Reading Snopes every day, one gets the very strong sense that right-wingers do a hell of a lot of propagandizing via email, and this under-the-media-radar stuff verges on the explosive–and often goes way over the edge. I mentioned this within a previous omnibus post.

In fact, I posted on this kind of thing two and a half years ago, but focused more on the propensity of right-wingers to vilify Katrina victims. Back then, there was a wave of rumors spread by email claiming that blacks from New Orleans were living high off the FEMA hog, blowing their aid money on luxuries or gambling it away, refusing to accept jobs, and instead spreading crime and disease to good-samaratin victims trying to help them.

A lot of fake emails making the rounds are hoaxes or scams–pleas for emails for sick children which are probably spam address harvesting ploys, or frightening stories about abuse to animals which have no basis in reality. However, those which seem politically slanted far more often slant to the right wing ideals, with racial overtones often in overt display.

Many seem to be political attempts to dampen criticism of Republicans by heaping blame and scorn on Democrats or even those who are victims of Republican mismanagement. The many attacks on destitute blacks out of New Orleans after Katrina was almost certainly intended to blunt criticism against the Bush administration by making the victims seem despicable and deserving of what they got, or otherwise portrayed them as stupid and lazy, making their misfortune their own fault.

But a lot of it is politically motivated, like the flood of fake propaganda emails assailing Barack Obama, no doubt responsible for so many thinking he’s a Muslim. Or the one I pointed out that paints a starkly racist picture of his family, equally fake. Similarly, criminal acts by Bush and fellow Republicans are responded to by making Democrats seem worse, like this email claiming Clinton was a felon who somehow got “pardoned” (by whom?), or that he was the real Enron beneficiary.

However, it was a Snopes story from a few days ago which prompted this post, as it had yet another viral email from the right wing which perfectly exemplified this kind of thing. It was an email which has appeared in blogs, forums, newspaper letters-to-the-editor–you name it, it’s been there. The basic claim is that more soldiers died while Clinton was president than did under Bush–the obvious implication being that Bush is not costing soldier’s lives with his botched con-job in Iraq. Here’s how it’s laid out:

These are some rather eye-opening facts.

Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through today, we have lost over 3,000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents.

As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:

1980 ……..2,392
1981 ……..2,380
1984 ……..1,999
1988 ……..1,819
1989 ……..1,636
1990 ……. 1,508
1991 ……..1,787
1992 ……..1,293
1993 ……..1,213
1994 ……..1,075
1995 ……..2,465
1996 ……..2,318    Clinton years @14,000 deaths
1997 ……….817
1998 ……..2,252
1999 ……..1,984
2000 ……..1,983
2001 ……… 890
2002 ……..1,007
2003 ……..1,410
2004 ……..1,887
2005 ……….919
2006………. 920     Bush years (2001-2006): 7,033 deaths

If you are confused when you look at these figures, so was I.

Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton’s presidency; when America wasn’t even involved in a war? And, I was even more confused; when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize winner) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!

These figures indicate that many members of our Media and our Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those “facts” which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth? Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?

(These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf )

The funny thing about this is that whoever it was who wrote this included the URL for the actual data on military casualties–a report which shows the numbers claimed are not just wrong, but clearly faked.

As you might expect, military deaths under Clinton were not higher than they are under Bush. In fact, they were the lowest under Clinton than they were under any other president since 1980. Furthermore, the data cited is flawed in another fundamental way. Before getting into that, however, one wonders at the idea that hundreds of right-wing bloggers and forum-goers would repeatedly post the fake data, right along with the URL to the proof the data was fake, and never bother to check it out. Is there that little capacity to self check, that great a desire to believe what they want to believe that so many would do something so lame-brained?

A quick look at the relevant table on page 11 of the linked PDF file shows that the figures in the right-wing rant have been clearly altered to make Clinton’s numbers higher and Dubya’s lower.The number of deaths on both lists remains mostly consistent up until 1994… after which Clinton’s numbers are fictionalized as being higher, and Bush 43’s numbers are artificially lowered.

The real numbers show the following: in total deaths, average per year:

Reagan: 2150
Bush 41: 1556
Clinton: 938
Bush 43: 1465

In accidental deaths, average per year:

Reagan: 1332
Bush 41: 872
Clinton: 494
Bush 43: 521

And in hostile deaths, in combat, average per year:

Reagan: 7
Bush 41: 43
Clinton: 0*
Bush 43: 433

*Clinton’s zero figure comes from the fact that while he was president, only one soldier died from hostile fire–despite harsh Republican criticism that Clinton was putting U.S. soldiers in harm’s way in the Balkans.

In fact, counting by almost any category–homicide, suicide, illness, accident, or hostile fire–fewer soldiers died under Clinton than did under either Bush or Reagan. The only exception is in the category of terrorist attacks, in which fewer died under Bush Sr. But that’s it.

Even if the creator of this forged polemic had been honest in reporting the numbers, the basic premise is still flawed–as it counts not just casualties from fighting, but all casualties. The idea being that a president is going to be held responsible for all servicemen who died in accidents of any kind, for example.

But the obvious gist of the article is that Bush is not being irresponsible with the troops, with the natural assumption being that the Iraq War is not as hard on soldiers as was duty under Clinton–and this is patently false, under any pretense, but especially under the only reasonable comparison, which is counting deaths under hostile circumstances.

