Here are some other Leopard features, some I knew about and some I didn’t, which will make a difference for me. These are not the main features, but rather the lesser-known ones.

UI Recording and Playback in Automator
Add even more capabilities to your workflows. Use a new action called Watch Me Do that lets you record a user action (like pressing a button or controlling an application without built-in Automator support) and replay as an action in a workflow.

This is what has kept me from using Automator before now: it was limited in what actions it could record. With this feature addition, maybe it will become the super-Macro program that it should have been from the beginning.

Here’s a feature I have a question about:

Boot Camp: Copy Files Between Mac OS X and Windows
Copy, open, modify, or delete files in Mac OS X that you saved to your Windows partition. Leopard understands the Windows FAT32 disk format.

Does that mean that you can make a disk image/copy of the Windows partition while in Mac mode and then use that to re-install a virgin copy of Windows at will, without trouble? Because you can’t now.

Dashcode IDE
Quickly design, code, and deploy your Dashboard widget. Dashcode is a completely integrated development environment.

This, along with a half-dozen other Dashcode features, may actually allow me to make widgets without learning a programming language. We’ll have to see if it lives up to the promise….

Icon Preview
See files for what they really are. Leopard displays icons that are actual thumbnail previews of the documents themselves.

This will be super-cool… so long as it doesn’t take forever to fill in the previews like it does now. I hope, but do not expect.

New Folder of Options
Take control your view options. Adjust the grid spacing to move icons closer together or further apart for the currently viewed folder, or with one click make this view the default for all your folders.

Nice, but is this as far as they went to FTFF? For example, when I set “all windows” to calculate folder sizes, will it remember and stay consistent? We shall see.

Screen Sharing
Collaborate with a buddy via iChat. Work on a Keynote presentation together, surf the web as a team, or help each other with an iMovie project. iChat initiates the connection (asking permission first) with an audio chat so you can talk things through as you work or play. Trade views of each other’s desktops. Even drag files from one computer to the other.

This is what will make iChat a killer app, in my opinion–the ability to cross-control Mac screens remotely. Previously this was only available in apps such as Timbuktu, for $180 or more.

Location-Aware Printing
Print in multiple locations with ease. Leopard detects when you’ve changed locations. So as you move your Mac between work, school, and home, Mac OS X figures out which printer to use and sets it as the default printer. You can choose another printer whenever you want.

A very small feature, but it’s the attention to details that count. I’ll be using this one.

Spotlight: Advanced Searches
Use a richer search vocabulary. The Spotlight search field now supports Boolean logic with AND/NOT/OR and parenthesis syntax. Search category labels such as “author” or “width.” Use ranges in your search including “greater than” and “less than.” Spotlight also understands quoted phrases and dates.

Search by Filename
Find files faster. If you know the filename you’re looking for, narrow your search results so that Spotlight searches only filenames.

Again, nice–but will you be able to sort Spotlight results by size? I’ve been waiting for that, and will be disappointed if it’s not there.

Icon Mode in Open and Save Panels
View your files as icons in the Open and Save panels, just as you would in the Finder.

Cool, but this is catch-up with XP. In Leopard, can you rename and delete files in Open and Save panels, like you can in Windows? Something overlooked in the past, and one of the few feature advantages Windows has over the Mac.

Grammar Check
Let your grammar set a shining example. A built-in English language grammar checker helps ensure that you don’t make errors in grammar.

This would only be useful so long as it doesn’t suck as much as MS Office’s grammar checker–but I’m betting that it’ll be roughly as bad.

So, not a bad set of additional features. As for the main features, I may or may not use Time Machine, QuickLook seems great so long as it actually is “quick,” I will probably use Spaces (but an still disappointed that they don’t allow for alternate Desktops), and look forward to Safari improvements–so long as I can still use an ad-blocker like PithHelmet (it looks like it’ll be possible!). There are a ton of other medium-level features that I’ll be using as well, in Mail, iChat, the Finder, etc. Leopard will almost certainly be well worth the price.

Speaking of price, what the hell is with Apple and the Education price? Education buyers used to be able to get OS X for something like $70-80–now the price is jacked up to $116, almost no discount off the $129 list price. What the hell, Apple? Getting greedy again? Bad form. (It’s still worth it, but you have to wonder why they did that.)

One final point: Safari took longer than usual (two and a half years) for a Mac OS X upgrade, but even at that, it was twice as fast coming out than Vista, and has a lot more useful features added to boot.

Apple has just announced the official Leopard release date as just ten days away, and has posted a complete list of the 300+ features of the OS. What surprised me are some nifty additions for those of you interested in Japanese-language functionality.

First, in the Dictionary program:

Japanese-English Dictionary
Translate English to Japanese and vice versa. This capability is now built into the Leopard Dictionary.

Japanese Language Support
In Leopard, the Dictionary application supports the Japanese language right out of the box, with an industry-leading Japanese dictionary and thesaurus provided by Shogakukan. The dictionary contains over 200,000 words with rich descriptions and examples, and the thesaurus contains 25,000 words covering 6,000 categories.

Right there–with the Japanese dictionary and thesaurus–we have some powerful stuff. This will make a MacBook more valuable than ever for Japanese students who otherwise depend on their Word Tanks. And I’ll bet that the examples are not the usual 80-year-old linguistic dinosaurs so many J-E/E-J dictionaries tend to sport.

The translation thing is less impressive, unless Apple has radically improved upon the existing web-based J-E/E-J translation module, which for now does a fairly bad job–it’s only good enough to (sometimes) get the very basic gist of a sentence.

Expanded Font Set in Japanese
Put updated Japanese fonts to work. The included Japanese font families, Hiragino Gothic and Hiragino Mincho, are considered among the most beautiful of Japanese fonts, and they now support Hyogaiji, the new standard for Japanese character sets defined by the National Language Council and Japan Industry Standards.

That’s never bad.

