I think that’s the one that’s going to change a lot. Certainly in my part of town.

The MacBook Pro is for people who have a lot of money to drop on a laptop. The iMac is certainly big, as it’s cheap and fast, and it looks good. But laptops are a key market, and when the next consumer Mactel laptop comes out, I think that’s going to sell a lot–especially timed perhaps a month or so after Windows officially gets running on Mac computers.

Rumors now have the MacBook coming out in May, on the tail of announcements introducing Boot Camp and Parallels, two products that allow you to run Windows on Macs, either alternately or alongside with Mac OS X. Apple is honing the consumer laptop as well–better resolution (1280 x 720), a down point of past iBooks; the new resolution is almost the same as a 15″ Powerbook, but is on a 13.3″ widescreen display. This is a compromise between the tiny 12-inchers and larger screens, with good resolution without making the screen detail so tiny that you have to set all applications to display at zoomed-up sizes. The laptop will reportedly come with a Core Duo–not a solo, which would have hobbled it, making it harder to run dual OS’s.

And that last is a key point. In the classes I teach, usually only about 1 in 20 students has a Mac (just about right for market share, in fact). When I show them OS X in class as a demo, most are impressed and many want to buy one–but too many are wedded to Windows. But with a cheap laptop that can run both? I know a lot of my students will buy one…

For me, I made my decision almost a year ago, when I bought the last Powerbook G4 out of the gate. I buy a new laptop every three years, so it’ll be two more years before I snag a MacBook Pro. But by then, the kinks will have been worked out, and who knows–with Intel talking about quad-core processor chips a year from now, we might be looking at some wicked fast laptop chips by 2008.

In the meantime, I might just invest in an iMac….

Boy, these guys really don’t have a clue. I’m talking about the content producers, the movie studios specifically this time, who have decided to sell movies online. You download the movies to watch them on your computer. Hmm. Sounds reasonable–the best way to fight pirated movies would be to sell them to people in the same medium so they’ll have a choice to do it legally within that medium. Apple showed that it’s possible with music, and then with TV shows. Cool! Let’s do it!

One problem: these studios, it seems, are incredibly stupid. And/or, they believe their customers are ever more stupid.

The movies will be sold at prices and with restrictions that make no sense whatsoever. They will charge from $10 for “classic” movies from their libraries, up to between $20 to $30 for new releases. The movies are the same ones available on DVD, which sell for the same price or lower. The online versions will not have the special features, like commentaries, alternate endings, deleted scenes, etc. They will be full quality–that is, they’ll be no worse quality than you see on your TV (file sizes will be about 1.4 GB). You can make copies to watch on up to two other computers. But–you can only see them if you are using Windows XP, with Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, and Windows Media Player 10. They say that maybe you can use Windows Me, maybe WMP 9, but no guarantees. What’s more, you can’t burn it on a DVD and you can’t get or make an iPod version. You can watch on your TV, but only if your computer can connect via S-Video or RCA, which most desktop computers can’t.

So here’s the question: why download a movie?

That’s what makes no sense. Buy the DVD, and you can play it on any computer, with any media player that can play DVDs. You can play it on your TV with your computer or DVD player. You can download free software from the Internet to rip the movie and make it viewable as a computer file or watch it on your iPod or PSP. You can get all the special features. For less money!

The copy-protect and limitations on which OS, browser, and media players can be used are stupid as hell. We’re talking about movies that have already been ripped and are available for full-quality download over the Internet. So what is the copy-protect protecting? Not a damned thing. People downloading it for free from the Internet can do anything they want with the movie, watch it on any player, in any format. But paying customers hit all these restrictions. Stupid!

The reason why the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) worked is because it was a good deal, and the Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions were nearly invisible to the user. You buy a song off of the iTMS, you can play it on your computer, burn it onto as many CDs as you want, play it on your iPod, your CD Player in your home, your car, your office, whatever. You have to try really hard to hit any of the DRM restrictions. (Okay, so you can only play it on iTunes or your iPod, unless you burn it on a CD. The iPod restriction may suck, but iTunes is universal and the CD option is always there.) What’s more, it’s cheaper than buying CDs. At the store, you pay maybe $15 for a CD, you can get the same thing on the iTMS for ten bucks, and if you want, you can usually buy one song at a time for a buck a pop, which is what most people have always wanted anyway.

That’s a good model–cheaper, faster, customizable, and restrictions most people don’t even notice.

