, so I bore down and signed up for that. Problem: the text was horrific, requiring about 30 hours a week to get past the atrocious writing so I could spend another 10 hours learning the material. It was just too much on a full-time schedule, so I reluctantly withdrew.

Not wanting to just give up (our local Math professor has kindly agreed to arrange a private independent-study course that might get me the credit for Discrete Math, but not this year), I started studying PHP. I want to re-write my Introduction to Computers web site from the ground up anyway, and I figured that knowing some PHP would help. Well, now that my August break has started, I started diving into it. The result so far: a crude, basic understanding… and a result. I figured out how to add a much-needed feature to my web site. My students crave feedback at every step, and I wanted to add little exercises after each page or two of study. PHP gave me a way to create very slightly interactive quizzes, very simple–choose the answers from drop down menus and check to see if you got things right.

Pleased with my little success, I figured I’d have a bit of fun and add a quiz you might want to take–not on computers, but on some basic political points. Just click the link below, choose what you think are the best answers, and then click “See Results” to find out how many you got right. Since I like my students to figure out correct answers, I don’t give the answers on the results page; you have to go back and try again. Enjoy!

These people really are living in a fantasy world. After quitting as governor mid-term, Sarah Palin started cashing in big-time–book deals, speaking tours, and now even a reality show of her own. But filming the show, she came across an Alaskan who was none too happy with Palin leaving her post for profit. Palin approached the woman, who had put up a large sign reading “Worst Governor Ever,” and apparently attempted to talk her down. Excerpts are extremely telling:

Gustafson: You swore on your precious Bible that you would uphold the interest of this state, and then when cash was waved in front of your face, you quit.
Palin: Oh you wanted me to be your governor! I’m honored!

Wow. I know that it’s a standard political technique to dodge a hard question by answering a different question, but that’s quite a stretch there–unless Palin was trying to be snarky and condescending.

Gustafson: I wanted you to honor your responsibilities. That is what I wanted, and to be part of the political process instead of becoming a celebrity.
Palin: That’s what I’m out there fightin’ for America to be able to have a Constitution protectin’ us so we can have free speech…
Gustafson: In what way are you fighting for that? In what way?
Palin: Oh my goodness! To elect candidates who understand the Constitution to protect our military interests so that we can keep on fightin’ for our Constitution that will protect your freedoms…

Here’s where we see a strong element of what we’ve seen before–the self-anointed hero, actually believing that resigning her duties so she can get millions from a book deal, write trash from her social networking sites, and then start her own reality show is “fighting for the Constitution” and “protecting our freedoms.” Here’s someone with, to put it mildly, delusions of grandeur.

Gustafson: By using your celebrity status.
Palin: How am I a celebrity? I’m honored that you think I’m a celebrity.

Again with the snarky condescension. And, hey, I could swear that in the 2008 elections, Palin chimed in with McCain and attacked Obama for being a “celebrity.” Not that consistency is one of her strengths.

Here’s where it gets a bit sad:

Gustafson: You’re certainly not representing the state of Alaska any longer.
Bristol Palin: She’s representing the United States.

Sad that her daughter has apparently bought into the mythos, believing that her mom has somehow been elected to the presidency or some similar office. You represent people when they elect you; so far, America has not elected Palin to anything–she lost, last I heard. And unless she is taking all the millions she is earning and giving them to the people somehow, then resigning from the post she was elected to and cashing in is not in any way “representing America.”

But then it gets even better: Palin discovers what the woman’s profession is…

Gustafson: Yes, I know, you belong to America now, and that suits you just fine.
Palin: What do you do?
Gustafson: I’m a teacher…
Palin: (eye roll)

You have to watch the video: Palin actually does do an eye roll, a rather overt eye roll, with a look to her people, as if to say, “Oh, Jesus, one of those a-holes, great.” And if Palin was thinking it, one of her daughters said it, to the man who was with the protesting local woman–called him an “A-hole” for filming the talk, or perhaps for letting the woman put the sign up on his property.

A sign which the Palin team illegally tore down soon after the little talk. On a public pier where Palin’s private security people were patting down and searching local residents who came too close–as if they had any legal right to do so. As if they were Secret Service agents carrying out law enforcement, or that the public pier belonged to Palin and her entourage. Not to mention the irony of Palin making such big noises about the freedom to carry arms, but not apparently when they’re around her. It is as if Palin and her team did just about every about every little thing possible to aggrandize themselves at the expense of those around them, talking about rights and then stepping on the townsfolk like they were the little people.

And these people call liberals “elitists”? Irony of ironies. It’s a personality cult, built on a rather bizarre personality, based upon lack of desire to serve and all the desire to make as much money as possible and act all superior and self-important. I’d expect this kind of stuff from people even younger than Bristol, and even for them, it would be embarrassing. This, this is just pathetic. And those who adore her… just plain sad.