New Input Methods
Take advantage of new input methods for Chinese, Arabic, and Japanese languages. … Advanced predictive input for Japanese [emphasis mine] guesses characters based on context, with improved accuracy in Leopard. And localized help is provided for all of the CJK input methods, including English.

Can you say “iPod Touch,” or even “iPhone” in Japanese? Even money that this is why Apple invested in these technologies. I noticed this system already at work in the iPod Touch in Japan. About time they brought it to OS X. Another big step forward for Japanese users.

Okay, Malkinites: here’s the target for your next round of smearing attacks:

Well, maybe not the little girl, but we can sure smear the hell out of her parents, right? Look, she’s in a car! From the looks of it, it’s probably a BMW, maybe a Mercedes! And other images in the new S-CHIP ad show her family enjoying a vacation on a beach. They can obviously afford to travel first-class to Hawaii! This family is undeniably flush with excess cash, another gang of rich liberals milking the social welfare system. The parents were obviously cheap and probably guilty of negligence for not bothering to insure their kids with the wads of cash you can almost see coming out of their pockets.

So the new wingnut assignment is to go out there, find out where these people live and work and where their kids go to school, and publish it all over the right-wing blogosphere! Dig into their financial records and extrapolate every possible asset they have as representing opulent wealth! And ignore obviously made-up left-wing propaganda like this!

Get to it, Moonbats!

This is very telling about the attitude and mindset of the Bush administration:

With only 15 months left in office, President Bush has left whole agencies of the executive branch to be run largely by acting or interim appointees — jobs that would normally be filled by people whose nominations would have been reviewed and confirmed by the Senate.

In many cases, there is no obvious sign of movement at the White House to find permanent nominees, suggesting that many important jobs will not be filled by Senate-confirmed officials for the remainder of the Bush administration.

So, what is so telling about it?

Well, part of it, as explained by the NYT, is that few people are willing to step into jobs that (a) are so tainted by scandal, or (b) will be swept out by an expected Democratic administration. This is certainly true, but only to a certain extent. Really, there are 15 months left to most of these positions; are we really to believe that no one of even moderate ability is willing to have “Attorney General” on his or her resume for those reasons alone?

Additionally, this is not the beginning of this trend; Bush has been using recess appointments and other tricks to avoid Senate confirmation for years. No, what this speaks volumes about is the utter unwillingness of the administration to compromise on even the smallest matters. Like many good conservatives–and like many small children–they have to have everything go their way 100%, or they will throw a tantrum and leave, declaring, “It’s my ball, and if you don’t follow my rules, I’m taking the ball home and you don’t get to play!”

Say what you might about the Clinton administration, they followed the age-old political rules which say, if you can’t win straight out, then you compromise and get the best deal you can–but you do the job, you get it done. Sometimes you fight to a standoff, but far more often you make a deal.

That’s what this administration simply cannot do. I mean, think about all those “acting” and “interim” positions. Would it really just kill the people in the Bush administration to choose candidates who weren’t so partisanly toxic that they couldn’t get passed? Would it be absolutely impossible for them to choose someone who is safely conservative but mild enough that they could get nominated?

Of course it’s possible. The Bush administration could have filled all those positions with people with acceptable conservative credentials, people who the Democrats would have easily accepted. Let’s face it, it’s not as if the Democrats are now famous for bucking the Bush administration on slightly-right-of-center issues and candidates; if there is anything that has marked the Bush Democrats, it’s going way too far to compromise, and perpetually giving in to Bush, even on much of the outrageous stuff.

Hell, if they chose people who are only somewhat right-of-center, they could not only score political points and look accommodating, but they would have a better chance of having those appointments continue into the next administration if it’s Democratic, instead of having people who are left-of-center installed instead.

The fact that all of those positions have not been filled is a result of the Bush people unwilling to stomach even centrist-leaning Republicans. Take, as an example, court nominees. The Bush administration got 98% of its nominees confirmed by the Senate, and yet threw royal tantrums and threatened to kill off the filibuster with the “nuclear option” if the Democrats didn’t bend to their will and confirm the most extremist, unpalatable 2%–so much so, that the Bush administration kept re-nominating the same rejected judges again and again. The same is evident with Bush’s recent vetoes, where he will not so much as compromise on issues that otherwise would be no-brainers.

Bush’s partisan toxicity is bound to last until the end–no compromise, no retreat, no matter how badly it cripples the country.

It should be crystal clear by now that everything the Bush administration has said it did because of 9/11 was in fact its agenda before 9/11. It did not invade Iraq because of 9/11, it did not spy on its own citizens because of 9/11, and it is almost as certain that it did not begin its quest to quash civil liberties and deny Constitutional rights because of 9/11. These were all things they wanted to do from day one.

The Washington Post has come out with an article which shows that the Bush administration was trying to acquire all Americans’ phone records long before 9/11, and given the administration’s virtual blindness to terrorism at the time, it’s damned certain that this wasn’t being done to make us safe from outside attack. It was late February, 2001, barely a month and a week after Bush took office.

We also know that Bush wanted not only to topple Saddam Hussein, but to invade the country, put in peacekeeping forces, and divvy up the oil fields–all from the very first month of the administration, and all under the cloak of secrecy. From January 2004, when Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill spilled the beans on what he saw in the Bush White House:

[O’Neill] got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’” adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.

Based on his interviews with O’Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq’s oil wealth.

He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts,” which includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

In short, the new WaPo article simply reinforces what so many of us have been sure of in our guts for so long: nothing the Bush administration has done has been centered on fighting terrorism, but instead simply to forward their own Neocon agenda. This is clear not just because their “reactions” to 9/11 all predate 9/11, but because the administration’s counter-terror record, where it does not intersect their agenda, has been dismal: cities and municipalities underfunded in key counter-terror capabilities, the vast majority of incoming cargo still not scanned or checked when entering the country, massive resistance to forming committees to analyze and correct flaws in our counter-terrorism policy, foot-dragging in complying with their recommendations, virtually giving up on finding bin Laden and turning away from controlling Afghanistan, and so on–the list goes on. Instead we get tax cuts for the rich, a useless and even harmful missile defense shield, a quagmire in Iraq, spying on our own citizens completely divorced from counter-terrorism, and a drive to repeal or make null and void our Constitution rights and liberties.