Now, when Apple started selling TV shows–which is probably the breakthrough event that prompted these new movie sales–they did it as well as they could. Yes, the TV shows are of not-so-good quality; yes, they lack the special features on DVDs; yes, taken together, they cost more than DVDs do. But we’re talking TV shows, which will not be released on DVD for another year. And while the cumulative price for a season of TV shows from Apple will cost more than the whole season on DVD, the per-episode price is a manageable chunk, something many people are willing to spend. And they can watch on their iPod or their computer. Not as good a deal as the music, but at least a deal which is tolerable to many (not to me, but to many). So it works, and that’s the bottom line.

But this new movie paradigm simply sucks. If they sell any movies, it’ll be a novelty thing and won’t last. Not unless they change it. First off, get rid of the stupid restrictions on the OS, browser, and media player. Have it be a regular AVI file, or even better, a DVD-format file set (with a VIDEO_TS folder) as an option, so people can save to a DVD. But wait, the studios protest, that means people can buy it from us and then put it on the Internet! So what? It’s already on the Internet, you idiots! You’ve got to enable the paying customer, not cut them off at the knees for no good reason! The thing is, like with the iTMS customers (who could easily download the same songs for free, but instead choose to buy them!), you’ve got to offer at least the same or better than what pirates offer, and for a reasonable price.

Okay, maybe the studios can’t give a good price because they would alienate the DVD retailers, their current cash cow. But if you’re going to charge more and give less, at least get rid of the playing and copying restrictions, because they do nothing to protect, and everything to inconvenience.

(Yes, I know–Apple’s iTMS restricts the song files to the iTunes media player and iPod digital devices. I agree, it’s a restriction that sucks. But at least it’s being done for a logical reason–Apple wants you to buy their goods. Not a reason that helps you, but at least it’s a reason that makes sense. It’d be great if Apple allowed the songs to be played on any media player and on any digital device. But–and this is what it comes down to–they don’t, and yet they make the business model work, and most people are happy with it.)

My guess is that after this abortive attempt at selling downloadable movies flops, they’re going to try to tone things down bit by bit until they make a safe (they imagine), soft landing where they sell enough to make money and keep their little restrictions. But Steve Jobs may take advantage, and after the initial attempt fails, Apple will start selling movies–likely beginning with Disney titles–in a smarter way. After which it will be a question of whether the other studios will see the light and sign on, or stubbornly try their own greedy formula. We’ll have to wait an see.

A lot of podcasts out there are pretty good. Interesting about some TV shows (like Battlestar Galactica) using podcasts to do audio commentary, just like on a DVD–you record the show, then play back the podcast as the episode airs with the TV’s sound off, and you’ve got your very own instant DVD-style commentary. Cool.

Another thing you can find sometimes are radio shows, for free. Air America did that abortively (though a few shows are put on late), but some shows are podcast up to date, and even commercial-free. One that I enjoy listening to is the Penn Jillette radio show, broadcast (or narrowcast) every weekday from Las Vegas. The show is just talk, and it’s not necessarily right or left wing. He gets political sometimes, but a lot more talks about the magic and juggling business, about his beliefs (he’s an ardent atheist), or just about stuff that comes up in the news or via some other source, and riffs on it with his co-host Michael Goudeau. The show takes calls, or emails to PennRadio@gmail.com.

So if you’re looking for a simple, one-hour talk show (43 minutes in the commercial free version) with some go-to-hell (if it were to exist) attitude, give it a try.

There’s a joke I came up with years ago: you can’t park illegally in Japan because all the illegal spaces are taken.

Parking in Japan is a nightmare, which is why I’m glad I don’t drive a car. Traffic jams and narrow streets are bad enough, but what do you do when you get there? Pay a lot of money to park in a parking lot somewhere, is the usual answer (paid parking starts at $2-3 per hour). But parking is not always available–legal parking, anyway. So you always see cars parked illegally. I always go down a boulevard in Japan, a two-lane street that serves as a major thoroughfare for western Tokyo. All too often cars and trucks park in the left-hand lane, blocking it. Forget double-parking; it’s hard to imagine a place in Japan where that would not completely block all traffic.

Every year, 1.6 million traffic tickets are handed out. And that’s already giving people a fighting chance–parking police (identifiable by their tiny police cars) mark tires with chalk, and then come back later (takes me back to the days when I worked in Palo Alto–the trick was to roll your car just enough in its space so the chalk marks went under the tires and disappeared). That gives people who’ve parked illegally a chance to get out before the ticket comes. Not a problem if you just need to park for ten or fifteen minutes–which is what the takkyubin (parcel delivery) trucks do all the time.

