There are some authors who, quite frankly, should leave their politics at the door. It seems to me that when an author of popular fiction whose work I tended to enjoy starts injecting their politics in their writing, it usually also happens to be the case that their writing has fallen below a certain level of quality that makes them no longer readable in any case.

Now, don’t get me wrong–I am not necessarily suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship. I just happen to notice the two things tend to happen at about the same time. It certainly happened to Tom Clancy. I greatly enjoyed his early books, including The Hunt for Red October, The Cardinal and the Kremlin, The Sum of All Fears, and Without Remorse (which I am re-reading right now). Guy books, certainly, but that describes all of Clancy’s books. Debt of Honor is a special case–part of my problem with the book is that I am familiar with Japan, and so most times when Clancy writes about things in Japan, I wince at how horribly wrong he gets so much of the stuff. I could write a long blog post just on that, and maybe I will, if I re-read that book again as well.

But you could see that Clancy was getting stilted with Executive Orders, and by the time he did The Bear and the Dragon, his writing was horrible. And it was with those last two books that Clancy also started preaching politics. Like I said, the two are not connected–Bear was unreadable for so many reasons having nothing to do with the politics, but the politics came right when Clancy was so markedly going downhill. One passage stood out to me from that book, where Ryan was discussing abortion with van Damm. Ryan predicated his argument on this concept:

“Arnie, it’s like this. The pro-abortion crowd says that whether or not a fetus is human is beside the point because it’s inside a woman’s body, and therefore her property to do with as she pleases.”

The whole line of reasoning started with that presumption, that abortion rights were based upon the idea of a fetus as property even if the fetus were considered a human life, a predication so absurd as to be laughable; and yet, Ryan’s supposedly left-leaning and pro-choice counselor, van Damm, accepts this without challenge.

It’s passages like these that can usually turn a book sour for me; for example, my brother gave me a crime novel once called No Lesser Plea. I was already having trouble with the premise, that the state could have a brutal killer dead to rights, and he gets off by throwing a fit in court and then the liberal pansies put him in psychological rehabilitation for a short time and then set him loose on the streets again. I stopped reading altogether when the author described a court-appointed psychologist thusly: “He considered himself a liberal, in that he believed that when black people were violent and committed crimes it was not really their fault.” The abortion passage in Bear did not turn me off from the whole book like that line in Plea, but it sure didn’t help.

I tried reading Rainbow Six, the next Clancy book after Bear, thinking Clancy may have come back into form, but it was just as bad if not worse. The contrived opening had members of an elite squad of counter-terrorism agents taking a commercial flight–which then just happens to get hijacked! Sure!

Now I’m seeing the same kind of thing happening again, this time with a different author. Orson Scott Card has been highly controversial outside his writing, but as long as that kind of thing stays separate, I am able to enjoy the fiction without the person’s politics interfering–else I would never be able to enjoy a movie featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, or Mel Gibson. And three of Card’s works remain my favorites: Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Pastwatch. In his public persona, Card has been something of an asswipe. Despite claiming to be a Democrat and saying he has nothing against gays, he nevertheless has advocated that “laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books” and that gays “cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens” within a society with certain sexual mores. He has also been a rather vociferous and outspoken advocate of George W. Bush, the war in Iraq, and the whole “War on Terror” paradigm; just a few weeks ago, before the midterm elections, he wrote this:

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that’s the War on Terror….I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America’s role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war.

Card is also pro-life, believes a right to privacy does not legally exist, and believes that the Democratic Party is “self-destructive,” “extremist-dominated,” and “insane.” He lauds Fox News and urges everyone to vote Republican. But he says he’s a Democrat because he is pro-gun-control and is critical of free-market capitalism and southern racism.

It goes without saying that venturing into Card’s politics is, to say the least, an ugly, sticky affair. But in the past, much of his fiction has been superlative (not all of it, to be sure). A lot of people didn’t like Speaker for the Dead as much as I did, but Ender and Pastwatch tend to be greatly popular, and I certainly can read them again and again–but only in the way that I can still read the early Clancy novels. For some time, however, Card’s writing has been sliding (his Bean-centered Ender books marked this slide), and now it seems that Card is officially jumping his own literary shark with his new book, Empire.

The plot: a terrorist attack which kills the president and vice-president touches off a new American civil war when blue-state liberals declare New York the capital and claim control of the country. You can read the first five chapters on Card’s site (a usual preview he does for his new books). The politics surge in with Chapter Two, in which we meet a conceited, snotty, East-coast Ivy-League liberal who preaches the virtues of Empire over a Republic and acts all condescending to the reasonable, intelligent veteran whom he calls “Soldier Boy.” The conservative hero sees the liberal student body as:

…ignorant of any real-world data that didn’t fit their preconceived notions. And even those who tried to remain genuinely open-minded simply did not realize the magnitude of the lies they had been told about history, about values, about religion, about everything. So they took the facts of history and averaged them with the dogmas of the leftist university professors and thought that the truth lay somewhere in the middle.

Card does something even more manipulative, which is to make the right-wing protagonist appear to be questioning his own worldview, and, of course, concluding logically and objectively that he is in fact correct to be conservative. The presence of such soul-searching simply marks Card’s realization that the reader will question Card’s bias, so Card inserts the language to try to make it seem like it has been reasoned out–but it comes across as just as self-serving as Clancy’s taking both “sides” of the abortion debate, with a right-wing author using a falsely “objective” device to validate a biased view.

Card’s adulation of Bush is clear:

Truth to tell, this President had changed things. Without ever getting a bit of credit for it, he had transformed the military from the cripple it had been when he took office into the robust force with new doctrines that had the enemies of the United States on the run.

I could go into detail in knocking over this fantasy, but I think you know the fallacies here as well as I do. (Trust me, I could go into a long rant here about how Bush has decimated our military capability in a war completely divorced from terrorism, but to go into more detail would detour too long from the present topic.) In any case, that passage begins Chapter Four, which describes the terrorist attack–in detail which is as bizarre as it is beyond one’s ability to suspend disbelief. From there:

…a radical leftist army calling itself the Progressive Restoration takes over New York City and declares itself the rightful government of the United States. Other blue states officially recognize the legitimacy of the group, thus starting a second civil war.