Now, when you think about it, you don’t even need to look at the tables to see that the numbers have been faked; just look at the purported number of total deaths for 2005 and 2006 that the right-wingers are claiming: 919 and 920? In years where 846 and 822 U.S. soldiers died in the Iraq War, respectively? Supposedly we are to believe that the number of soldiers who died in accidents or other causes fell to nearly zero under Dubya after being in the thousands in other years?

The whole thing is an example of the blatant lies that ardent right-wingers so fiercely embrace, even when the evidence they are flat-out wrong is staring them in the face, so long as the fake “truths” tell them what they want to hear.

The On This Day… widget in this blog’s sidebar is showing its worth; in addition to acting as a record of what I was thinking, doing, or seeing at this time in years past (not bad for birdwatching, for example), it reminds me of a lot of stuff I have written on but forgotten about, stuff that is worth commenting on. For example, there was a story three years ago about a “fast-charging battery” that would almost fully recharge in one minute. They said it would be available in 2006. Well, here it is, 2008, and I don’t see the battery around. Maybe it was released but is too expensive, or has limitations which keep it from being widely used, I don’t know. But it is worth noticing that so many of the stories of new, revolutionary technology that we see eventually come to nothing. Good reason to take such stories with a grain of salt, or at least a wait-and-see attitude.

Another story from the same day highlights the worthlessness of all the stories about how vulnerable the Mac is to attacks. Here’s a report released by an antivirus software company three years ago:

Security vendor Symantec is warning that Apple’s OS X operating system is increasingly becoming a target for hackers and malware authors. …

Symantec believes that as the popularity of Apple’s new platform continues to grow, so too will the number of attacks directed at it,” the report said.

Symantec’s concerns were echoed by James Turner, security analyst at Frost & Sullivan Australia, who said many of the people who bought Apple products were not concerned about security, which left them wide open to attack. … As soon as you start seeing mass deployment of any technology you are going to see exploits.”

According to Biviano, while there have not been any mass outbreaks of viruses targeting the Mac, the potential does exist. …

“Look at where mobile viruses are going and they are not targeting Microsoft – they are targeting the market leader, which is Symbian,” he said.

That was three years ago. The Mac market share has more than doubled since then, and now the iPhone is a major player in the mobile market. We have trumped-up publicity stunts like this one (thoroughly debunked here and here) still trying to tell us how vulnerable Macs are and how secure Windows is, but the fact remains that Vista is far from secure, and about 80% of Windows users are still vulnerable to more than 100,000 real-world malware packages… while the Mac has suffered from only two real-world attacks, both trojans (the easiest type of attack to carry out because it bypasses OS security instead of defeating it), and neither of those trojans is known to have done much if any damage at all. The first affected a total of one person. The second has been reported as existing in the wild, but I have heard no reports of anyone actually falling prey to it. Both require several steps to be taken by a naive Mac user to allow the trojan to attack their system, including typing in administrator passwords for no good reason whatsoever.

In short, the Mac has remained virus-free and virtually malware free, despite increasing its market share far beyond what the naysayers guessed at three years ago. The promised wave of malware attacks has completely failed to materialize. And yet we still get regular reports from the same people saying the same thing–the Mac has all these vulnerabilities (which somehow never actually get turned into real-world exploits), it’s going to get creamed any day now! Look!

Apple Macs running the Mac OS X operating system are just as vulnerable to viruses and other threats as Windows PCs are. That’s according to Symantec software architect Ollie Whitehouse who made the claims in an interview with Tech.co.uk.

“Apple has been demonstrated to suffer a number of vulnerabilities over the years,” he said. “Suffice to say that Symantec and other software security vendors do produce anti-virus software for the Mac because we believe there is the potential of a problem.”

That was last August, two and a half years after the first Symantec warning that I posted about–and I am certain there were scare stories from Symantec and others well before three years ago.

We’re still waiting for the massive onslaught of viruses on the Mac.

Remember those millions of White House emails that happened to get lost? And the backups were lost too? And then the hard disk drives these were all stored on accidentally destroyed? And the emails from the alternate email system many used were also lost, along with their backups if there ever were any? And that the lost emails just happened to cover periods of time that happened to coincide with likely periods of White House lawbreaking?

I suspect that even anyone unfamiliar with technology would find this all unlikely, unless you were so biased in favor of the Bush administration that you would believe excuses involving the Easter Bunny. But to those who have even a rudimentary understanding of how computers work, this all comes across as such a stupid, blatant load of BS that it is rather unbelievable that criminal prosecutions are not already in progress.

If you would like a more detailed explanation of much of that story with the perspective of experts in such things, then read this post from Daily Kos. If you want the story from a less biased source, I was only able to find this article from the AP; for some strange, unexplained reason, the MSM doesn’t seem to be covering this story much at all. Go figure. A few tech blogs have covered some aspects of it, however.

Though we caught a glimpse of the cherry blossoms last week as they were just starting to bloom, Sachi and I figured that we’d see them in their prime this week. We decided to go to two different places. Sachi dislikes Shinjuku, so we didn’t go back to Shinjuku Gyoen (though I think that’s really the best place for cherry blossom viewing, as it’s big, well-kept, has lots of trees and varieties, and has elbow room to spread out in–a big thing when you see the other places), and we decided that Ueno would be too crowded.