Parking at home can be a chore as well. I have heard that before you can even buy a car, you have to show that you’ve secured a parking place where you live. The parking lot outside my building has a dual-level lift system, where you park your car on a platform, which then rises so another car can park underneath. Vertical parking garages are not all that uncommon.

The problem is, there’s no solution to the problem short of radically reducing the number of cars in Japan. It would be impossible to eke out any more space for parking. So Japan’s new solution (tip of the hat to Cosmic Buddha) for alleviating illegal parking is not really a solution, but rather a compounding of the problem.

Here’s the plan: starting in June, the Japanese police will hand over parking violation policing to private-sector companies. These companies will not chalk your vehicle, but instead will ticket you as soon as they see the violation. They take a digital photo of your vehicle, slap a sticker on it to inform you that you’ve been had, and notify the police, who bill you.

I see several problems with this. First, deliveries have to be made, and it appears that no exceptions will be made. There are a ton of shops in Japan that have no parking lots or driveways; to get their goods delivered, trucks will have to park far from the shops. Takkyubin companies will get into big trouble, as they rarely will have spot to park; they may have to increase their staff to include both drivers and delivery people, else make other arrangements that might cost more and muck things up.

Second, the problem is not that people have legal places to park but decide not to; the problem is that all too often, as my oft-told joke suggests, there is simply no place to legally park. Ergo this “solution” will solve nothing–it will simply increase the number of tickets issued. Can you say “government revenue enhancement”?

But worst is the specter of commercial ticketing, where for-profit corporations are paid a bonus for every ticket they issue. It will no longer be a meter maid who gets paid x yen per hour no matter how many tickets are issued. It will be a company that will have a vested interest in ticketing people as much as humanly possible. Japanese police say they expect parking tickets to double–I say that’s a grossly conservative estimate. Unless there are specific stipulations limiting the number of tickets that can be handed out, there will be nothing stopping these companies from trying to maximize profits by issuing tickets galore–which in Tokyo and other big cities in Japan, will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Add to this the fact that in Japan, parking violations are expensive ($100 to $150), and take two points from your license–15 points, or 8 parking tickets, and your license gets suspended.

Expect a lot of angry drivers later this year, and probably more than a few altercations between motorists and ticket issuers.

A story on Anderson Cooper today (repeated from last November) about the evils of polygamy. A woman who was trapped in a polygamous marriage, practically a prisoner in her own home. She was forced in to marriage by her parents, who belonged to the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, a radical breakoff sect of Mormonism. Her husband told her that a if she refused to have children with him as often as he dictated, it was a sin unto death to refuse him. She had eight children by him in 15 years. She was trapped and imprisoned because the four other wives and many of the total 54 children in the family were conditioned to report anything suspicious happening to the husband/father, making it feel like a police state. The children were moved into a private sect school and the “books were burned,” though it’s not made completely clear what that means. The woman eventually made a dramatic escape.

Now, the interesting thing is that the original story back in November focused on the correct issue, which was the fanaticism and wrongdoing within the religious cult. But the story run today, with a different intro, screen banner, and follow-up interview, focused on polygamy as being the evil. Polygamy was mentioned several times as the root cause of the problem, identified as the culprit, in a sense. And that’s quite an interesting shift in the editorial slant on the story. Polygamy has been more in the news recently, mostly due to the new HBO series, Big Love; there seem to be many people who, in reaction, feel the need to vilify polygamy.

Now, if this ‘news’ show decided to examine polygamy’s ups and downs, that would be one thing. But to take a story about a radical religious cult and to shift the blame for its practices on polygamy? That’s kind of like taking the Jonestown massacre that killed 913 people in Guayana in 1978 and blaming it on the Kool-Aid company, or taking the David Koresh cult story and blaming it on farm houses.

What I’d like to see–but probably won’t–is an actual, objective look at polygamy, both in historical and international perspectives, both the good and the bad. But most importantly, the good and the bad of polygamy, not the idiosyncrasies of the people or cults that practice it.

Man, things just take so long! We had to wait one whole day after Apple released Boot Camp’s free dual-boot system before they finally came out with a virtualization solution that runs both operating systems side-by-side! Why does it take them forever to get these things out?

A company called Parallels is actually offering a beta version of this software for free–so if you have an Intel Mac and a copy of any version of Windows, MS-DOS, Linux, OS/2, or whatever, then get to their site, download the beta, and run multiple simultaneous OS’s now–so they tell us.