Interestingly, the Publisher’s Weekly review on the Amazon.com page for the novel (the source of the above synopsis) rather flatly pans the book, saying that “right-wing rhetoric trumps the logic of story and character,” and “the action is overshadowed by the novel’s polemical message.” But I guess that Amazon prints their reviews automatically, good or bad (some of the other reviews are good, which is surprising, as the first chapters–not to mention the plot–are so abysmally bad.

Maybe Clancy and Card are exceptions, and the seepage of personal politics into writing is not a sign of an author going downhill. But within the miniature statistical universe of these two writers, it’s certainly no question that the two events coincided.

Update: I just remembered that Michael Crichton might be a member of the club, though I think his drop-off in writing quality came somewhat before his anti-environmentalist polemic.

It feels kind of strange to be walking down the street with tens of thousands of dollars in your bag. In the U.S., I have to admit, I’d feel like I had a huge target painted on my back, and I’d go to a big expense to avoid that risk. But in Japan, even in Shinjuku, which is close to some of the “more dangerous” neighborhoods in Tokyo, I felt only slightly odd. But certainly not at risk.

The purpose was to transfer money from my main bank to my other bank, a U.S. bank from where I transferred the money to a third location electronically. The two banks are only about a block apart, so it wasn’t such a big deal, and avoided the costs of having to use a cashier’s check, not a standard monetary device in Japan. Still, the money was given to me in several nicely wrapped bundles of one hundred ¥10,000 yen bills–more than I transferred the same way a few years ago, which I photographed at the time (see right–this time I didn’t have my camera).

I also am catching a break on the exchange rate; it had been up as high as ¥120 in mid-October, just a month ago, but today it fell to ¥116, saving me about $1700 in the transaction. Furthermore, although the usual exchange rate banks charge is three yen off the mid-rate (the one you see in reported–this moment, it is ¥115.92-95), when you issue traveler’s checks or make a bank transfer, they only charge you one yen off the mid-rate, saving me a further $850 on this transaction–but that’s standard, of course, so is not really a savings or anything.

The fact is, leaving the money here in Japan doesn’t make too much sense, since interest rates here are virtually zero (I think my main bank here offers 0.1% interest). I’ve left too much here for too long, not certain whether I would use it to make a down payment on a home at some point–but finally got around to realizing that it just didn’t make sense in the long run. Better to invest in the U.S., and bring the money back if I have to.

Here are some applications for the Mac that I find myself using quite a bit. In no particular order:

Namely

This little app helps you with all the other apps. There are only so many apps you may want in your Dock, and there will be a lot more apps you will want to use. Tired of searching for them in your Applications folder, or wherever you stashed them? Namely will help you open them right quick. Just type the keyboard shortcut you chose for Namely (I have it set to Option-Escape), then start typing in any part of the app’s name. Namely will create a list of apps with the text string in their name (like the illustration at top right demonstrates). If the app you want is highlighted at the top of the list, just hit “Return” (or “Enter”) and the app will start. If the app is not at the top, either keep typing to eliminate the others, or just use the down arrow to get to the app you want and again hit “Return.” Namely becomes invisible when it is not the active application, so it never gets in the way. You can set it to launch at startup so you never have to think about it. You can set the keyboard shortcut it uses from the preferences, and you can even set the color of the search bar. A very small but useful app.

You Control iTunes

I’ve never been a fan of the multitudinous iTunes controllers–and will admit right up front that I’ve tried very few–but You Control iTunes is a very nice one, one I’ve come to like a lot. It resides in your menu bar, so it doesn’t intrude on your screen space. But in the four little buttons it puts there, you can play/pause, go back or forward in the playlist, or get drop-down menus that allow control of just about any aspect of iTunes. You can even customize the appearance of the buttons in your menu bar, choosing the best style and color from a long list provided within the app. YCiT also allows for an “overlay” to appear anywhere you want on the screen when a new song starts, showing the Song title, album title, artist, song duration, and even album art (if it’s in iTunes). And there are a ton of preferences you can set about what appears and does not appear and how it will appear; it is comfortably customizable. A very well-designed and unobtrusive app that tries harder to help you than it does to impress you with how slick the programmer is. The app is free, though you do have to get a registration code from the web site and enter it into the app.

Skype

Yes, I know that you know about Skype. Did you know that the Mac version with video conferencing is available? And that version 2.0 is out of beta? There’s even a new beta (v. 2.5) which allows for audio conference calls between up to 10 people (yourself and 9 others; video is still limited to two people). Skype works well between Macs and PCs, and allows you to conference by text, audio, and video chat, and it’s all free, so long as it’s computer-to-computer. You can also opt to pay for the ability to dial any telephone in the world, for prices cheaper than most if not all other call plans.

Also, Skype’s audio quality is much better than standard, it seems. My dad and I tried Skype as well as Apple’s iChat and AIM, and of the three, Skype’s audio quality stood out tremendously. So if you thought Skype for Mac wasn’t ready yet, it is–go get it.

JEDict

For those of you studying Japanese: JEDict is the best Mac client for Monash University’s public and free J-E/E-J Kanji dictionary database. The app will serve as a humble Japanese/English and Kanji dictionary, allowing for standard lookup and Kanji finding by radical or term search. It’s not a really detailed dictionary–“definitions” are mainly lists of synonymous words, and there are no examples of use–but it will serve in most cases, or at least help some. The ability of the app to automatically insert whatever is in the clipboard to the search window is a nice feature. Version 4 is a nice upgrade to the interface. And it’s the best dictionary you’re likely to get for free!

Onyx

Onyx is an excellent free app that will allow you to set preferences in your system that Apple has made possible but has not provided the interface for. You can show/hide invisible files and folders, turn off Finder animations and Dock special effects that might take up unnecessary CPU time, and change Dock preferences Apple doesn’t let you do (like aligning the dock to one side, or even putting it at the top of your screen!). You can change the scroll bar arrows, change the file format for screen captures, and even deactivate the Dashboard if it irritates you–or you can enable it’s “Developer mode,” which lets widgets exist outside the Dashboard. You can also do a lot more stuff that you might not even understand, including regular (and automated) maintenance, like repairing permissions. TinkerTool is an easy-to-use but powerful little utility that’ll let you customize your Mac even more. It does more than the free version of TinkerTool–more similar to TinkerTool’s big brother, which costs money.