For some reason, we thought Inogashira Park in Kichijoji would not be. Big mistake.

You really can’t understand the press shown in this photo, it isn’t done justice here. There’s a quaint, narrow shopping street going from near Kichijoji Station to Inogashira Park, and it was packed enough most of the way–but the last 50 meters or so was intolerably jammed. We virtually inched along, with some jerk at my back apparently thinking he’d move faster if he pressed up against me and pushed. The jam was caused more by the large number of people on the street lining up for yakitori at a place called Iseya, near the entrance to the park.

Once inside, the park was little better–it was sardine time, worse than I’ve ever seen it. To top things off, the park has adopted a new don’t-feed-the-birds policy, which meant the loaf of bread we’d brought would go to waste, and there was little else left to do. Forget going out on the lake in a boat, the line was tremendous. Even just walking along was bad enough. Still, a few shots did result from the visit:

In addition to the blossoms, some Oshidori (Mandarin Ducks) were in attendance, though they were just about the only birds there; since the no-feeding policy, the number of birds in the park has plummeted. Clever idea they had there.

So after walking through the park for about fifteen minutes, we’d had enough, and went back to the station, and on to Meguro. Sachi knows the location well because she lived nearby for a while. There’s a river lined for a good distance with cherry blossom trees, and so we enjoyed ourselves there, somewhat better because it was far less crowded.

One thing we did notice was that it was Crazy Day. First, there were accidents on both train lines we wanted to use–the Yamanote and the Inogashira. In fact, as we took the Inogashira Line, we passed a station where, at the end of the platform, there appeared to be two human bodies completely covered over by tarps, apparently explaining the accident delay. A bit of a shock there.

Then, a little later on the same train, some guy came racing through the car; we thought he needed to get from one end of the train to the other fast, but he stopped at the end of our car… and started touching advertisements. Only the ones on either side of the doors–first the ads on one side, then the other, then to the next set of doors, all down the length of the car. Obsessive-compulsive or something, I suppose.

Then, in Meguro, there was quite a bit of craziness brought on by simple drinking, including these guys pictured below (apparently just back from a wedding), who had one member pretend to climb over the railing while the rest, for some reason, sang the Hanshin Tigers baseball team song.

Nevertheless, Sachi and I enjoyed ourselves with a pleasant few hours’ walk, and then dinner at a nice restaurant before heading back.

One last image. Just before we finished up in Meguro, we passed a taxi parking lot, and spotted several cats who had learned about warm car hoods. Two were on one taxi, and another underneath; I caught the couple on the hood.

As you probably know or can guess, I hate web advertising that goes beyond simple text ads. Anything that moves or blinks or gets in your way annoys the hell out of me. I use PithHelmet for Safari, and make sure the settings are optimized so that all the sites I regularly visit are defanged of any ads.

However, one form of in-your-face advertising which is so far immune from such blockers are “content links,” those double-underline links which show pop-up ads when your mouse travels over them. These get set off a lot just because you move your mouse from point A to point B without being extra cautious to avoid the double-underlines.

But at least there can still be comedy to be had from them. From what I can observe, these ad links are created by some program without human intervention, which would explain the weird way that various words are chosen and somehow linked to various ads.

All I can say is that if I were Shopping.com, I would ask for my money back for this ad:

Unless, of course, they enjoy brisk sales of toxins.

New story out today:

Nagoya-based Aiphone chose this week to tell the world that it has been in talks with Apple since last summer about giving the US firm the right to use the ‘iPhone’ trademark in Japan.
You say iPhone, we say…

The possible conflict arose because, although ‘Aiphone’ and ‘iPhone’ are spelled differently in English, the Japanese rendering of both is exactly the same.

Aiphone says it has “reached a friendly agreement with Apple” that allows both to use the Japanese version within Japan.

Aiphone is not a telephone, but the name of a communications company founded in Japan in 1948. Since they seem to primarily make building intercom systems, you won’t be seeing any crossover, no cell phone “iPhone vs. AiPhone.”

The real importance of this announcement, as noted in the quoted article, is the fact that this proves the iPhone is indeed coming. While there is no confirmation that the iPhone will be coming to Japan in June (when it is rumored to come out in 3G in a variety of new countries), every new news tidbit suggests the loosening of the lid on the secret, which suggests a more imminent release.

Rumors have been coming out the past several days that a new Apple iPhone, a 3G machine with GPS and possibly an OLED screen, will be coming out soon, possibly as early as June. Apple has supposedly ordered 10 million units for production. If true, then I am guessing that they still won’t come out in Japan until they have appeared everywhere else on Earth first.

Obama Girl (Amber Lee Ettinger) is back with a new video, “Hillary! Stop the Attacks! Love, Obama Girl.”

But much more funny is this uncovered footage of Hillary arriving in Bosnia under heavy fire and mortar attack:

“Top generals agree that there is no place more dangerous and snipery than Bosnia right now.”

Looks like I was wrong about Hillary again!

I thought it was weird when Hillary Clinton snuggled up to conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, even to the extent of having him run a fundraiser for her and accepting donations from Murdoch and other Fox News execs.