One can only presume that they released this now because of Apple’s move–they want people to go to their solution before they get too comfortable with Boot Camp.

According to the site, the software is easy to install, provides near-native performance, and can take full advantage of dual-core chips. No news yet on whether it provides full hardware support, or has any problems with video or audio drivers. Already some people are reporting that they’ve downloaded and installed it, and have gotten very fast performance with it (follow that link to see a flash movie showing XP on a Mac using Parallels); given that the news is just a few hours old as of this writing, it will naturally take a bit more time before full reports can come in. I myself am wondering if you can do full-screen switches, whether the Mac’s zoom feature will work in Windows mode (the Windows zoom sucks), and whether it will survive resolution switches reasonably well.

Nevertheless, this is pretty damn neat stuff, and may get me to start looking at buying an iMac sooner than I thought….

Happy 30th Anniversary, Apple. Just weeks after hackers came up with a way to dual-boot Windows XP on an Intel Mac, Apple seems to be figuring that people might as well be doing it right. Previously mum on any work to make Macs run Windows in any way, Apple has spilled the beans and is now making available a utility called “Boot Camp,” an app that takes you through the steps necessary to install XP. It requires you to have a “bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2” in addition to a blank CD, the latest version of OS X, 10GB of hard disk space–and of course, an Intel Mac.

The software then takes you step by step through the procedure, holding your hand as you burn a customized install disk and then use it to put XP on your new Mac. This differs from the hackers’ setup in a few significant ways: first, it does the hand-holding part, which the hackers hadn’t gotten to yet (they’re probably now throwing up their hands at the weeks of work they put into it and wasted now), making it easy enough for anyone to do the dual-boot setup. I’m no hacker, but I’m a pretty high-level novice, and I’d have had difficulty going through the process. The second difference is that this software is more advanced, with drivers to allow Windows to use Mac hardware (e.g., the different keyboard) effectively.

Boot Camp is still a beta, and is not supported by Apple–you’ll get no phone help if something goes wrong. The instalklation will require the hard drive to be wiped. It doesn’t work perfectly yet, but it appears to be the best deal in town. The software is officially supposed to be part of the next big OS release, Leopard (10.5), due out late this year; presumably it’ll have all the bugs worked out by then.

Like the hackers’ dual-boot solution, Boot Camp does not allow for both operating systems to work at the same time. You have to shut down one OS before you can boot up the other. You can choose to boot XP or OS X by holding down the option (alt) key at startup. Rumors have it that “virtualization software” will also be finalized with Leopard that will allow for Windows to be used simultaneously with OS X, but that is not yet official; in the meantime, a third-party company has announced its own version of virtualization software, and Microsoft is known to be working on Virtual PC for Intel Macs to achieve the same ends.

This is seen as big news for Apple, whose stock rose 6% on the announcement. Analysts are calling this a watershed, saying Apple could explode its market share. I don’t know if Apple will allow official resellers to sell Macs with this option and Windows XP pre-installed, but I’ll bet that if it’s possible, someone will start doing it soon. Many will want to get a Windows Mac for the style, but others will for the performance–the new Intel Macs are reported to be very fast Windows machines.

Then there’s the argument over whether this will kill the Mac, kill Windows, or bring the two into some kind of equilibrium. Some say that software makers will see no reason to port to the Mac OS, making it irrelevant; others say that Windows users will start using OS X and ditch Microsoft as soon as they see how much cooler and easier to use OS X is. Probably the truth will be somewhere in the middle. Even if Apple gets torpedoed as a software company, it will probably succeed as a hardware company. But it’s difficult to imagine the Mac OS really dying off.

For now, it’s simply an exciting change. As for my preferences, the package is not quite there yet–it’ll be there when virtualization comes of age and I can run both operating systems side by side. I don’t want to have to shut down the OS in order to start up a different program–that’s so 1980’s. I remember when you had to do that when there was no hard disk, and each program came on a floppy with the Mac OS on it, or later when SCSI required you to shut down and restart every time you wanted to swap a cable out.

No, I’ll probably wait until next December, when Leopard (to be previewed in August) comes out and the first revision of the iMac is released. By January of next year, I may well have a 20″ iMac sitting on my desk to replace the aging Celeron that sits there today.

Next step: convince my school to buy Macs and not Dells the next time a new purchase is justified. Ah, the day when Macs rule the world is coming nigh! Bwa hahahahahaaa!