Where it counts, this administration is not fighting the war on terror. They are only using it as a convenient excuse for imposing the Neocon dream of a militaristic, corporatist police state.

Tim mentioned this as a topic recently, so I thought I’d have a go at it. I’m no expert in Anthropology, but I do have some on-the-ground experience here in Japan.

The commonly held belief is that Japan is an exclusive society, and that it does not accept outsiders readily. This is true, and then again it’s not. It’s kind of like the belief that Japanese people are “polite.” Yes, they are, sometimes–and sometimes they are not.

A lot of this has to do with cultural differences not happening all in the same way. To use politeness as an example, it’s not as if Japanese people are “x” number of times more polite than westerners in all situations. Yes, in many social situations, Japanese can be polite to the point of obsequiousness. Where a westerner might just say, “sorry,” or “my apologies,” a Japanese might bow deeply and say, “taihen moushiwake gozaimasen,” or “I have absolutely no excuse for this!” On the other hand, if you have had much experience walking in crowded public places, you will probably have been jostled enough or nearly knocked down in such ways that you would expect an apology–but the Japanese person who just hit you just goes along their way as if nothing happened. Or you might see a middle-aged Japanese man in a business suit loudly hawk and spit–right in the middle of a highly-trafficked train station corridor.

It’s the same with acceptance of outsiders; in some cases, Japanese can be exclusive, but in others, they can be incredibly accepting.

One example of non-acceptance is common in the workplace. Foreign workers often find themselves excluded from all kinds of information and decision-making, even when it is open for even the lowliest worker in the office. On many occasions, I have seen or heard of people who were the last to hear of important news or decisions that involved them deeply. They simply were not consulted or told what was going on, even after having worked for the school for some time. Now, part of that example could be connected to language–office meetings are held in Japanese and foreign staff, who don’t speak the language, don’t attend–but that does not explain exclusion fully. Say, for example, a teacher’s schedule is to be changed; the teacher should be consulted first, or at least informed at the same time a decision is made. But to tell that person only after it is announced to part-time office staff who have no actual relation to the decision nor are affected by it–it is hard to see this as anything else than being excluded.

There are other forms of exclusion that come to mind as well: the great reluctance to allow non-Japanese to take on positions of authority or influence, for example. Foreigners are not allowed to become public school teachers (unassisted, at least) or take on public administrative roles of consequence. Japanese corporations setting up overseas have been known in the past to import leadership positions from Japan instead of allow them to be taken by non-Japanese.

And then there is immigration; Japan has always been stingy about allowing foreigners in; it usually allows in the least number of refugees, or is unwelcoming enough so that slots that are offered are often passed up on. It’s a lot harder to become a naturalized Japanese citizen than it is to become a citizen of many other countries.

This is what I had heard of coming into Japan. However, I have had experiences that have since belied an assumption of universal exclusion. One of the first was my host family experience. On my first trip to Japan, I had a homestay with a family, one of many arranged on that trip. But this one family was very, very accepting. They later invited me to stay again, and I visited several times over the years. But after just the first few stays, they invited me to their daughter’s wedding. In doing so, they did not just invite me to the reception, which is normal, but to the ceremony–which is very unusual. The ceremony is usually only a family thing, more private than the reception. The bride’s family sits along one side, the groom’s along the other, everyone in order of family seniority and closeness to the bride. I was seated as if I were the bride’s brother–not a small statement to make, especially in the presence of the groom’s family. And this was a countryside family, relatively conservative. At another time, when I visited and mentioned my mode of transportation while living in Tokyo, they started talking about that car that their daughter wasn’t using anymore–and I had to shut that line of conversation down as they seemed ready to give the car to me!

Sachi’s family has shown me similar acceptance. Part of this may be a family’s desire to please their daughter, but again, this is a conservative countryside family, and their acceptance upon meeting me was nothing short of full-hearted. It seemed much more than just the desire to please a family member. That kind of acceptance doesn’t come easily, and is not easily explained by a cultural predisposition to distrust outsiders.

Then there are examples of individual acceptance; people who are virtually xenophiles, people who accept you because you’re a foreigner, and not always just because you represent language practice (why are they so eager to practice language in the first place?).

There is a great deal of acceptance of foreign culture, if not the people themselves. Non-Japanese language is accepted almost too much into Japanese, with loanwords and English peppered liberally into Japanese. Foreign and especially American TV shows and movies are extremely popular. Ever since the Meiji period and after WWII, foreign styles have been adopted into Japan in almost every category one can think of, from clothing styles to education to administrative practices and so on. In fact, Japan has a long history of adopting things foreign–even the system of writing is adopted from the outside. China was a main source of cultural importation in the past, America and the West in general in the present. Baseball is now a Japanese national sport on par with Sumo, with Soccer catching up fast.

How can all that be in an exclusionary society?

Looking at the examples of personal decisions to accept or exclude, however, leads to the question: how much is simply the personal predisposition to accept or exclude? What is the difference between exclusion and simple xenophobia, or perhaps racism? There is certainly quite a bit of that in Japan, as I have blogged on a few times before. But that leads to a very uncomfortable question: can the rather common Japanese exclusion all be traced back to racism? Well, one possible answer is simple exposure: what you have become used to, what you know, is easier to accept. And Japanese have not been very much exposed to non-Japanese people.