But now there’s a photo of Hillary sitting down to have an interview with Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the most rabid right-wing attack dogs during the Clinton years.

WTF?

I can’t bring myself to believe in some bizarre conspiracy between Hillary and hard-core right-wing sleaze merchants, but I do have to ask, what the hell is Hillary thinking and doing?

When you live in Japan, one of the obstacles to everyday entertainment is trying to find a video at the rental store. Aside from the usual bizarre choices for which categories they place titles under, the main impediment in finding a title is…the title. Sometimes it’s the same as it is in the U.S., but all too often it’s not.

Even when it is the same title, you still have to work through the Katakana-ization of the original English; for example, when asking for Back to the Future, you would have to say “Bakku to za Fyuucha.” Of course, the rental store clerk might understand you when you just say it naturally in English, but if the title has tough sounds for Japanese, and/or the movie is not well-known in Japan, then you could still get into trouble–for example, “Batorufiirudo Aasu” is not quite as recognizably Battlefield Earth–and sometimes naming the stars is not so easy either (“Jon Toravorutora”?).

But it gets even harder when they change the title. There are two variations of this, the first being when the new title is in Japanese. These titles can be hard if you don’t read or speak the language well, but even when the title is directly translated, it can make you strain at your Japanese. 許されざる者, for example, translates directly to “The Unforgiven (Man),” more or less the title of the Clint Eastwood film Unforgiven. 猿の惑星 is an accurate translation of Planet of the Apes. But some titles are changed and in Japanese, some more understandably than others. For example, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants became 旅するジーンズと16歳の夏, or (as far as I can imperfectly translate) “The Traveling Pants and the 16-year-old’s Summer.” Dead Poet’s Society becomes いまを生きる, or “Live for the Moment” (or, Japanese for Carpe Diem). The great comedy Blast from the Past became the rather convoluted タイムトラベラー きのうから来た恋人, or “Time Traveler: The Lover from the Past.” One that will really throw you for a loop is 四つ数えろ, or “Count to Four.” Give up? It’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Steve Martin’s parody of old detective flicks. Why the title? Because 三つ数えろ, or “Count to Three” was the Japanese title for The Big Sleep. I remember an older title, 愛は静けさの中に, literally “Love is Within Silence.” Any guesses as to what that one was? How about 愛しのローズマリー, or “My Dear Rosemary” (possibly “Poor Rosemary,” depending on the translation)? See the answer below the fold.

Even more confusing is when the title is changed but remains in English, but different English. For example, if you want to get The Siege, you need to ask for “Marshall Law.” X-Men 3 is not The Last Stand, but “Final Decision” instead. Miss Congeniality becomes “Dangerous Beauty.” Bicentennial Man is “Andrew NDR114.” The movie “Total Fears” might be too easy to guess as The Sum of All Fears; however, would you care to guess which movies got the titles “The Agent” and “Color of Heart”? Those below the fold as well.

If you’re searching for a title in Japanese, a Google search for the title plus the words (in quotes), “Japanese Title” will often get you the correct answer. But if you want a cheat sheet, try this guy’s web site–he lists a good many movies with their Japanese titles–though a few are a bit misspelled in English, most notably Load of the Rings. At least, I hope that’s misspelled.
Read more…

Via Andrew Sullivan:

“The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism and homophobia which still tarnish the American dream. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a critical time in America’s history as we seek to repent of our racism. No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again to one another and not to distort one another’s truth.”

Who said this?

Dean J. Snyder, Foundry United Methodist Church, March 19, 2008.

Why is that significant?

Snyder is Hillary Clinton’s pastor. See comments.

Oops. If Hillary’s pastor approves of Wright, and Hillary feels that Wright is unacceptable, then her pastor must be just as unacceptable to Hillary, by the same association she foists upon Obama. Which means that in order not to be a hypocrite, Hillary must denounce her own pastor and leave his church.

Think she will?

As promised, here is the birdwatching conclusion to the Shinjuku Gyouen Park post. Actually, at the park, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get any bird photos–after taking about a hundred photos of blossoms and other things, my camera stopped working. When I looked, it was flashing, “CF Card Full.” What the? I had cleared the card before leaving home, and the thing holds close to five hundred photos, even Large, SuperFine 10-megapixel images. But then I remembered–I had last set the thing to take JPEG plus RAW images… and the RAW images are huge. Worse, I couldn’t find a way to delete just the RAW images without deleting the JPEGs as well. Fortunately, I had taken quite a few excess images, and was able to erase enough unwanted ones to clear up enough space for a few hundred more high-quality JPEGs.

Good thing, too, because there were quite a few birds there–twenty-one species (though I may be forgetting a few) in all:

Brown-eared Bulbul
White-cheeked Starling
Great Tit
Varied Tit
Bull-headed Shrike
Great Cormorant
Large-billed Crow
Mallard
Mandarin Duck
Spot-billed Duck
Little Grebe
Black-faced Bunting
Rose-ringed Parakeet
Dusky Thrush
Oriental Turtle Dove
Common Kingfisher
White Wagtail
Grey Wagtail
Japanese White-eye
Tree Sparrow
Great Egret

Always beautiful is the Common Kingfisher:

The Black-faced Buntings are not too rare, but you don’t often see them out in the open like this:

The Varied Tits were all crowded in one large bush, coming out to sit on a cable and dip into a plastic sleeve… for some reason. (The first two images have larger versions on click.)