MoveOn.org is putting out a new spring offensive of ads, gearing up for the November midterm elections. Their new lineup focuses on what appears to me to be an effective thrust: that Republican politicians have been caught red-handed in inappropriate behavior. The ad series (viewable here)accuses four Republican House members (Chocola, R-IN; Drake, R-VA; Johnson, R-CT; and Pryce, R-OH) of taking contributions from Big Energy lobbyists and then voting against the interests of the American people in favor of energy giants. On the MoveOn.org site, each commercial is backed up by citations of contributions received and specific votes on energy bills by the four House members. The commercials then associate the four Republicans with Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, and Jack Abramoff as other Republicans “caught red-handed.”

The four ads are without question negative attack ads. But there are no rules against that, and the ads are clearly backed up by evidence. They are, in effect, perfectly justifiable political ads. The associations with DeLay, Cheney, and Abramoff are somewhat indirect, but entirely valid so far as a party association is claimed.

However, two NBC affiliates, one in Ohio and another in Connecticut–where two of the four Republicans are based–are refusing to run the ads. The stations are not yet responding except to say that they consulted with lawyers and they consider themselves responsible for the content of ads presented by “third parties,” suggesting that they feel the content of the ads is not accurate. MoveOn responded by claiming that the same stations ran Swift Boat attack ads in 2004 without comment on their deceptiveness, that the implication that the MoveOn ads were inaccurate are unsupported and incorrect, and pointed out that the two affiliates are owned by G.E., a Republican-leaning corporate giant.

While I can’t confirm that these stations ran Swift Boat ads, it seems likely, considering the national saturation of the ads. I certainly do not recall hearing of any station refusing to run Swift Boat ads, though there were attempts to block ads for Fahrenheit 9/11, and two radio stations refused to run Media Matters ads criticizing Rush Limbaugh; attempts were also made to block all MoveOn.org ads in 2004, though the effort failed.

The new MoveOn ads are being accepted by 33 other TV stations in the four markets, but that is simply an indication that they are following fairness standards; a refusal to run completely legal and well-sourced opinion ads is just as clearly a sign that the two stations in question are executing political bias inconsistent with fairness standards.

While there are often attempts to block left-leaning ads as exemplified above, when was the last time any you ever heard of media outlets even trying to block right-leaning ads, especially when the facts involved were not in question?

I’ve posted on this a lot because there’s a lot of evidence, visible almost every day, that a conservative bias permeates the media. Fox, of course, is always biased, and strongly so, but then CNN is all too often guilty (examples here, here, here, and here), as well as other outlets (examples here, here, here, and here).

The fact of the matter is, claims of liberal media bias have never been substantiated. They are based upon a single study claiming that 60% of reporters are, in their personal lives, left-leaning. No evidence whatsoever has shown that any personal bias has seeped into the stories these reporters cover. That’s it. That’s the entire factual basis of the claim that there is a “liberal media.” Dan Rather is held up as some sort of liberal icon because of the National Guard story, without mention that Rather was an ardent cheerleader for Bush in the Iraq War and himself admitted that he did not question Bush as much as he felt would have been appropriate. Without mention that Rather also ran with stories about Clinton pushed by Republicans. Or that most other reporters would have run with the Guard story as well–that the sensationalism of such a story was the draw, not the political leanings of it.

The fact also exists that while 60% of reporters may lean left, reporters do not decide the pieces they run with or the overall tone of their stories–this is decided by editors and publishers. And editors and publishers are, by a two-thirds majority, right-leaning. I explore that issue in this post from 2003, and point out that a vast majority of television and radio pundits, who are outspokenly biased, are not just conservative, but strongly so. This study shows that Republican guests are favored on political talk shows. And here I discuss the reasons for claiming that there is a liberal bias in the media even though the bias is clearly conservative. In short, claiming that the media leans left will make outwardly conservative bias appear mainstream.

There’s not even any question on the matter. Claims of liberal bias are absurd and unsupported. Evidence of conservative bias are everywhere to be found. Now, am I biased? Hell, yes. But I am backing up what I say with evidence. So is MoveOn.org, with the citations backing up their ads. Bias can make you say unfair things, but if you have evidence that you are right, then bias means nothing. Right is right.

I make no claims that this is the best site of its kind, but it’s the one I tend to use. Version Tracker, as its name implies, tracks versions of just about any software that gets released in downloadable form. I tend to check the “freeware” page regularly though I give the other pages a look now and then. It’s great for keeping informed on new versions of software you use, and for learning about new software you never heard of before.