Burn

Want to burn CDs and DVDs just like Toast, but don’t want to buy or pirate Toast? Burn is a great secondary option. It gives you most of what you’re likely to use in Toast, but in a nice, free, open-source package. Make Data discs, Audio CDs or MP3 DVDs, make video discs as VCDs, SVCDs, DVDs, or DivX discs, and burn disc images on discs. The interface is simple, simpler than Toast. And while it may not have all the features you may want, it certainly has enough–as a free app!–to be useful.

Burn is one of a multitude of different apps on SourceForge, a haven for open-source software projects.

Aurora

This is an app that I just found, but it seems to work and I plan to use it a lot. Aurora is an alarm clock for your Mac, using iTunes to wake you up. Like You Control iTunes, Aurora is one of many such apps, but I like this one now that I’ve found it. I haven’t tried too many others, but the ones I did try out, I never really liked that much, and some I couldn’t get to work right. Aurora works, and works well.

You can set any number of alarms that will activate at the days and times you set (you can select any and/or all of the days of the week, and set them to recur), even waking the Mac from sleep or even starting up the Mac if it is powered off (I haven’t tried that last one yet). You can set the Playlist that will start up, how the volume is handled, and what window will come to the front when the alarm goes off.

VideoLAN – VLC Media Player

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this one before as well, but it’s a great app that you should use (including Windows users). It’s a media player that plays a lot more different file types than almost any other player out there. It still can’t handle Real Player files, but just about anything else is game, including DVDs. In fact, depending on the DVD drive in your computer, it might even be able to play DVDs from any region. It’s also unobtrusive and simple in design. There is one feature it lacks which I wish it didn’t: the ability to move frame-by-frame using the arrow keys (or by any means at all, as far as I can figure out). Other than that, it’s golden–and you should have it handy even if you prefer another media player, just in case you come up against something you can’t play otherwise.

QuickTime Video Playback Enablers

If you really like QuickTime and don’t want to abandon it, then here are two system add-ons which will make WMV and DivX files play in QuickTime, something they cannot do normally. The first is Flip4Mac, which will enable Windows Media Video files in QuickTime. The free version allows you to play the files and save them for playback on your Mac, but you can’t export as a different file type, even in QT Pro–that requires a paid version. But the free version will allow you to see any of these files, and it will even work inline within your browsers; it is a system extension which shows up in your System Preferences pane.

The second one is Perian, an open-source plug-in for the QuickTime player that enables it to play AVIs, Flash files, and a lot more.

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There are a lot more apps I could list, but I’ll stop there for now. If you know of better apps than these, add your input in the comments; otherwise, just enjoy!

A new report says that spam email–already at record levels last summer–has tripled since June, and now accounts for 9 out of every 10 emails sent.

How long will these scum be allowed to operate before everyone out there says “enough!” and does what is necessary to cut them off at the knees? Already they have overrun our email, flooded our blogs, polluted the Internet with filth both illegal and barely legal. Probably a big chunk of what you pay for your Internet service subsidizes these sleazes, who take advantage of the free ride we’re giving them so they can annoy us, harm us, and fleece us.

I am not one for restrictions or regulations on the Internet, so I would suggest as many self-healing techniques as possible, but beyond that, make the rules necessary to stop these rat-bastard parasites from bringing the Internet crashing down.

Almost exactly three years ago, I outlined a new email system that would immediately crush email spammers, and I reiterated the same plan a year and a half ago. A good idea never wears thin, so here it is again.

Call it “Email 2.0.” Start a new protocol for email. It should be open-source, with profits, if there are any, going to fund new projects to stop spammers. No one company or country would be able to hijack the standards nor profit from them–the protocols and technology would be agreed upon by programmers and experts in the open-source project, and kept that way. Makers of email software would be given 6-12 months’ lead time (or whatever is realistically necessary) to incorporate the feature into their email clients and other software.

In this new protocol, everyone would receive $1 credit right off the bat–you wouldn’t even have to pay to start off. Those who would need to buy more credit could use a system that anyone could pay into–credit cards and PayPal would be possible, perhaps, but some other system, like a prepaid card or sending a money order to some location, would also be necessary.

Here’s how it would work: whenever you send an email, it could potentially cost you a penny. But here’s the beauty of it: it only gets debited from your account if your email winds up in someone’s spam folder for more than three days. When that happens, you receive an automatic receipt informing you of the transaction, or whatever other notification system works best.

UPDATE: Oops. I misremembered my own idea. The idea was not to charge senders only after the email was reported as spam by the recipients. The idea was to automatically charge every email one penny and then forgive the charge once it was accepted by the user. This itself would cause problems, I’m sure–if your account were taken over by a spammer somehow, for example–but as I mentioned in the comments, a standard setting could be not to allow more than x numbers of messages to be sent within a certain time period. Again, stuff that could be worked out by smarter people. I know this whole system raises problems, and maybe it is unworkable–but I do have faith in the idea that some system would be workable, and we need to find that and implement it.

Most people would take years to eat up a dollar at that rate–have you sent 100 emails that wound up in people’s spam folders in your lifetime? Maybe most people would never lose the original dollar.

But spammers would run out of money in the first few minutes of operation. Today, they depend on free email to send millions of spam out every day. But at a penny a pop, a million spam would suddenly become $10,000, and no spammer could afford to operate at the levels they now operate at. In November this year alone, 7 billion spam emails were sent; that would come to $70 million per month to the spammers. No way they could keep that up.

This system would not stop junk mail–after all, businesses still pay postage for snail mail advertisements. You’d still get spam–but you’d get a hell of a lot less of it, and that’s the whole idea. Spam would no longer threaten to cripple our email systems.

The money paid for these spam emails could be split between the spam recipients and the open-source project, which would after all need some funding to survive. Even better, the recipient’s portion of the income from spam landing in their inbox could be used to recharge their own accounts in case they lost some pennies from their own email accidentally landing in someone’s spam folder. Beyond that, they could get a PayPal credit which could then be used for online shopping. What spam remained after this technological culling would actually begin to spur legitimate online shopping. And anyone who tries to nickel-and-dime their friends by collecting the spam penny off of legitimate email would probably not get sent any more email, not to mention they would not have their friends for long.