A surprising catch was a Rose-ringed Parakeet, which I have heard about but never spotted before–I did not expect to catch a new species in Shinjuku! The Rose-ringed Parakeet is an escaped species, originally in Japan as a pet, but they have been doing quite well in Tokyo for some time–even roosting 600-700 strong near this biological research lab in Meguro. You can also see a map showing sightings of the birds throughout Tokyo. I only caught this one in flight–and this attests well to my new camera’s worth. I only saw the bird after I heard a strange screeching in the sky, and I spotted and photographed the bird only as it flew overhead in a matter of a few seconds. Nevertheless, these pictures resulted:

Just one more image for today–a flock of Mandarin Ducks were at the park–but only under dark shade and at extreme range in the park’s westernmost lake. Could barely see them, but you could see that they were there in number.

There were lots more, but those were the more interesting of the day.

I had a little problem with my WiFi base station after a firmware upgrade the other day, and I figured that the thing reset or something–I could not pick it up under its old name, and figured that it reset to some generic name. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out which one, as my computer kept on picking up other signals–lots of other signals. Not all at the same time, either–only five or six at a time, and they kept changing. I had to read all the different signal names and then unplug my base station to see which one disappeared… and, as it turned out, the base station was none of them, it simply wasn’t being picked up. In the meantime, I went through the list… and counted a total of twenty-one different network signals.

The puzzling thing is, most WiFi networks have a limit of 30 meters or so, less than that in actual practice. Most won’t even reach between floors of a building, especially one with heavy construction like this one. Seeing as how I’m on the 21st floor of a high-rise and there are no other buildings that close, I have no idea what I’m picking up. There are at most eight apartments around me, but even if every one of them uses WiFi, that still doesn’t account for the other dozen. I can only figure that my computer is picking up signals that are weak as hell but nonetheless register somehow, at least enough to get the network name across. I must be picking up stray signals from at least a few different buildings.

In fact, a few have to be from other buildings–I’m picking up at least a few signals that purport to be free-access networks (though they are always password-protected), and I’m pretty sure that nobody in this building does that–in fact, I can’t see how any location even near this building is offering that. Maybe there are some stronger WiFi networks in the area than I am guessing–not just your standard home-network stuff, but something a lot stronger. Interesting.

Recent news: as civilian violence in Iraq escalates again, the Mahdi Army cease-fire seems on the brink of collapse. But even while the media reports on this and correctly identifies this as a possible end to the relative calm in Iraq this past 6 months, it still stubbornly insists that it would threaten the “success” of the Surge™. Come again? Either the surge was more responsible for the relative calm, or the Mahdi cease-fire did. You can’t have it both ways–but they’re trying to:

Is ‘success’ of U.S. surge in Iraq about to unravel?

BAGHDAD — A cease-fire critical to the improved security situation in Iraq appeared to unravel Monday when a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr began shutting down neighborhoods in west Baghdad and issuing demands of the central government.

Simultaneously, in the strategic southern port city of Basra, where Sadr’s Mahdi militia is in control, the Iraqi government launched a crackdown in the face of warnings by Sadr’s followers that they’ll fight government forces if any Sadrists are detained. By 1 a.m. Arab satellite news channels reported clashes between the Mahdi Army and police in Basra.

The freeze on offensive activity by Sadr’s Mahdi Army has been a major factor behind the recent drop in violence in Iraq, and there were fears that the confrontation that’s erupted in Baghdad and Basra could end the lull in attacks, assassinations, kidnappings and bombings.

Now, read that carefully, or go to the web page and read the whole thing. The headline claims that the surge is responsible for the relative calm, but the story clearly lays out that it’s the cease-fire that has done this.

Likely what happened was that the reporter on the ground who knows what’s what in Iraq wrote the story, and then an editor buying into the whole “Surge Success” bamboozle here at home pasted the headline on it, either because he believes it, or because he realizes that since everybody thinks the surge is a success, they’ll be confused if something else is credited.

Either way, Bush gets credit for something that had nothing to do with him. More Liberal Media™ fun!

As for the news itself, it is nothing close to fun, even in the sarcastic sense. This could signal a descent back into pre-cease-fire violence, lessened only by the balkanization of Iraqi sects and the relative lack of people left to violently butcher.

If that happens, what will be said about the surge? That it still worked, but the insurgents spoiled it? I’d say you can always bank on the U.S. media’s schizoid break with the reality of the situation, and that they’ll claim exactly that–despite how meaningless and self-contradictory it is.

The talking heads on the air waves are agonizing over whether we should make a big deal over the 4000th US soldier dead in Iraq.

My opinion: we should be agonizing over every single soldier who dies in Iraq, and for that matter, every Iraqi civilian who dies as well.

But if we can only get media attention, as compromising as it is, when the US death toll hits yet another thousand mark, then so be it.

There was a small but noticeable quake just a few minutes ago. Strangely, about five minutes before that, I swore I felt a quake, but the ceiling lamp didn’t sway visibly (as it did with the larger quake just a few minutes ago), so I discounted it. Also strangely, the larger quake so far has not been noted by the usual quake sites I visit.