Some of this is self-reinforcement, not becoming used to something because you’re not used to it. At one of my earlier jobs teaching in Japan, I was approached by my American boss, the teacher supervisor. He sought me out because of my experience in Japan, and asked me about a hiring situation. He had interviewed many teachers, and one stood out as most qualified–but she was African-American, the spouse of a serviceman at Yokota Base. My supervisor asked me if I thought that the students would be put off by her because she was black. My response was twofold: first, you can’t hire on that basis, and second, if the students are nervous about being around black people, it’s because they simply haven’t been around black people. By denying them the experience, you’re reinforcing the discomfort that exists in the first place.

The supervisor decided to hire the teacher, and she became quite popular with the students. But the question from my supervisor highlighted for me the entire question of acceptance, exclusion, and its causes.

I mention this not in actual reaction to Coulter’s recent statements that women should be denied the vote and Jews should all convert to Christianity to become “perfected,” but rather to note that Coulter quickly seems to be reaching a threshold. She long ago admitted to being a troll, essentially saying any absurd thing that pops into her head just so that it will infuriate liberals and get a rise out of them.

There is a point, however, where your utterances become so bizarre and laughable that you become less an object of scorn and more one of derision, even among your own crowd.

Are there any conservatives out there who see Coulter as anything other than a joke? Seriously, I’d like to know.

Now that Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, right-wing bloggers and pundits are searching for an angle. A few are attacking the Nobel committee, as I expected (“the Nobel Committee has awarded their meaningless, politically driven Peace Prize to the Goracle”), but others apparently find it harder to slime and smear the Nobel Prize, and so they’ve been reduced to nay-saying his film and his message (“Gore’s film is bursting with lies”) yet again. And, of course, they’ve broken out the endless supply of Gore-looks-stupid images that the MSM has been happily providing for years.

You gotta figure, though, through all the invective and denial, Gore’s win has got to sting them just a little. Ergo the reaction.

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, WKRP in Cincinnati has been out on DVD for about five months now. It came out in April; I got the DVD set in May, and immediately after that, a series of events in my life (like, moving to a new city as well as suddenly having to take on the work of two people at my job) pushed back my posting on the series until now.

Watching the series again reminds me of why I liked it as much as I did. Each of the characters had their own appeal, and none of them were lackluster–even Andy, the straight man, had his moments, and otherwise was funny just for the 70’s hair and tight clothing.

It was the over-the-top quality that made it likable; it’s not just that Jennifer was a stereotypical blonde bombshell, that Herb was a tacky salesman, or that Les was an ultra-paranoid nationalist wimp; it was the extremes the characters went to. A man comes up to Jennifer and says, “I’m not as old as I look”; Jennifer responds, “Are you any richer than you look?” Herb just showing up with wardrobe from a golfing store, with belts that make his behavior inevitable. And Les buying into conspiracies like Cubans backed by the Red Chinese massing in the lobby. And Johnny in a class all by himself:

I don’t know what you want here, but I think you should know that I’ve killed a lot of old people in my time… and I’m not above doing it again!

Even with the character of Venus, the writers and Tim Reid were able to pull off a miracle, taking the token-black character and making him a lot more. (Even though it’s not in the first season of the show, one of my all-time favorite lines from TV is, “I don’t know, Herb… how do you get paint off a frog?”) And that’s another charm of the show: everyone begins as a typical sitcom stereotype, but exceeds the role while still staying true to it.

But the gags come back so easily: Johnny finding ways to sneak up on Jennifer with a ridiculous monster-inspired gait; Les’ remarkably embellished intro tapes to the newscasts, his tape-defined-office, constant desire for a news helicopter, and his wandering bandage; and the usual spur-of-the-moment improvised put-ups that are so standard in comedy show, but WKRP pulled off with aplomb. Watching Johnny Fever’s reaction to Jennifer suddenly making him her husband is priceless, and the whole cast dynamic plays into it–Herb is in furious denial, Les is sweetly happy, and Mr. Carlson is nice and does not want to know what’s going on. What would be a boring rehash on any other show is funny as hell here.

Like any good comedy show, there were the cross-purposes misunderstanding gags, like the episode where Les is accused of being a homosexual, but Herb thinks it’s all about Jennifer being a guy who had a sex change operation (Jennifer: “What is going on?” Herb: “I don’t know, you wanna go bowling?”).

Also like a good comedy show, there was a fair dose of serious social commentary–interesting in the way the issue was dealt with in the 70’s, like Les and homosexuality, or Venus and the Vietnam War.

Watching the show is like going back in a time machine. You recall every episode, and even as you’re watching one, memories of so many others come to mind, like the painted-frog episode. I can’t forget Les Nessman’s announcement of a “giant lizard” ravaging the East Coast, Johnny informing him that the “B” is out on the teletype, and Les sticking to his story. Thinking of the issues covered on the show, I was immediately reminded of one of my favorites of the series, the season 3 episode, “Clean Up Radio Everywhere”–the episode where a Jerry Falwell-style preacher on a censorship spree. You know it’s a good show when you can’t wait for moments like that to come along, even though you know many won’t come until future season releases. That’s not a problem–each season has enough stuff you forgot about to make up for it.

The special features on the first season DVD box set are a bit skimpy; only two half-hour segments have commentary, and there are two featurettes. The commentary for the most part is good. Series creator Hugh Wilson comments with Frank Bonner (Herb) and Loni Anderson (Jennifer) on the first half of the pilot and the infamous “Turkeys Away: episode. They combine some of the well-known folklore (like the nonsense lyrics on the end song and Les’ roving band-aid), some less-well-known trivia (like taping down Loni’s nipples), and general reminiscing about the show and specific scenes. The one part where the commentary goes awry is when Hugh Wilson goes into a monologue about a backstory to the “Scum of the Earth” episode just as the Turkey story reaches the climax; you want to shout at him to stop and get back to the turkey story, but he goes on through the whole parking lot episode. Other than that, the commentary is pretty enjoyable.