But when you’re looking for a specific piece of software to take on a specific task, the search feature helps a great deal. Sometimes you might need to translate an audio or video file from one format to another, or you might want to see what free email or FTP clients might be available. You can search by category (games, graphics, utilities, word processing) or by type (freeware, shareware, commercial). The site lists software for Mac (OS9 or OSX separately), Windows, or Palm Pilot. With a free account subscription, you can get top downloads and editor’s picks. Unfortunately, the most detailed searches, such as searching the most popular downloads within a specific category–are limited to a paid membership. Ah well–they gotta pay the bills somehow.

I used to use CNet’s download.com and shareware.com, but they became far too difficult to use when CNet tried to jazz up the sites’ appearance and thus made it far harder to navigate and find useful info. I also hate the whole “Free to Try” categorization–it’s called a “demo,” you nitwits. They don’t allow you to view software by license the way you probably want to, making it a chore to wade through the stuff you won’t use. Version Tracker’s interface is much more economical, allowing you to quickly browse through large numbers of titles to get to the stuff you want, with better-defined categorization. Much more preferable.

Some good free Mac stuff: TinkerTool, a system utility that allows you to change some neat preferences on your Mac which are usually inaccessible (there’s also OnyX); HandBrake, an app that allows you to rip DVDs, putting your DVD videos on your hard drive at adjustable sizes; VLC Media Player, which plays just about any video file, and makes your computer into a region-free DVD player; Skype, the only Internet voice chat program my dad and I could get to work well; Audacity, a free audio editing app; and Gimp, a poor man’s Photoshop, an X11 app and not the easiest to use, but for a free program, it’s pretty amazing.

For the past several years, there has been an especially fervent strain of protest from the American Christian community, with the rather outlandish claim that Christians are being persecuted and warred upon. Utterly untrue, of course–at least 80% of the country is Christian, Christian symbols and terminology have been seeping into the government for a long time, and the country currently is run by a party which is overwhelmingly Christian-friendly.

The pinnacle of this paranoid delusion rose to absurd heights in a congregation held last weekend titled “War on Christians and the Values Voters of 2006.” At the event, Christians went on a breast-beating rampage, claiming they were under attack from all quarters, including liberals, Hollywood, the Internet, scientists, the court system, and even the Republican Party. Let me tell you, if you’re a Christian and you believe that the Republican Party has declared “war” on you, then I’m sorry–even the most paranoid schizophrenic sufferer would edge away from you like you were giving off dangerous levels of bozo rays.

The “embattled” Christians at the congress maintained that “neo-pagans” and secularists expressed “Christophobia,” in effect “an irrational fear of anything Christ-based,” asserting that there was “a war on America, a war on God and a war on all believers.”

As I have written before, this severely warped sense of persecution can be attributed to two chief causes. First, it may be a political strategy–paint yourself as oppressed, and people will give you more of what you want. Or second, it could be an earnest though completely wrong belief, stemming from the presumption that Christianity naturally deserves to be dominant instead of equal to other belief systems, and therefore any expression of equality of belief among Americans would be interpreted as an “attack” on Christians.

Now, you might say that these are the loony fringe–after all, they did ask Tom DeLay to speak. But if they are a fringe, they are a successfully vocal one; you have heard their point of view far more often than you hear the other side. They get tons of sympathetic or at least respectful media coverage, and they make up the Republican base and as such receive far more attention and action in today’s government than is proportional to their actual constituency.

But the chief irony is not just that Christians think they are being persecuted when they’re not. What’s ironic is the fact that they are the ones doing the persecuting, and all too often, atheists and agnostics are the ones who are suffering. Think about it: could an atheist ever be elected President of the United States? Hell, no. In fact, it is an unspoken prerequisite that if you want to be president, you not only have to be a Christian, but a fairly mainstream one at that–Mormons need not apply, not in this day and age at least. Even if you are religious but don’t attend church, that’s still a big strike against you.

I think it would be pretty fair to say that it would be extremely difficult to claim that atheists are persecuting Christians in this society, and not the other way around. But it goes much deeper than that.

A recent study by the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology took a survey of 2000 American households and found that atheists were the most feared and distrusted. Almost half said that atheists are the least likely to “agree with your vision of American society.” Only 54% agreed that atheists shared their vision, as opposed to Muslims, who scored 64%, Recent immigrants and homosexuals scoring in the 70s, and whites and blacks scoring highest, in the 90s. (PDF file.) The study reported that atheists were considered (PDF) “most dangerous or threatening.”