Hmm.

Update: OK, it was a 5.6 quake off the coast of Fukushima. Mystery solved.

Have you heard of the recent “Winter Soldier” event? Probably not, and there’s a reason for it. Winter Soldier is named after a similar event following the Vietnam War–you probably heard of that one, seeing as how conservatives used it to call John Kerry a traitor. The event this time around, like the last, is one where soldiers returning from war tell of the horrors they saw and experienced, and speak both eloquently and powerfully against the need for the wars being waged. These soldiers are protesting the Iraq War, and while soldiers supporting the war tend to be given coverage, the media is all but silent about this much more provocative and important event.

In fact, though regional and local papers have dedicated a few columns to it, the mainstream media, the big, national news outlets, have been completely silent on this rather significant news story. The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, CBS, ABC, Fox–none of them have written a single word on the event. MSNBC had an article, but they inexplicably took it down less than a week after the story was published.

Why the silence? Why not honor the service of these soldiers, and hear the message they have to tell us?

Go ahead, read. (Hat tip to Charles for this story.)

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A card-carrying member of the Liberal Media™ reveals the left wing’s secret agenda to destroy Republicans and give liberals a break. From NBC journalist Chuck Todd, commenting on the media’s treatment of John McCain after repeatedly confusing Sunni al Qaeda with Shiite extremists:

Even if he gets dinged on the experience stuff, “Oh, he says he’s Mr. Experience. Doesn’t he know the difference between this stuff?” He’s got enough of that in the bank, at least with the media, that he can get away with it. I mean, the irony to this is had either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama misspoke like that, it’d have been on a running loop, and it would become a, a big problem for a couple of days for them.

It’s an everyday thing to see the media acting this way. It’s far more rare for them to come out and admit it.

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Also under the category of “Why Won’t the Damned Liberal Media™ Ever Give Poor John McCain a Break?” is the media disparity in reporting religious affiliations. Yes, Obama’s pastor said things which, out of the context of his community and its history, sound pretty shocking to White America; however, Obama has made clear that he denounces such speech, and has made equally clear that Wright is about far more than just those few words. At the very least, this story should be on equal grounds with John McCain’s story, where he actively sought and publicized the endorsement of the even more offensive John Hagee, who has said stuff like, “All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them,” or that gays caused Katrina or that we should hasten the apocalypse by invading Iran. At the very most, you can say that these sound shocking out of the context of the fundamentalist Christianity–in other words, that McCain’s religious affiliations are no less damning than Obama’s.

So, does the media cover them equally? Hell, no. Does the media cover them just a bit disproportionately? Nope, not that, either. In fact, while the media just won’t let go of the Wright story, injecting it in stories about Obama that have nothing to do with Wright, the same Liberal Media™ virtually ignores the Hagee story, writing almost nothing about it at all.

Meanwhile, Obama tends to get grilled not only for what his pastor said, but for what other people say or do, apparently just because they’re black, too. (As I write this, CNN is running the Wright video clips for the millionth time.)

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The buzz is getting louder on what exactly Hillary must think she’s doing in this race, in that it seems pretty close to impossible for her to win without wreaking serious havoc within the party, alienating a huge number of Democrats, and virtually handing the presidency to John McCain. She’s too far behind in delegates, has now lost the chance to get Florida to boost her up even somewhat, and has just received a major blow with Bill Richardson, a man very close to the Clintons, who perhaps owes his career to them, giving his endorsement to Barack Obama instead. And it now seems that Obama has weathered the Wright storm very well and is back on top in the polls, showing that he can survive and flourish even under the worst conditions possible for him.

The rundown: Hillary can’t win this. She should withdraw. But it’s pretty obvious that she won’t, probably not even if Pennsylvania goes badly for her. She’s going to hang on no matter what, and she’s going to hurt the Democratic cause in a major fashion by doing so. The general consensus is, she should read the handwriting on the wall and drop out, giving the Democrats a far greater chance of winning.

But some see even baser motives in Clinton’s Quixotic challenge: that if Obama wins, he’ll be the new boss of the Democratic Party, while if Clinton or McCain win, the Clintons will maintain their control. Yikes! That’s a pretty harsh charge–that Hillary would be willing to sink the Democratic chances at the presidency just to maintain political control over the Democrats. I would not quite go so far as to accuse her of that… but I would not put it past her at this point, either.

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Here are some interesting political results out of the technology community:

IT workers are evenly split between Barack Obama and John McCain as their choice for the next president of the United States, according to a new survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association and Rasmussen Reports.

The survey of IT workers, taken in early March, shows Obama and McCain in a dead heat, with each receiving 39 percent of the vote, and Hillary Clinton trailing at 13 percent.

The survey also shows that while 35 percent of IT workers identify themselves as Republicans and another 26 percent call themselves Democrats, 40 percent chose no party affiliation. An overwhelming majority—75 percent—put themselves in the conservative-moderate political spectrum.

Interesting that Obama does so well in a right-of-center environment; equally interesting to note that if Clinton were not in the picture, her support would almost certainly shift to Obama, giving him the clear advantage here.

Not a November prognosticator or anything, but interesting nonetheless.