The two featurettes are pretty short: one runs six and a half minutes, the other three and a half. They are essentially slapped-together clip shorts interspersed with video commentary by Wilson, Bonner, and Anderson, with some additional interview time with Tim Reid. The first covers the idea of Jennifer Marlowe being the quintissential blonde bombshell with Herb always hitting on her; the second is a short-short on how the episode “Fish Story” came to be. Interesting, but not much more than a little extra commentary.

Then there is the most controversial aspect of the DVD set: the missing music. It’s also probably what delayed the release, as the music labels tried to demand more than would have been worth it for the set to be released. As a result, some of the music has been replaced. For the most part, I don’t really notice; I’m not a big rock’n’roll aficionado, and don’t remember the original series in such great detail that I could notice whether a song had been replaced by memory alone.

Nevertheless, there are places where the missing music stands out. Sometimes Johnny or Venus will introduce a song with a clever segue, which will be broken up by not having the necessary musical cue. One notable example is in the second half of the pilot episode, where Johnny introduces a song by saying:

Are you awake? Whoo! Are you awake now? Because it’s 10:15 in the morning … for those of you who are still into “time.” You know, it really flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it? I know I am! I know I’m outta control! I know my pulse is starting to pound. And the blood is rushing around. And I feel feverish. And I am the Doctor. And I know all you babies, you sittin’ at home, and you sayin’ to yourselves, “Tell me Doctor, when you feel like this, what do you take?” Well, I’ll tell ya:

Then Johnny starts the Bob Seger song “Old Time Rock and Roll,” which begins with, “Just take those old records off the shelf…” The segue works–the song answers Johnny’s question. Now, in the DVD version, they couldn’t use Seger’s song, so they replaced it with generic rock, no lyrics. The “what do you take?” segue is watered down, but still works on the level of “taking” music to quell the fever. But what gives away the alteration is that the audience laughter responds to the missing lyrics; you hear a laugh which responds to something that’s not there any more.

The thing is, this is not such a big deal. First of all, most of the changes aren’t quite so evident. For example, I have no idea if the song preceding Johnny’s segue was also changed; it may have been, I don’t know. Maybe that bugs you, but it doesn’t me–hell, it could even be a kind of game, “spot the missing music.” In the end, though, it doesn’t amount to much. A few gags are missed, and maybe a few songs you liked aren’t there any more. But what we’re talking about is really not much more than a fragment of the show, icing on the cake as it were. The meat of the show remains; the replaced music was a garnish. For example, in the above segue by Johnny, there were two or three good lines equal to or better than the missing gag. So really, it’s not a big deal.

The special features and the controversy really don’t impact the set much. If you’re buying the DVD, what you’re really getting it for is to watch the show. And the show is excellent. And about time it came out. The only question is, when are the rest of the seasons coming out? I want to see the painted frog episode!

In addition to the DVD being out, you can also download individual episodes from Amazon’s video download site

Oh, and by the way… Booooger!!

To follow up on the Frost Family story–via TPM, Jonathan Cohn writes an excellent story, decimating the right-wing arguments, laying it all out so that it is simple to understand. While the Frosts are not dirt poor, they are hardly well-off, and very much do need the S-CHIP program. They don’t just qualify, they also deserve it. He concludes thusly:

In other words, it’s not just the most destitute Americans who need assistance getting health insurance. It’s people who have jobs, make a decent living, and own their homes. And when medical crisis hits, they’re forced to take drastic steps — like selling their homes, depleting life savings, declaring bankruptcy, or simply going without the care they and their loved ones need. Unless, of course, the government provides them with insurance at affordable rates.

Maybe that’s why polls show large majorities of Americans supporting S-CHIP expansion and, increasingly, the creation of a universal health care system guaranteeing coverage as a birthright.

One piece of information Cohn brings up is that the right-wingers seem to have exaggerated the family’s assets–their home is valued at $260,000, not $450,000-plus. I would add that they also have a mortgage which is too high not to have been increased since they took out a bank loan 16 years ago on a $55,000 house–which means they had to have taken out more money against the house.

Nevertheless, Michelle Malkin, who seems to have forgotten that in 2004 she herself said Maryland’s insurance rates are too high, nonetheless criticized the Frosts for not getting a cheaper health plan; Cohn points out, however, that such plans often do not cover all the things the Frost children needed after the car accident. Still Malkin continues to insist that the Frosts are more than well-off enough not to need S-CHIP. Her evidence is the lack of evidence: she has not been handed proof that the Frosts aren’t paying $40,000 of their $45,000 income on private school for their other two kids, Mr. Frost has not agreed to “verify” his $45,000 income to Malkin’s content, and she has not seen documented proof that the Frost family started getting breaks on school tuition more than a year or two ago. Therefore, they are rich and are defrauding the state.

Malkin then criticizes Maryland for not asset-testing applicants. Apparently, Malkin, who herself reported that the Frosts at present are “struggling” financially, would have rather seen the Frosts sell off their home and/or their business in order to take care of their kids.

Charming.

When conservatives don’t like a federal program to help people in need, they engage in a depressingly consistent tactic: smear the people in need.

Remember Reagan’s infamous “welfare queen” in the 70’s and 80’s?

“She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names.”

Aside from the fact that the example was wildly exaggerated (not to mention that Reagan changed the details as he made the same speech over time), it was also wholly non-representative. It would be like using outrageous Nigerian spammers as examples of why people who send email are undeserving of the privilege. This tactic of applying an extreme-case example to an entire group or category is a conservative specialty; “partial birth abortion” is an excellent illustration of this.

I remember the same tactic on a small scale in California; soon after I graduated from a then-free community college there, the Republican-run state government decided to institute “enrollment fees,” a.k.a. tuition. When it was pushed, aside from claims that the $100 would never be raised, the usual argument tended to be to point to a Porsche in the parking lot and then to extrapolate that community colleges were little more than a place where rich kids got away with bilking the state. (The total cost for a student there now is over $600, by the way, and was more than $1000 not too long ago).