Because the system is, to a degree, exclusive, as well as self-correcting, spammers could not take refuge in spam-friendly countries or international waters. However, checks for fraud would need to be pretty good so that spammers couldn’t hack in and create fake accounts full of credit. But we’re able to do that with real money (PayPal manages, not to mention credit card companies), so hopefully that would not be a roadblock.

Perhaps a greater problem would be the spammer’s propensity for hacking into victims’ computers and using them as proxies to send massive numbers of emails each–but hopefully protections of this sort could also be averted by beefing up email security, like adding a feature that would require user intervention to send email to more than three people within a span of ten minutes, say.

I truly believe that such a system is possible, workable, and should be done. It just requires enough people getting fed up enough to make the effort. Frankly, I am pretty surprised no one has tried to get such a movement going by now.

OK, I know, the “big fat” jokes concerning Rush Limbaugh are wearing thin. But he has so clearly crossed over the line from being a pompous, extremist windbag to being a complete joke that it’s hard not to take easy pot shots at him. I really, truly have to wonder at the character of any human being that accepts anything he says. Here is his latest on the Middle East:

Let’s just have the civil wars and let the crumbs crumble and the cookie crumble where — because I’m fed up with this. The Palestinian situation — for 50 years we’ve had the Palestinian situation, and it’s not going to be solved until the Limbaugh Doctrine is imposed or tried. And that is, this is a war, and until somebody loses it, it isn’t going to stop. And now, you know, we’ve done everything we can to make Lebanon a democracy, and it’s crumbling because Syria keeps killing the popular leaders there. Meanwhile, the Hezbos [Hezbollah] keep expanding their influence in Lebanon.

But what the hell! We’re going to bring Syria and Iran in to fix Iraq, why not let them just fix the whole region? If we’re heading to civil war — I mean, everybody comes to us: “You got to fix this and you got to fix that.” So we go and try to fix it, and our own people, Democrats and the left in our country do their best to sabotage our efforts, and then we get blamed for trying to clean up the messes that these people start. And then they come on our television show: “[Gibberish] George [gibberish] civil war [gibberish] we gotta do something. Palestinians it’s a must, it’s a must, we must [gibberish] right now [gibberish] war.”

Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them, instead of trying to use — I just — sometimes natural force is going to happen. You’re going to have to let it take place. You can spend all the time you like with diplomacy, and you can spend all the time you want massaging these things with diplomatic — you’re just — you’re just delaying the inevitable.

I love that middle part, where he says that all the messes in the Middle East are the fault of Democrats and liberals, and that right-wingers get blamed for trying to clean up after them. Because Republicans over the past five years have done so much for peace in the Middle East. And Democrats and liberals, despite having no power over that time, somehow got in and sabotaged all they had accomplished! And now we’re blaming the Republicans for all that stuff which is so clearly the Democrats’ fault! Boo hoo!

Of course, the key statement in this tirade is the “Limbaugh Doctrine”: Just blow the place up. That ought to solve all their problems.

NBC News has made an editorial decision to call the Iraqi internal conflict a “civil war.” No doubt the right wing will attack this as an example of the “liberal media,” but quite frankly, it’s the other way around. For major news organizations to go along with the White House and even question that this is a civil war when it so obviously is (former Iraqi prime minister even said so eight months ago) is a sign of how they have been all too eager to toe the conservative line–something the media seems to think is necessary in order not to appear “biased.”

And that is what it has come down to: since the right-wingers come down on and attack so vociferously anyone who challenges their extremist views as “liberal” and “biased” (remember, in their world view, Fox News’ “fair and balanced” is not ironic), the media has been cowed to the point where they feel that if they do not give full credence to right-wing views as equal to reality, then they are indeed being “liberal,” and so in order to be “balanced,” they represent the right-wing worldview as equal to or stronger than the truth.

The question is not why NBC has made this decision at this time. The question is why NBC did not make it earlier, and why almost every other major news outlet has not yet made the same decision yet. The Washington Post (often characterized as “liberal”) says it’s not using the term because the Iraqi government is not using it–which is virtually the same as saying they won’t use it because the Bush administration won’t. A few people within certain networks are calling it for what it is, but even that is within the framework of the network posing it as a question and giving equal credence to the conservative side. Still, the conservative dam is holding in general.

The answer to the aforementioned question is, of course, that we have a conservative media, not a liberal one. Of course, no one can say that, because that would be too “liberal” and “biased.”

When an automated phone “service” puts you on hold to wait for a live person, they start playing music. They then interrupt the music every thirty seconds (that’s what Citibank is doing to me as I type this, I timed it) for the exact same 17-second “we’re still busy” message.

What idiot came up with this idea? Why does it seem to be an industry standard? Does anybody find it useful to hear the same stupid automated message three times every two minutes?

It is annoying enough to be teased with music and then denied the ability to enjoy it (assuming the music itself is not annoying), but what’s really annoying is the fact that when the automated message starts, it makes you think that a service rep is answering you call. You’d think that even a firm like Apple Computer would have figured out how annoying this is, but they are the same as everyone else.

How about this: start the music (and stick with some nice, quiet jazz, that’s usually the safest), and then every one or two minutes, incorporate a message into the music (lower the music volume a bit, but do not stop it, so the person on hold doesn’t think that a rep is answering) which says that if you want to hear options without losing your place “in line” on hold, then press “0” or something like that; then return the music to full volume.

If the caller presses the number key, then play a message which tells them their options–they can choose a different option from the main menu, or better yet, get the system to estimate how long they are likely to be on hold. Treat this interlude as still being on hold, and the live rep can cut in at any time; allow the caller to go back to listening to music without having to wait longer for having accessed the menu.

All of this should be eminently possible. Most systems like this, especially for big corporations, know the approximate length of their calls, and so an estimate of call length should not be a big deal. The caller will be happy to have an idea of whether they’ll be on hold for two minutes or two hours; just over-estimate the wait time a little just in case the regular time is exceeded–this will even help by making it seem for most people that their calls are being answered earlier than predicted.