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Obama has called for a dialog on race. Fortunately or unfortunately, that dialog is already beginning to work; we’re beginning to see the true raw edge of white hatred beginning to peek out a little bit more honestly:

But Obama has invited us to talk about race.

Okay. I’m accepting the invitation. He can regret it at his leisure.

I don’t hate black people. I can’t pretend to be color-blind because absolutely nothing in my culture will allow me to be. I admire Thomas Sowell, Duke Ellington, Roberto Clemente, Muhammed Ali, Alexandre Dumas, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Count Basie, Tiger Woods, and Bill Cosby. There are many others but that’s a sampling of the famous folks whose courage, genius, character, and achievements I would be proud if I could get anywhere in the vicinity of. The bald truth of the matter is that they’re better than I am, and it doesn’t arouse a flicker of racial feeling in me to acknowledge it. They have enriched and elevated my own experience of life.

On the other hand, I am sick to death of black people as a group. The truth. That is part of the conversation Obama is asking for, isn’t it? I live in an eastern state almost exactly on the fabled Mason-Dixon line. Every day I see young black males wearing tee shirts down to their knees — and jeans belted just above their knees. I’m an old guy. I want to smack them. All of them. They are egregious stereotypes. It’s impossible not to think the unthinkable N-Word when they roll up beside you at a stoplight in their trashed old Hondas with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations of the buildings. It’s like a broadcast dare: Go ahead! Call me a nigger! And then I’ll cap your ass.

Here’s the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it. Which would be fine. Except that black people are not a community but a political party. They can squabble with each other in caucus but they absolutely refuse to speak the truth in public. And this is the single biggest obstacle to healing the racial divide in this country. The dammed-up flood of good will in this nation for black people who want to work for their own American Dream is absolutely enormous. The biggest impediment is the doubt created in each and every non-black American by the clannish, tribalist, irrational defense of every low act committed by any black person. If you’re offended when Republicans defend Richard Nixon or when Democrats defend Chuck Schumer, imagine what it’s like when black people swarm the streets to defend Jeremiah Wright.

I’m not proposing the generalized use of the term, just trying to be clear for once, in the wake of Obama’s call for us to have a dialogue about race. However much they may scream and protest, black people will know what I mean when I demand they concede that the following people are niggers:

– Jeremiah Wright
– O.J. Simpson
– Marion Barry
– Alan Iverson
– William Jefferson
– Louis Farrakhan
– Mike Tyson

You know what I mean. They hold you back. They’re dirty, violent, and stupid. They make you look bad, and you foul yourselves by defending them, by reelecting them to office, by admiring them in spite of all their awful behavior.

I think this post is important in that it highlights a way that right-wingers legitimize racist views. They know that they don’t hate all blacks, and can list blacks they admire (all too evocative of the old “some of my best friends” line), and so use this as proof that they are not racist–whereupon they then release some pretty baldly racist invective. In this case, you have the person involved spilling forth a list of people he feels that deserve the base epithet, and the only common factor among them is that they are black and have said or done questionable or illegal things (are all whites who have similar pasts “crackers,” or whatever the epithet is today?). The claim is that they are defended and admired only because they are black (which somehow makes them qualified for the epithet), a charge you’d have a hard time defending for most of the people on that list. I don’t see Mike Tyson defended because he’s black, any more than so many other celebrities, most of them white, who get off with less than most people simply because of their celebrity (in fact, one could name more white celebrities who get treated more lightly than most black celebrities who break the law–and they certainly get far less attention, and no mention of race). William Jefferson? Don’t make me laugh. That’s entirely political, with the equivalent going for many white Republicans who committed similar crimes.

In fact, looking at the list, one quickly sees a pattern with most of those names: they are not all defended just because of their race, but almost all of them are singled out because of it. Seriously, there are white preachers who have said a lot worse than Farrakhan or Wright, but few who have been demonized as much as they have been because of it, and none that I have heard of who have been highlighted for “whites” or “Christians” being apologists for them; somehow, this is only notable with black preachers and those who follow them.

Even this relatively pedestrian display of racism is offered only upon the invitation to speak publicly about such things, and still you will not hear many people speaking so openly about such opinions. The scary thing is, if you look at the rhetoric that has long poured out of the conservative community, you can see this mindset lurking just beneath the surface, every once in a while peeking out. But it stays beneath the surface because it gets rightly slapped down when it comes out into the light of day. People who hold these views have learned to keep them hidden, to not speak it out loud. You can still make out their shape under the thin veneer of right-wing diatribe.

The positive view of all this is that it is best to pull out this fear and hatred into the light of day so that the people who feel and think this way can be presented with evidence that what they believe is not supported by fact or reality. And while that may work with a good many Americans, there is a large base of right-wing extremists who will refuse to change, no matter what the discussion. Unfortunately, these tend to be the same people who believe that George W. Bush is a great president, the Iraq War is a good thing and the administration never lied about it, and a mass of other pipe dreams which can be just as easily disproved. But the people who believe these things are not swayed by facts; they believe their guts, and short of a complete breakdown of their social support mechanism, which is unlikely to happen, most of them will not be moved by an open discussion on race. We’ve tried to move them on so much else, to no avail. Perhaps the only thing to do is to so stigmatize these racist ideas that they wither away and die slowly over time. I wish I could be more optimistic, but it is difficult to be optimistic in the face of the utter intransigence of far-right fear and loathing.