Also, let’s not forget how, after Hurricane Katrina, when all those people who died and suffered in Louisiana embarrassed Bush, right-wingers went after them viciously. Not only were they called stupid for not getting out of the way, but they were accused of abusing those trying to help them, of spurning jobs offers (minorities are lazy, after all), and even spreading drugs, rape, and other criminal activity to communities who took them in. When conservatives attack an issue, they don’t attack it directly; they find a convenient scapegoat and then make a poster boy out of it.

So now, after Bush has vetoed health care for children, what is the right-wing defense? Smear a child! Specifically, the 12-year-old who gave the Democratic radio address. Graeme Frost was in a bad car accident a few years back, and a CHIP program helped him and his sister immeasurably.

According to right wingers: return of the welfare queen! The Frost family is rich! How do we know? Their kids go to swanky private schools, and their family owns a lavish, opulent home! They’re frauds!

Think Progress has the real story: Graeme has a scholarship that costs his family $500 a year to send him to a $15,000-a-year private school, and his sister’s private school, worth $23,000 a year, is paid for by the state–it was made necessary because of her injuries in the car crash. Ironically, the Frost family pays less for their two kids’ private schools than a California resident pays for community college. As for the home, the Frost family paid $55,000 for it when they bought it, at a time when the neighborhood was less safe. Furthermore, the news stories quoted by the wingnuts specify that the home has a mortgage ($1200/mo.); without knowing more of the specifics, one cannot make any judgments about how much the Frosts are in hock to the bank.

The wingnuts go further, saying that the Frost family is well-off because the father runs a small business. (Funny how conservatives think that small businesspeople are only well-off when it’s politically conveniently; otherwise, they’re always struggling, which is why we need to repeal insert-your-tax-du-jour-here.) They quote the buying price of the business’ property at $160,000, suggesting that the increased value in real estate further increases the Frosts’ wealth–as if there are no such things as loans from the bank, or stretches of tough business that can lead one further into debt.

No, instead the wingnuts presume no debts, a booming business, and best-possible real estate values so as to make the convenient presumption that the Frosts are loaded, money coming out of their ears. They even go so far as to point to a photo in the Baltimore Sun and make these conclusions:

A photo taken in the family’s kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets.

Now, look at the photo:

Ooh, yeah. From all that detail shown, that has to be a “recent” remodeling job. And no way those are formica countertops! It must have cost tens of thousands of dollars to put in glass cabinets like those!

Please.

But the wingnuts go even further, taking the standard Malkinite tactic of widely publishing the home and business addresses of the family, in addition to the name of the kids’ school, complete with photos–something which, by past experience, is well-known as a means of directing the right-wing loons to harass, abuse, and torment the people in question. The Frost children could now even be in danger. In an exchange not too long ago, Malkin found her own address revealed, and had to move to a new home and put her kids into new schools because of the loss of privacy–and yet Malkin herself continues this appalling, thuggish tactic.

And let’s not forget that the CHIP program does not test for assets, only income–and the Frosts’ stated income is well below the threshold of eligibility.

In the end, we don’t know how well-off the Frosts are; there is no reason whatsoever to presume that they are not excellent candidates for an insurance plan which, after all, saved the family from having to take out crippling new mortgages or forcing them to sell their home or business in order to pay hospital bills.

Right-wingers claim they fight for the little guy, for making it possible to buy a home for people willing to work, for helping the small businessman as much as possible.

But only, it seems, when it is politically convenient to do so.

Since 2000 and George W. Bush’s long-running cut-taxes-for-the-rich campaign got started, the rallying cry has been that wealthy people pay too much in taxes. This has been propped up by distorted stats like the one InstaPundit is pushing today:

SO I GUESS THE TAX CODE IS PRETTY PROGRESSIVE, THEN: Top 1% Pay More Income Tax Than Bottom 90%.

There are problems with this, however, particularly if you have a memory. Now, mine ain’t all that great, but I do recall that back in 1993, when Bill Clinton wanted to raise taxes on the rich (very marginally, at that), the arguments went like this: If you tax the richest 1% of Americans at the rate of 100%, you could only fund the federal government for one day. Or something to that effect; the message was, rich people don’t really have enough money that taxing them more would make any difference.

Funny how the rich don’t have any money when we want to tax them, but are paying virtually everything when talk comes round to cutting their taxes.

But hey, if InstaPundit and those like him want to insist that their message today is the true one, then I say: if the wealthy are such a bonanza of tax revenues and yet they still have such opulent wealth left over, we should tax them a bit more and solve our budget deficit problems!

Of course, it’s all baloney. Kevin Drum debunks.

Jeez. I bought a bike lock about 9 months ago. For most of that time, I didn’t even use it, and it never got left out in the rain, ever. I just started using the bike and its lock once or twice a week in the last month or two. And just a few days ago, I heard some rattling around in there.

Then yesterday, when I unlocked it, it literally came apart in my hands. That is, the guts spilled out of the keyhole. And this I bought in Inagi, where the round trip train fare alone would cost more than just buying a new lock.

Goes to show: you never can fully trust an unknown quantity, just ’cause it looks good on the shelf.

I think that an important element of establishing history’s view on the Bush legacy is to view in stark, real terms what it is they did, and promoting torture is one of them. One important aspect of this is how the rank-and-file can become corrupted so easily to approve of and push forward such unacceptable practices.

Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration, describes those people thusly: “They’re not evil people, they were people trying to do their best.. even though they made mistakes.”

I think that this is important to remember: that it does not take evil people to do evil things; that even those with the best of intentions can perform horrendous acts. This, at least, describes the rank-and-file; we know that the higher-ups such as Cheney have wanted to instill such policies for a long time, before there supposedly a “need” for them. Their motivations are far more suspect. However, they need the rank-and-file to carry out those policies, and not to protest or obstruct, as bureaucracies are so apt at doing.