This rather strong discriminatory bias permeates society, besides just the presidency. It is commonly reported that the Boy Scouts exclude gays, but less reported is that atheists are also banned from the group. If a widely popular social organization started excluding Catholics or Methodists, there’d be holy hell to pay; but apparently, excluding atheists is just fine.

Even more disturbing is a common trend, reported on by Andrew Sullivan among others, that child custody cases are being decided on the basis of the beliefs of the parents. Christian parents are being awarded custody over their atheist spouses, and atheists can even denied some visitation rights because of their beliefs.

The source of this information is a law article (PDF) written by Eugene Volokh, a Law professor at UCLA. Volokh reports on a large number of cases where a parent was denied custody–even in favor of the child’s grandparents–because the parent was not sufficiently religious for the judge’s tastes. Volokh also points out that half of Americans distrust atheists, but further notes that “half the public thinks that it’s necessary ‘to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values.'” [Emphasis Volokh’s.] If you don’t believe that, check out what this guy wrote. Apparently, a lot of people believe this, whether they’ll admit it to you directly or not.

Ironically, it could be atheists who are in fact more moral: a recent survey asked about two thousand Americans if they believed that torture was an acceptable practice. 26% of Catholics said it was never acceptable, 31% of White Evangelicals said the same–but 41% of secular respondents said they would never approve of torture. Similarly, twice as many Catholics than Secularists approved of torture being used “often”–21% of Catholics as opposed to 10% of Secularists. While some religious people, as cited above, clearly believe religion brings greater morality, religious morality is perhaps more easily corrupted, as one can choose to believe that God wants you to do something that would normally be immoral, in His name. Since many religious people believe that whatever God approves of is not immoral, they can rationalize the “morality” of a clearly immoral act. Secularists, on the other hand, cannot make God give them a ethical rain check, as they themselves assume responsibility for their morality; they cannot pass the buck to God and claim piety. While I cannot prove that Secularists are more moral, I think I can safely exclude that religious people are intrinsically more moral.

What is most alarming in Volokh’s writing is that atheism is held at the same level of respect as racism–a chilling and overt sign that atheism is either held in utter contempt, or is completely misunderstood, or both.

Even President Bush Sr. spoke in this fashion, reportedly saying in 1987, “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.” Now, imagine if Bush were an atheist who had said that blacks or Mormons, let alone mainstream Christians, not be regarded as U.S. citizens because of those attributes. A political firestorm like none other would have erupted; he would have been branded a racist or religious bigot, and millions would be screaming for his immediate resignation. But instead, Bush said this about atheists–no one took serious notice, and Bush was elected president the following year. Still think that it’s the Christians, and not the atheists, who are persecuted in America?

Still, one point needs to be addressed: What is an atheist? What is an agnostic? Different people have different definitions, and there are a large number of varieties, just as there are a wide variety of religions. That topic coming soon.

Finally we hear directly from Jill Carroll, when she is not being coerced:

During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.

Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Alan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Alan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends–and all those around the world, who have prayed so fervently for my release–through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this.

I also gave a TV interview to the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after my release. The party had promised me the interview would never be aired on television, and broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear I said I wasn’t threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times.

As you recall, she had been held hostage for nearly three months. When she was released, they did not simply let her go anywhere–she was sent to a Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party offices, where she made a videotaped interview. In the interview, she said she had been treated well, and generally said positive things about her captors.

Now, just about every single report I saw at the time recognized the fact that the interview was done at a location where Carroll could not feel entirely safe, and mentioned the need to wait and see what she said when she was entirely free of coercion. However, some on the far right felt so threatened by any possible news report that did not support their own views that they savagely attacked her as a liberal patsy; Jonah Goldberg was the most noted of these:

But Jill Carroll is increasingly starting to bug me. The details are still murky and it’s hard to appreciate what she’s been through. And maybe JPod’s right about Stockholm syndrome. And maybe the media’s selectively choosing what to show of her statements. But it would be nice to hear her say something remotely critical of her captors, particularly about the fact that they murdered her translator in cold blood. I’m very glad she’s alive, but I’m getting a very bad vibe. More, no doubt, to come.