As for incorporating the message into the music and allowing the caller to take a no-time-penalty options detour, computers are absolutely capable of handling this kind of thing. Maybe I don’t know of some crippling engineering factor involved, but frankly, I doubt that. I think it is more likely that these places want to discourage callers, and making the call-in system less annoying would mitigate that.

A little more than a month ago, Bush gave a news conference on Iraq, which included the following:

The ultimate victory in Iraq, which is a government that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself, depends upon the Iraqi citizens and the Iraqi government doing the hard work necessary to protect their country. And our job is to help them achieve that objective.

As a matter of fact, my view is: The only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done.

And I’m confident we can succeed in the broader war on terror, this ideological conflict.

A little later, a reporter asked a question to Bush:

Q: Are we winning?

BUSH: Absolutely we’re winning.

Bush denies there is a civil war, but if hundreds of people each day are being slaughtered in sectarian violence–not insurgent or terrorist, but sectarian violence, that’s a civil war, no matter how you try to spin it. And not only is there a civil war, it is getting worse.

Shi’ites took over a major television station in Baghdad and aired a two-hour polemic fomenting war against Sunnis. One resident of Sadr City said:

“This is live and, God willing, everyone will hear me: We are not interested in sidewalks, water services or anything else. We want safety. We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that’s the truth.”

The Sunnis are no happier, and there is evidence that the coalition government is splintering along those same sectarian lines.

Meanwhile, the insurgents are now self-sufficient in terms of financing, meaning that it is actually getting healthier, not weakening. Remember that a month ago, Bush said that the “ultimate victory in Iraq… is a government that can sustain itself….” Well, the U.S.-backed government is falling apart, and it’s the insurgency that is now self-sustaining.

The U.S. has been in this conflict longer than it was in WWII. 2,876 American military personnel are dead, tens of thousands wounded. Bush wants to “stay the course.” He says that it will take “a long time,” and in the past has indicated that “future presidents”–plural–will have to decide on whether we pull out. Under Bush’s plan, we will be in Iraq longer than we were in Vietnam, by which time at least ten thousand American soldiers will have died–assuming things don’t get too much worse there, which they probably will–and the chances of success, despite Bush’s rosy predictions, are virtually zero.

And the parents of our troops must understand that if I didn’t believe we could succeed and didn’t believe it was necessary for the security of this country to succeed, I wouldn’t have your loved ones there.

This coming from a man who supported the Vietnam War and berated his schoolmates for dodging the draft, and then ran like the drunken, drug-addled coward he was when his deferments ran out.

Iraq was never about terrorism. It was never about a military threat. It was never about bringing freedom to Iraqis. Make what you will of the remaining reasons: a neocon worldview, an imbecilic naivete that we would be welcomed and it would be a cakewalk, the desire to feed the military-industrial complex, the desire to control oil output so as to affect world prices, personal revenge–any and probably all of these in varying measure.

And the only reason Bush keeps us there is because it would be politically crippling for him to pull out after all that he has said and done. Iraq is now just damage control for Bush. And he would rather sacrifice the lives of thousands of our soldiers than to admit that he made a mistake, so instead he can leave office, let the next president pull out the troops, and then slide a parting knife into that president’s back by saying that the inevitable collapse was only because of “cutting and running.”

What a petty, pusillanimous, cowardly little ratfink.

While I sincerely believe that the war could have been run in such a way that could have ended with relative success (“relative” being the operative term here), Bush’s mismanagement from day one precluded that possibility, his intentional military and diplomatic policies were absolutely contrary to that success. Not only did Bush start this war, let there be no mistake in the conclusion that Bush lost this war, and he lost it badly. He pushed for it, he insisted it was necessary, he got everything he wanted to fight it. No one else is or ever will be as responsible, despite Republicans already trying to claim that Democrats “own” the war in Iraq.

All Bush believes he can succeed in is spinning the perception so that it doesn’t seem so clear that it was completely, entirely his fault. It will be a success and a potential success until the day he leaves office, and then it will become someone else’s failure.

And all that will cost is the life of every American soldier and every Iraqi civilian who will die until that time comes.

But never doubt: Bush is willing to pay that price.

You know how peace activists are always being stereotyped as hippies, conspiracy theorists, hedonists, crazies, or New Age nuts? Well here are all of those stereotypes rolled into one: it’s called Global Orgasm. The idea is for as many people as possible to have sex and come to orgasm on December 22, so as to “effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy a Synchronized Global Orgasm,” and in so doing stop “two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran.”

Now, on the one hand, I can totally get behind this movement. I certainly see little functional downside to it (aside from unreasonable expectations for world peace, and, if you’re anti-population-explosion, the blip in the birth rate next August), and it could be fun. I know a few people who believe in this sort of energy having a real effect on things, though if I were of that persuasion, I would try to get as many people to have their orgasms at the exact same time–probably early morning Pacific Standard Time, say 6 to 7 am–on December 17th (it might be too hard to excuse the kiddies on Christmas Eve), when most of the world is awake, and it’s Sunday, so those awake at mid-day have a chance to find some private time. Let’s face it, if people are having orgasms along a 24-hour period, that’s hardly “synchronized.”

On the other hand, this kind of plays into the hands of those who belittle the peace movement. I don’t think that I really need to explain how. This is being carried out by the same people who organized “Baring Witness,” a group (run by Paul Reffell, 55, and Donna Sheehan, 76, no relation to Cindy Sheehan) that gets people to shed their clothes and form human anti-war signage, as seen at right. (That’s a very well-formed and tastefully executed Chinese character for “peace,” by the way.)

While the premise might sound nutty, the concerns over war are not. Two months ago, Time Magazine reported that a submarine and minsweeping vessels were to be deployed–with the Persian Gulf the only place in the world these ships would be needed, and Iran the only logical enemy. This year, there has been a buildup of forces in the region, mostly naval, that would appear to be primed for an Iran conflict. So it’s not nutty; instead, it is eerily familiar to the days leading up to the Iraq War, though this time the pieces are moving even more quietly.