Goldsmith described that level of government worker and their motivation:

The twin pressures that everyone was under in the government when they were trying to decide these counter-terrorism policies, on the one hand, they were literally scared to death of the next attack… fearing that they can’t stop the next attack, and knowing that they’ll be responsible when the next attack comes. And so that leads them to push as hard as they can along every dimension to do everything they can to stop the terrorists.

Fair enough, one would think; but Goldsmith’s “other hand” was telling of the clear warning signs these people should have seen:

On the other hand of course, there’s the law….

Yes. That tiny little detail of what is actually illegal. The tragedy here is that what these people had thought was necessary was in fact, not. It was known for a long time that torture is an ineffective means of getting intel from suspects–that some time, a friendly game of chess could garner more vital information. The entire torture idea was not a necessary tool in harsh times, it was the result of an ideological tough-guy, police-state meme that neocons favored. Ir was wrong, it was immoral, and in the end, probably has cost us access to that vital intel we need so badly. They get away with by fear and obfuscation, as with Bush simply saying that the torture we do is not “torture.”

So there are the movers and shakers who are the closest to being evil, valuing ideology and thirst for power over morality and effectiveness, and there are the rank-and-file who fall all too easily into the mindset that says, “we’d better push the legal limits on this,” not out of efficiency or need but out of fear–fear of displeasing their bosses, and fear of taking the blame for something going wrong. They become willing tools for the illegal and amoral agenda of their superiors.

And then there is the third aspect, one not so often recognized: the puppet president. Reagan set the scene, and Bush 43 followed and amplified the effect. A president of low intelligence but passable charisma and electability, someone who can be ridden to power by those who would truly control. Bush said it himself in the 2000 election, when he responded to the criticism that he was not smart enough or experienced enough. Bush essentially said that he would “surround” himself with good, talented people. It is my belief that this was essentially the core of the Bush presidency: not the candidate, but those around him, people like Cheney and Rumsfeld who could not be elected themselves, who instead use this weak man to grab holds of the reins of power. Remember the account of yet another tax cut being pushed in the White House, Bush reacting with, “haven’t we done that already?” and then told that another cut was needed. Not a capable leader in charge, but a figurehead following the lead of others.

That last element is what was needed to complete the setup, to allow for so much of the abuse and damage in Washington over the past seven-some years. And it is yet another element of danger that we must look for in the future.

An interesting point from Michael Arrington via Blackfriar’s Marketing:

The economics of recorded music are fairly simple. Marginal production costs are zero: Like software, it doesn’t cost anything to produce another digital copy that is just as good as the original as soon as the first copy exists, and anyone can create those copies (meaning there is perfect competition and zero barriers to entry).

That’s an excellent point concerning “intellectual property”: so long as it is sold electronically, so that not even distribution or packaging costs come in, the cost of production is close to zero. Now, with software, there is a mitigating factor: the cost of producing the original, which can be pretty damned high in some cases, and so the cost must be offset by multiple sales and/or high pricing.

Music, on the other hand, costs somewhat less to produce. Yes, costs for studio recording and so forth can be fairly high, but in the end, the average song must cost far less to produce than the average software package churned out by a company.

In the past, there was more respect for the costs of intellectual property because of the physical nature of the product; there was a book, a record, a CD–some physical product that had to be manufactured, and held in one’s hand. A consumer could feel they were getting value, or additional value, because of this. With electronic transmission–a very new development–that physical component no longer needs to matter.

And so producers suddenly have a commodity that can be reproduced at zero cost and costs nothing to distribute. The problem is, they still expect to price and police the system as if there were a physical product involved. And that’s where part of the intellectual disconnect comes in.

Imagine that a farmer who sells oranges suddenly finds that a machine has been made that can take an orange and reproduce it at zero cost. Initially he is ecstatic, as he sees his production costs fall drastically, but he can still charge as much for the product as he did when he grew each orange from the soil.

Then the technology for replicating oranges falls into the hands of his customers, and they no longer need the farmer after the first orange is produced.

True, the analogy is not perfect; software and songs are not oranges in that each product is unique; one will not simply get one piece of software or one song and then reproduce it forever. But there is enough to the analogy to realize that new technology requires new paradigms for the marketplace. Piracy and the RIAA/MPAA’s reaction to them are part of the process of coming to a new equilibrium.

The content owners are fighting like mad to maintain the old system, and keeping all the gains of technology for themselves; they use their money, power, and influence in government circles to win this battle.

Piracy is the consumer’s reaction, essentially saying, “Oh, no you don’t!” and often going to the other extreme, trying to claim all the benefits of the new technology for themselves; they use their numbers, anonymity, and civil rights legislation to fight their side.

Coming to a settlement will, like all settlements, involve both extremes to agree to a place that neither likes. Where that settlement will land is anyone’s guess right now.

At least three times this year, conservatives have attacked Democrats, specifically candidates for 2008, on terms that conservatives have since turned around and committed in far stronger terms.

For example, earlier in the year, Democrats opted not to attend a debate forum hosted by anti-liberal Fox News. Conservatives heavily attacked liberals then, saying they were “afraid of journalists” and were even attacking freedom of the press. But then, Republican front-running candidates opted not to attend debates by the NAACP, the Hispanic-centric Univision, CNN’s YouTube debate, and then Tavis Smiley’s forum of African-American journalists on PBS. They even recently ran from a debate in Florida hosted by Christian groups.

And then there wass Move-on.org’s ad, again heavily attacked by conservatives, especially the GOP candidates, on the grounds that it is unacceptable to criticize a man in uniform or call him names. But then we had Limbaugh calling soldiers critical of the war “phony soldiers,” a Fox News commentator calling top military officials “a disgrace,” and now The American Conservative is calling Petraeus a “sycophant.” Doubtless we will see more right-wing insults hurled at people in the military soon.