Despite what Dubya tells us, this is anything but a color-blind society. A lot of this is revealed in how race is treated when the race-baiting is anonymous. Subscribe to Scopes.com, and you’ll see what I am talking about. There are countless emails which constantly vilify blacks, some of them so baldly racist as to make you cringe. Most of these don’t make any of the news, but they are passed around by who knows how many hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of people. Want a recent and very wince-inducing example? Check out this one–which takes an old group portrait of Obama and relatives (perhaps including friends, some people in the shot are unidentified), and gives them fake names and histories–calling some of Obama’s relatives “crack addicts,” criminals, and “gay porn stars,” then inviting the reader to imagine what will happen when “this bunch starts running around the White House.”

Looking at how Obama is treated in the MSM calls forth impressions that a similar thing is being done at a far more “civilized” level, and is just as overlooked–Tim Russert holding Obama responsible for what Harry Belafonte says and does, the whole media jumping on the Wright affair and linking it to Farrakhan and worse, while not making a peep about McCain and Hagee and other controversial preachers McCain has sought endorsements from.

Yes, a dialog on race is overdue, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that race is still a huge issue in the United States, and that the right wing needs to wash out a lot of its dirty laundry on the issue.

Seeing as how the weather was nice, and we’d heard that the cherry blossoms had already started to bloom, we made off to Shinjuku to visit Shinjuku Gyouen Park, a large botanical garden very close to Shinjuku Station’s south exit. There was quite a bit to see today, and everyone seemed to come for the same reason we did. Tons of people were there, lots of families with kids, and surprisingly many foreign visitors as well.

Before we entered the park (¥200 admission fee, by the way), we stopped by a convenience store and picked up some food. We broke down and got a few “Calbi Franks,” which were nothing less than frankfurter sausages wrapped in bacon. Incredibly unhealthy, I am sure, but god they were good. We also got a few cans of beer, and so had to hide it when we noticed at the park entrance the sign which said, “no alcohol.” But one really strange thing to me at the store was the sandwiches. Among the ham & cheese and other usual sandwich types were these:

Those are strawberry, cream, and custard sandwiches. Not sold with the snacks, but with the regular sandwiches. Hmmm.

Anyhoo, we got into the park, and it was quite nice:

This little kid below, for some reason, decided to stop right in front of us as we sat on the lawn, and give us a little boogie dance.

Sachi took some photos of me by a cherry blossom tree, and caught this kid with his rather interesting English shirt, staring up at me in shock and awe:

And I can only suppose that these people were doing a catalog shoot for a bridal gown company or something. That little light/lens flare near her chin was there in the photo when I took it.

Naturally, the main reason to be there was to view the blossoms, and though (this being just the bare beginning of the blossoming season) most of the trees were not in bloom yet, there were a startling variety of trees which, while few in number, were nonetheless gracing the landscape with all varieties of white, pink, and red. The park has all different kinds of cherry blossom trees, some which blossom earlier than others (one was already shedding blossoms!), and many which sported different colors, even mixes. One tree had half white and half red blossoms, with several blossoms showing a mix. I’m sure that by next weekend, the park will be spectacular.

Sachi posed very nicely before one of the branches–many (I am sure by design) hang down low so people can see them very close.

The park is also very good for birdwatching… but this is enough for one post. More soon!

Good lord. Already the English language teaching market in Japan has become bad enough so that most jobs out there for teachers rate only the rock-bottom $30,000/year salary, work you hard, and most require you teach classes to little kids. For those of you who thought it could not get much worse, then prepare to have your hopes dashed.

What’s next? Clown suits and pie throwing? (Although this could easily be seen as the equivalent….) I am all for making the classroom environment stimulating and interesting for the students, but there are limits; this borders on the fetishistic.

As I mentioned in the last post, Sachi and I used the Vernal Equinox to make a day trip back to her hometown in Nagano. Despite being in the way-out inaka, the Shinkansen (bullet train) stops relatively nearby, just a half-hour drive from her brother’s house. So we took the express train to Omiya just north of Tokyo, and switched to the Shinkansen there; Sachi’s stop is just one after Karuizawa, a popular Nagano resort town. Despite it being the first day of Spring, it was snowing in Karuizawa, which kind of surprised us even though it was cold and rainy elsewhere. It was snowing only a little less in the highlands of her parent’s home where the grave site is.

After the ohaka-mairi visit, we went back to Sachi’s brother’s place for some food and drink and company before heading back. Hard to ignore was the family dog, Ryu. A cute dog, except that he’s so damned ugly. He’s a seven-year-old dog but looks fifteen. The poor little guy has allergies all the way to Hades and back; he’s a mass of red rashes which cover the exposed skin of his belly, around his eyes, and often right through his fur. He is constantly scratching himself, and spent half the time we were there barfing on a cushion. I just had to take some photos of him. He had no problem with that, but did not seem to like the results–when I showed the picture of him to the canine directly, he peered at the camera through red, squinty eyes, and then started growling deep and low. He showed the same reaction only when the camera’s display, with his image on it, was turned toward him.