I have no problem with millions of people having scheduled sex, and I believe the concerns are valid and vastly underreported in the media. (Drat that liberal media yet again!) My only problem is that this kind of movement tends to bring scorn and levity to a deathly-serious topic, and, in a way, gives the media and the proponents of militarization a way to trivialize protests and the legitimate claims that our country is yet again being led into another disastrous war.

One constant I have always noticed in the visitor stats for this site: readership numbers drop by more than half on weekends and holidays. Which brings me to wonder why: are people simply out of the house more on these days? It seems unlikely that this would be the case, as they are at home in the mornings and evenings and could surf then. It would account for some drop-off, but not so much–in fact, if surfing is done at home, one would assume that it would rise when people are at home more.

What seems more likely is that a large number of people surf the web at their jobs. That would make perfect sense–the drop-off happens when people don’t have access to the web. Either they don’t have access to computers and the web at home, or they just spend a lot of time at work goofing off. Interesting.

Um… but not you, of course.

My sister in law, in describing an Amazon.co.jp order on her blog, posted about automatic web page translation software and the shaky job it does. That reminded me of something I discovered a while ago; I posted this as a comment to her blog, but thought it was blog-worthy in and of itself.

Here’s a fun game: open the Mac translation widget (or, equivalently, go to any translation web site), and type in an English sentence to be translated into Japanese. Then reverse the translation (a single-button action in the Mac widget). Then reverse again, and again, and again. Sometimes the translation gets stuck and won’t change, but usually it will change into something new and more and more bizarre each time.

I tried it with this sentence:

“The heater in my apartment room works wonderfully in getting the place nice and toasty.”

After one round, it became:

“The heater of my apartment room the place is splendid, toasty works splendidly by the fact that you obtain.”

Next time around:

“The heater of my apartment room the place element clear forcing and toasty job does nicely with the fact which you obtain.”

Then:

“The heater of my apartment room does clear forcing and toasty job of the element of fact and the place where you obtain securely.”

Then:

“The heater of my apartment room fact and removes forcing of the element of the place where you obtain securely and toasty job.”

Several iterations later:

“You force the element of the place where you obtain securely because of the heater of fact of my apartment room toasty job which it removes.”

You get the idea. Fun for the family!

It’s been a while since I did this–I’ve been busy and have fallen behind–but here’s number three in the series on cool but little-known Mac features. It’s one I use a lot myself: the zoom feature. Not many people know about this one, because it’s tucked away under “Universal Access,” and you might think that you don’t need anything there unless you’re handicapped in one way or another; it is intended for Mac users who have vision problems. But the zoom feature has been a lifesaver for me.

My main use of the feature is in class. I teach some computer classes, and all I can show the students is what they see on the TV. Now, Macs are already very good about using a TV as a second monitor, either mirroring (showing the same thing on both screens), or with two separate but connected screens. The problem, however, is with resolution.

Computer monitors are like HDTV screens; in fact, my current screen is 1200 pixels tall, which makes it higher-def than a 1080p TV set, the highest-quality HDTV you can have right now. But when you show your computer to a class on a TV set, it’s suddenly low-def again–just 484 lines (the rest of the 525 lines in NTSC are used for other data). Plus, an NTSC screen is interlaced, which means that every time the TV screen “flashes” a frame, it’s really a half-frame–every other line, filled in by the other half of the lines 1/60th of a second later. Interlacing, along with the fewer lines of resolution, makes the text go fuzzy.

Add to that the fact that my students sit far from the TV and you get a situation where they cannot read a thing on the picture I show them–unless I zoom in. That’s where the zoom feature comes in handy for me, whenever I want to show more of the screen, with good enough clarity for everyone to see what’s going on.

Below is a movie I made (low-res, but you can get the idea) of zoom being used on my computer. I start out on this blog’s page, and use my standard setting, which zooms in double each time I press the F11 key (the original shortcut was Option-Command-+ and -, but I opted for a one-key solution). I then switch to the System Preferences, and demonstrate how you can set the feature to zoom a lot more hit a single keystroke–first 10x, then 20x, and then a more reasonable 4x. Hit another key (F12 for me) and it zooms out. The movie is in QuickTime format, 1.2 MB, 320×240 (it’s sharper than the preview image); click the image to see it in a pop-up window, or click here for it to take over this window.

It is ironic that I have to use my Mac to teach Windows to my classes, using Virtual PC. I’d love to use Parallels, but my laptop is a G4, so not yet. But I cannot use a Windows machine because the zoom feature in Windows sucks horribly. It divides the screen in half horizontally, with the bottom half being regular size, and the top half being zoomed. It is terribly distracting and confusing, as you’re not sure where to look. If you are used to the zoom in Windows, you’ll be blown away by the elegance and simplicity of zoom on the Mac.

One drawback: in Virtual PC, the zoom feature works (some Mac OS elements do), but it will not follow the cursor–instead, it stays locked in the center of the screen. It’s still functional, though. With Parallels, the Mac zoom works only if your mouse is outside the Windows environment, but it is similarly functional.

Not only is the zoom good for my classes, it’s also useful in daily use. My 24″ monitor is a monster, and often I feel much more comfortable zooming in to read small stuff, or narrow columns of text many blogs have.

If you have a Mac and want to turn the zoom feature on, you can use the keyboard shortcut Option-Command-8 to activate it, and then Option-Command-+ (plus) to zoom in, and Option-Command– (minus) to zoom out. To change these rather clumsy keyboard shortcuts, go to System Preferences, open “Keyboard & Mouse,” select the “Keyboard Shortcuts,” and change the “Zoom” settings under “Universal Access.”

You can also control the feature by going to System Preferences, opening “Universal Access,” and make sure that you’re in the “Seeing” tab.

Sachi and I went to Kichijoji today for dinner, some shopping, and a walk in the park. The usual complement of ducks were there, which is to say the Spot-bills, Northern Pintails, Northern Shovelers, Tufteds, and Common Pochards–though Mandarins could not be found. Crows and Bulbuls were there in abundance, and a few Great Tits could be spotted. Even a Northern Goshawk was visible in a treetop.