And now, conservatives are beating up on Obama for not wearing a flag-lapel pin, apparently without even bothering to check first if Republican candidates don’t either. Do a Google Image search for Mitt Romney and John McCain, for example, and you’ll note that they also are pinless in all of their photos.

Is it the nature of conservatives to complain about something and then do the same thing they howled at in spades? Like Bush attacking Democrats in 2000 for nation-building and weakening the military? It’s one thing to criticize people of the other party and not mean it; it’s another to then not criticize people in your own party for doing the exact same thing, again and again and again.

The latest Bush/GOP strategy for stealing an election: abuse their power to make the Federal Elections Commission either ineffective, or an outright arm of the Republican Party. Bush has nominated Hans von Spakovsky to the commission. Von Spakovsky was involved in politicizing the US Attorneys in the “loyal Bushie” purge, and has worked to suppress minority votes. He is about as unacceptable a nomination to the FEC as you can imagine being nominated.

But Senate Republicans are now saying that if von Spakovsky is not confirmed, they will block all other candidates and leave the FEC inoperative for the 2008 elections. Effectively, they are saying that either the FEC is to become a GOP weapon, or it will be taken down. Either way, Republicans will be free to break any election laws they want.

Which pretty much demonstrates their fully conscious intention to break election laws.

David Markle over at Japan Probe has a pretty good rundown on how the General Union is not doing much in the Nova crisis, plus an analysis of the union itself. It gets deeper into the nature of the union than I have seen in my two experiences observing the NUGW (once at a workplace in the 90’s, and recently at a school associated with my workplace), but generally confirms what I have seen.

In a previous article on the Nova situation, I left a long comment on the union and its worth, in response to a mention of the union in the article. In short, the NUGW can be an albatross for a workplace, doing far more bad than good. They immediately turn the negotiating situation into an acrimonious one, make ludicrous demands, and grandstand as much if not more for their own high profile than for the good of the teachers. In the end, they leave the workplace more tense, restricted, and distrustful–and usually accomplish little or nothing at all for the teachers. In short, the union is good for little unless you’re really at the end of your rope with your employer.

If you’re interested in getting a better idea of what the union does and what it’s like, read both linked articles and their comments.

From the Chosun Ilbo, via Japan Probe:

A Kyoto court ruled partially in favor of a Korean woman who sued a Japanese landlord for refusing to rent a room to her. A Kyoto district court ruled that refusing to rent a room to a person due to her nationality is illegal and ordered the landlord to pay the woman W8.65 million (US$1=W916) in compensation.

Courts have taken a dim view of refusal to let rooms to foreigners since an Osaka court in 1993 ruled this went against the constitutional stipulation of equality before the law. But in reality, Japanese homeowners often reject foreign tenants citing differences in the lifestyle and customs. Counsel for the plaintiff said the ruling was a “head-on attack on discrimination based on nationality” and predicted it would help eradicate unfair discrimination against foreigners.

In case you’re wondering, the award comes out to ¥1.1 million, or about $9,500.

Now, seeing this, I kinda wish that option had been open to me in the past. Maybe it was, and I just never tried, but somehow I don’t believe it would have been so easy or assured; this woman may have simply gotten lucky with her judge, who clearly seems to want to make an example.

Also, the 1993 ruling mentioned may have something to do with things; the first four times I went apartment hunting were before that time, and I recall anti-foreigner sentiment, even in printed form, was rampant. Some fudosan-joho (apartment fliers, or the sheets of paper that each describe an apartment, giving all the info on it) would actually have written on then, “ペット、水商売、外人不可”–“No pets, bargirls, or foreigners allowed.” Rental magazines like “Apaman” would have a notation for which apartments accepted foreigners. I recall in my first few forays into apartment hunting, better than 95% of the apartments I asked about replied, “gaijin wa damé,” or “foreigners are no good.”

In later years, I heard less of this, and have not seen anything written that refuses foreigners–but even just this year, when Sachi and I were looking for a place, we still got refused because of my nationality fairly often–though rental agents would be a bit more circumspect in terms of that kind of thing, calling the landlord out of our hearing, and not saying “foreigners are no good” directly. I thought this was simply because of Sachi’s presence, but perhaps legal decisions since 1993 had some influence on that.

Also, if you read the last paragraph of the Chosun Ilbo story, it shed a bit of light on what may have allowed the woman to sue in the first place:

The woman signed a contract to rent a room through a real estate agency in January 2005. But after she paid the deposit to the landlord and commissions to the realtor, the landlord changed his mind since she was a foreigner.

I am fairly confident that the contract having been signed was a pretty significant element of the decision. I rather doubt that if someone simply refuses to even consider me for the stated reason that I am a foreigner, it would be pretty hard to make any claims; probably the landlord/rental agent filter could be used as an excuse, that there was a “miscommunication” or something.

Which also makes me pretty sure that housing discrimination will continue more or less unabated–they’ll just be sure not to leave any conclusive evidence of it, like they do in the U.S.

Which leads to the question: if they’re going to discriminate anyway, would you rather they be upfront about it, or that they hide it behind excuses? I would think the former manner is at least more honest and less problematic for the victims: one of the biggest problems with masked racism is that you have to wonder if every bad thing that happens to you is because of racism, as you are no longer able to discern between racism and simple bad luck.

This administration has a long history of abusing the soldiery while using them as campaign props, fall men, and political human shields.

But the latest news is rather particularly contemptible: after using the Minnesota National Guard in Iraq longer than any other ground combat unit, and as part of Bush’s “surge,” the Bush military is casting them aside–without benefits.

The military wrote the order that 2,600 young American troops be counted as serving 729 days. 730 days is the amount needed to get education benefits under the GI bill. That means it wasn’t an oversight, it was a conscious and considered decision.

In other recent news, Bush vetoed health care for children, and it was learned that the White House officially approved of torture. Later today, he is scheduled to appear in the Rose Garden to kick a small, cute puppy.