I have blogged on this in the past, and simply restate my feelings now: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if not war crimes, were certainly not necessary to end the war. I hold that it would have been more than adequate had a “warning shot” been detonated over mountains outside Tokyo, in full view of the capital, and then a warning given that a city a week would be obliterated if Japan did not surrender unconditionally. I do not accept any of the excuses about this; it was a clear alternative anyone could have seen, and had more merit than what was done.

The usual side concerns arise: while Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrific, they paled in comparison to what the rest of Japan suffered in many ways. Carpet bombing of civilian populations killed far more people, and a person dying of third-degree burns likely feels little different if the burns came from conventional or nuclear weapons. The A-bombs were essentially the plane crash equivalents of war: they captured attention because they were unusual and horrifyingly spectacular in nature, even though more people died just as horribly by other means.

An interesting twist on this, the 65th anniversary of the bombings: the U.S. ambassador attended the ceremonies in Hiroshima, the first time an official American representative has been present at the proceedings. This was done with the intention of showing America’s commitment to nuclear disarmament, but some Japanese were “disappointed” that America did not take this opportunity to offer an official apology for the bombings. That is very, very unlikely: many Americans tend to feel completely justified about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and get their backs up whenever anyone says differently. Were an American official to apologize in such a manner, there would be political hell to pay. But especially for Obama, who the right wing already pillories for “bowing to foreign leaders” and “apologizing for America” to foreign powers, if such an apology were made on his watch, he would pay an especially high price–not to mention that there is no evidence that he would agree that an apology is in order. Indeed, even sending the ambassador was too much for some people.

Then there is the question about the appropriateness of Japan asking for such an apology, considering the fact that Japan itself has never fully apologized to its Asian neighbors for acts just as horrible and extreme. Not that this has any bearing on any actions that might be taken by the U.S., nor does it suggest that people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are against Japan apologizing to countries such as China. But it does bring such facts to light.

Then there is the idea that America was especially guilty for using such weapons. One would have no doubt whatsoever that had Japan possessed such weapons during the war, that they would have used them without hesitation. Nor can Japan deny that intent, considering that Japan itself had not one, but two different nuclear weapons development programs underway during the war. If Japan was seeking to build nuclear weapons and had the unquestionable will to use them, how pure are Japan’s protestations about the inhumanity turned against themselves? Again, not that this excuses or justifies what America did, but if Japan truly wishes to make a statement against the use of such weapons, to claim victimhood only and ignore its own nuclear intent is more than just a little telling. To admit that the programs existed and those were just as wrong would be a much more powerful statement–and yet I have not heard anyone in Japan make such a statement.

This plays into the larger issue of Japan’s own views of what happened in WWII: its whitewashing of its own aggression and atrocities, its sharp and sometimes extreme focus on how Japan suffered with great emphasis on Japan’s victimhood. I have heard students tell of History teachers in public schools who teach up to the point where Japan started invading other countries, claim there is not enough time to cover all the material, and then jump to the last year of the war where Japan suffered most, without covering the intervening events. Films critical of Japan are regularly blocked or extremely limited, while films lionizing people like Hideki Tojo are well-received. It really does not seem that Japan is itself carrying out the self-introspection and regret that it expects of others.

I remember seeing one of Kurosawa’s final films, Rhapsody in August. It starred Richard Gere as an American nephew of a Japanese woman who comes to visit his family in Japan, learns about the bombings in which the woman’s husband died, and apologizes for what happened. Now, confronted with survivors of the bombings, I myself would offer an apology as an American, so I do not see such a concept as inappropriate. But for a Japanese filmmaker to write such a script is, to say the least, just a bit out of place. Imagine, for example, if an American director like Francis Ford Coppola were to make a movie based in Hawaii where a Japanese visitor learns of Pearl Harbor and decides to apologize to Americans for the attack; I doubt it would be well-received in Japan, nor would they feel it appropriate.

One other note: before this film, despite his status as a legend, Kurosawa had been unable to get funding for his films. George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg had to give Kurosawa the funding necessary to make both Kagemusha and Ran, both receiving widespread critical acclaim. For the less-well-received Rhapsody in August, however, Kurosawa had no trouble getting domestic funding. Take from that what you may.

In the end, I hold to Santayana’s advice: we must remember atrocities and injustices our own people have committed lest we commit those crimes again. Remembering the crimes committed against us by other nations and forgetting or forgiving what we ourselves have done is to ensure we will repeat those mistakes in the future. No one is immune from whitewashing their past; America does so quite often. However, despite right-wing anger and disapproval regarding Americans who “apologize” and “hate America” for recognizing the worst of our heritage, such observation is nothing less than the beginning of peace for the future, and necessary for a far more civilized world to live in.