In addition, Inogashira’s two common-yet-special visitors were in attendance:

A Black-Crowned Night Heron (click for larger image) can often be spotted lurking in dark areas at the water’s edge, usually perched low on a branch near the water.

Here’s a better view–again, click for a larger image, or click here for the jumbo-sized (1500 x 1000).

The other handsome attendee is a Common Moorhen, which usually can be found standing on a low post or swimming just beyond the ducks being fed by park visitors from the main bridge. Go to either end of the main bridge and look to the back of the groups of ducks, and you’ll probably spot one.

After Inogashira, we went shopping, and saw a nice dog-oriented pet store which sported a notably funny Engrish name. One has to imagine that this has been featured in many blogs, as the shop is on a prominent street corner in a popular shopping area, and has a huge sign. Someone must have pointed out the double-entendre to them already, or at least one would imagine so. (Update: And here it is on Engrish.com–hat tip to my sister.)

In Japanese homes, centralized heating does not exist. It simply isn’t done. Instead, there are a variety of heating methods that take the place of what we in the West take for granted.

The traditional (in a modern sense) Japanese way to keep everybody warm is the kotatsu, a table with a heating element underneath it. The kotatsu is a low table, maybe only 18 inches off the floor (taller kotatsu are sold, but the low ones are the most common). The top comes off to show the frame with the heating unit; place a comforter over it, and put the tabletop back on–and presto, you have a nice heated table.

People sit around the table with their legs underneath to keep them warm. Usually, there are seats with no legs–just a chair seat and seat back–which keep everyone sitting comfortably that close to the ground. And not just humans enjoy it:

Now, put a bowl of mikan (mandarin oranges) on the table and you’ve got classic Japonica.

For some reason, I’ve never been too enamored of the kotatsu. I used to have one, twenty years ago, back in Toyama, but I don’t think I’ve had one since. It’s nice and all, but it doesn’t heat your upper body, and I tend to move around the apartment–and the kotatsu is only good for keeping your legs warn when you’re sitting.

One alternative I used back in Toyama was the kerosene stove heater. Every so often, a kerosene seller comes around and you can fill up your red plastic kerosene container; using a special plastic pump, you can siphon the fuel into the heater, and fire it up to warm up the room. Often there’s a space on top to put a tea kettle or anything else you want to warm up. The down side: it’s a pain to fuel, and smells kinda bad, too. And I hate the tunes (wav file) the trucks play when they come around.

Here in Tokyo, a lot of people use their reidanbo–literally, a “cooler-heater,” or an air conditioner with a heating unit installed. They are virtually ubiquitous in Japan; I have two, in fact. Many apartments come with them pre-installed (not my place, though). I’ll sometimes use this, but it uses tons of electricity, and is not an cost-effective way to heat the house.

The remaining way is, in my opinion, the best: using natural gas piped into the house to fuel gas heaters. I used to use the kind that simply light up heating elements, like four book-sized orange-glowing panels behind a sparse metal grill. This is called a “gas stove”:

The problem with these, however, is that they don’t circulate the heat very effectively. So the ultimate heating unit is called a “gas fan heater,” a heater which uses a nice fan to blow the warm air a good distance so it fans out. I’ve had one for some time, but it’s a huge, old, used unit which tends to cut out the heating part while the fan stays on, just blowing cold air around. So I broke down and went out and bought a new unit–last year’s model, on sale for $200.

It’s a nice unit–has a sleep and wake-up feature that shuts down and turns on the fan by a timer, but the feature I like is the thermostat, which automatically turns the unit down to a very low setting once a certain temp has been reached. And when on high, it heats up my big room fast.

And yes, I know that I can wear a sweater. Call me jaded.

Fox is making noises about creating its own Daily Show style comedy show for conservatives. Lamenting that Comedy Central’s Daily Show and Colbert Report are left-leaning, Joel Surnow (co-creator of 24 and the creative force behind the new show) said, “The other side hasn’t been skewered in a fair and balanced way.” Isn’t that interesting–someone from within Fox News lamenting that others aren’t “fair and balanced.” I’m glad I had my irony sensors off when I read that, I don’t like replacing them after they’ve been burnt out from overload.

This should be interesting, though; one thing I have noticed is that good-quality right-wing entertainment, especially comedy, is rare to non-existent. It’ll be interesting to see if it can be done successfully without seeming shrill, and if they will include skewering of the right as well, just as The Daily Show will skewer left-wing politicians should they make the news.

One also has to wonder if this show would have been given the go-ahead if the Dems had not taken control of Congress. Anything that happens on Fox News, after all, does not happen without a political agenda.

A US Air Force helicopter has been circling this apartment complex for the past twenty minutes, flying low and tight above this one specific building where I live. What the hell?

Yes, there is a U.S. military base in our backyard, but it is a recreational base, and this thing is circling my building, not the base.

This is weird. I have a blog entry from December 2003 where I put up some photos of my dad’s canaries. I made no claims about canary expertise, and made it clear that they were not my canaries. And yet, since then, I have been getting comments from people–most from people with Arabic-sounding names–asking for canary stuff, as if I were a canary go-to guy or something. The comments include:

I WANT FHOTO CANARY FOR BREEDING AND AECHIVES ALBOM
THANK U.   [“Masoud”]

visit [my] site and write me a letter showing me where the canaries live.    [“Meshari”]

Please send me picture and article Kingstroat and Backsrtoat breedings, thank’c (Indonesia)   [“Anjar Siswanto”]

My canary is sick. I’m to give him 3cc of liquid antibiotic two times a day. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks! G   [“Georgianna”]

In the comments, I replied to these, saying that I know nothing about canaries, they are not mine, I don’t have regular access to them and so on. But the weird comments keep on coming. Just a few minutes ago, another came in from “Rashid”:

hi please send me photo by canary
thanks you.

All part of the risks of blogging on random stuff.

I love the new 24-inch iMac I got. My only complaint is that I can’t turn the brightness down enough, but there are workarounds to that, and everything else about the main body of the machine is fantastic. The wireless keyboard is excellent (except that I still haven’t gotten used to the Delete key not being at the top right, but that’s a training issue). Overall, it’s probably the best computer I’ve ever had.

Except for the mouse. I am seriously thinking of ditching the damned thing.

When I bought the Mac, I opted for the wireless keyboard and mouse. I do not regret going for the wireless option; I think the “Mighty Mouse” would be even worse with a wire. It’s the other “features” that annoy me, which add to the reputation Apple has for making sucky mice.

When I got it, I wanted to give it a chance, and at first, my impressions were actually good. For the first week or so, I enjoyed it, ascribing its problems to adaptation errors.

The scroll ball (instead of a scroll wheel) was too tiny for my tastes, but I did like the fact that it can scroll omnidirectionally. But now the danged thing is dropping out, making it hard to scroll; when I scroll down, it usually goes but sometimes has no effect, before suddenly cutting in again, leading to over-scrolling. A few days ago, scrolling down didn’t even work at all, until I knocked the mouse against the desk, which brought it back–never a good sign.

And even without a mechanical malfunction, the improbability of scrolling exactly up or down leads to side-scrolling to the right, shifting the content on the left out of view. At the very least, the scroll ball takes getting used to.

But that’s the least of my dislikes. The all-in-one seamless surface leads to problems with clicking. Apple opted for rocking the body of the mouse to discern between left- and right-clicking. But all too often, this doesn’t work right. Maybe two or three times a day, a right-click registers as a left-click, and vice-versa. At first I though I was clicking wrong, but then I paid closer attention and realized that I was not, and sometimes I had to push on the far side of the mouse to get the correct click to register. Bad design. When I right-click a link to open a web page in a new tab, I don’t want to find that I’ve left-clicked and loaded the new page in the same window, or a new window, either of which would require backtrack and correction.

And the side buttons? A horrible idea. Apple placed a “third button” on both sides of the mouse; you press inward with your thumb on the left and another finger on the right to activate the button. You either have to use your weak ring finger to apply more force than it’s used to, or you have to reposition your hand to use your index finger, either way in a manner that is inconsistent with moving and manipulating the mouse as normal, making a click-and-drag a messy, uncomfortable, and haphazard affair.

I know that Steve Jobs has a psychological problem with a mouse which is not seamless and pretty, and demands that the Apple mouse be aesthetic in a certain way. And I like good style–except when it interferes with functionality. That should be the tipping point, but Jobs can’t handle that for some reason, and that’s what has led to Apple having crappy mice.

So when I go back to the U.S., I’m going to be looking for a new mouse, caring a lot less about how it looks than I do about how it works.

As I noted on my entry of November 3, I went to Kasai Rinkai Park with Sachi to do some casual birdwatching. At that time, we just missed seeing a Eurasian Jay, by maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Assured that they were making frequent appearances, I went back the following weekend–and again missed the appearance by 5 or 10 minutes. Today, I was going to visit Sachi at her exhibition booth (she currently works for a firm in their Nailist division) at Tokyo Big Sight, which happens to be just between the Tokyo Minato Yacho Koen and Kasai Rinkai, two notable birding spots. So, after seeing Sachi off at the station in the morning, I went off to the two parks before meeting her for lunch. The following photos are a combination of the past two weekends of watching.

One bird that made an appearance both times was the Kasai Rinkai Kingfisher, who seems to be more and more visible–Sachi and I spotted him on November 3 as well.

Along with the common-as-dirt Brown-eared Bulbuls, a flock of Azure-winged Magpies commonly enjoys a bath at dusk at Rinkai.

And speaking of common, we got a trio of Common Snipes at Rinkai last week. They get four shots in this set, just because they turned out so well.

We sometimes see cats in the parks–I saw two at Rinkai this morning, and once saw a tanuki (raccoon dog) there–but this morning, the Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park had a canine visitor making a brief appearance to enjoy the birds.

This bird is a little hard to see:

It’s smack in the center of the image, but mostly you can see the black rump sticking out. It’s a Gadwall, sleeping among the reeds of the marsh. This is a first for me with the Gadwall.

Also a common sight everywhere nowadays is the Eurasian Coot; you can see a small bevy of them here feeding on the shore.

A Herring Gull also put in an appearance, picking at the carcass of a fish (eww) at the Wild Bird Park.

Meanwhile, this beautiful Grey Heron was apparently trying to coax some goodie out of this bit of detritus; from a distance, it appeared to be struggling with a handbag.

Today, this Daurian Redstart showed up at the east lake at Kasai Rinkai. This is the second Redstart I’ve spotted, but both times it’s been a female. Not to discriminate, but the male has striking colors.

Last week at Rinkai, this Eastern Marsh Harrier was what kept me from seeing the Eurasian Jay. When a bird of prey like this shows up, a lot of the smaller birds make themselves scarce. Nevertheless, the Harrier was another new bird for me. Note how crazily the leg plumage stands out in the second shot.

However, finally, I got a clear shot (well, except for that twig) of a Eurasian Jay. A beautiful bird, and I still wish he’d have turned so I could get a shot of the gorgeous blue-and-black striations on its wings. But for the time being, I was satisfied with this shot.

The landmark Kasai Rinkai Ferris Wheel, from the birding area of the park

So, with three new life birds, I guess I can’t complain. But then, over the next three months, I should be getting more new life birds under my belt. I started birding, though not too seriously, in mid-February 2005; the really good birding season is supposed to be December through February, and last year, I was laid up with a broken foot just during that time. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some good birding done this time.

I walked Sachi to the station this morning before going off to do some birdwatching (next post), and on the way back, snapped some photos of the pre-business mall walk. This is an upscale area just out of Meguro.

This one I’m not sure I figured out. It’s twenty people lined up to get into a pachinko parlor/game center, at maybe 8:15 am. Was there some special new game that gets 20 forty- and fifty-somethings up before eight a.m. on Sunday morning? Or do they do this every week? Note the mini-chairs many are using.

This shop is interesting as it’s not some Japanese faux-American rapster joint or something–it’s a clothing shop and the proprietor is an African-American man, as I’ve observed while passing by during business hours. Not something you’d expect to see on an upscale Japanese walk-and-shop mall. I wonder if he has local shoppers coming in all the time and then seeing him and slooowly backing out…

And this is a chiropractor’s sign. They got the foot OK, but what the heck is with the hand? Is that a hand? If not, then what the heck is it?