How generous of him. The woman is still in the hands of people she might believe can take her hostage again, still in fear for her life, and Goldberg thinks it would be “nice” to hear her criticize the people holding her captive. He wasn’t the only one to jump the gun (“let’s not encourage a lot of warm feelings toward the murderous thugs who kidnapped Carroll, shot her translator, and may well have received a ransom to let her go”), and conservative commenters went even further:

She’s probably coming home with a suitcase full of cash (her kickback) and a dose of the clap. …

I’ve been watching this traitor bitch fawn all over her captors this morning. “Nice furniture, safe, nice clothes, they NEVER threatened me”. I’m very glad you were so comforatble while working to undermine our efforts in Iraq. Now, wipe that muslim DNA from your face and confess to pre-planning this?

Goldberg now tries to defend himself by selectively quoting himself, leaving out comments like “Jill Carroll is increasingly starting to bug me,” and “I’m getting a very bad vibe.” The fact is, the general tone and many of the specific statements that came from the far right are disturbing. Here you have a woman who has just been through a horrific ordeal, not yet entirely freed and probably still under coercion, and instead of simply withholding judgment until the facts are in, conservatives start expressing annoyance and even hatred toward her–and most certainly insensitivity. Their views were heavily laden with political judgment when it was clear that there was nothing solid to go on.

I remember a similar reaction two years ago in Japan, when three Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq. The three were doing humanitarian work in Iraq, nothing selfish, nothing harmful or even critical of Japanese policy in Iraq. Yet when they were captured and then released, there was a wave of hatred that surged from the Japanese right wing, even from politicians themselves. Instead of being happy for the release of their compatriots, right-wingers in Japan smeared them; one politician said, “If they really hate to return to Japan, I want them to defect to Iraq. Since we’ve paid so much from the state coffers, I feel they should compensate us for it.” News pundits started printing smear pieces on the hostages’ pasts, and when they arrived at the airport in Japan after being released, they were greeted by nationalists spewing hatred at them.

The interesting point about this story is that the hateful reaction had no basis in reason; had these three been kidnaped in, say, the Sudan, the reaction would have been wholly different. No mention of cost would have been made, no harsh attacks from the right. In fact, the three probably would have been hailed as heroes–Japanese abroad trying to do well, who became victims to nasty foreigners. That kind of story usually plays very well in Japan. No, the difference here was that this all happened in Iraq–where the Japanese government has sent troops into a combat zone for the first time since WWII, in violation of Article 9 the Japanese Constitution. The negative reaction was due to the fact that any Japanese being harmed in Iraq would shed negative light on this sensitive mission to change Japan’s military status in the world. In other words, it was politics alone that fueled the response.

And that’s what we’re seeing with right-wing reactions to Jill Carroll’s release. Had she been released from captivity in, say, the Sudan, the reaction from the right would have been very different. But because there is a political element to Iraq, because right-wingers want to hear nothing but their point of view reflected in the news coming from Iraq and are primed to savagely attack anything that smacks of what they believe is the liberal point of view–well, Carroll simply stumbled into the conservative line of fire, manned by trigger-happy wingnuts who can’t seem to hold their wads for more than ten seconds.

Now that she has released her current statement, the same conservatives are now satisfied and acting like they said nothing inappropriate. But their initial reactions betrayed a knee-jerk bias regarding anything to do with Iraq; a bias which should be factored into one’s consideration of the right-wing rhetoric concerning the war, from the denial of civil war to the claims that the media is twisting the news from Iraq to make it seem bad.

You knew it was inevitable. OK, so it’ll be like a TV episode, but maybe four times longer. Nevertheless, it’s a fun idea, albeit more than a year away. This report, from MSNBC, of the teaser trailer that is being shown at the start of Ice Age 2:

The animated 25-second clip opens on a giant superhero S. “Leaping his way onto the silver screen,” intones a narrator, “the greatest hero in American history!” Cut to Homer Simpson sitting on his couch in his tighty whities. “I forgot what I was supposed to say,” he says. The narrator continues, “ ’The Simpsons Movie,’ coming to the screen, July 27, 2007.” “Uh, uh,” says Homer, “we better get started.”

By the way, no foolin’–this does not seem to be an April Fool’s Day gag, as far as I can tell. Unlike Google’s new product.

This story from Kevin Drum made me realize something I hadn’t noted before. He reports on the fact that coupon use in the U.S. fell by 33% over the past five years, so that “only” 3 billion coupons were used last year. That reminds me of how the Sunday paper would have an entire “section” for coupons only, and brought back to mind getting stuck behind someone at the checkout stand who had a wad of coupons, a fate worse than an old lady spilling change on the counter and slowly counting it, or even worse, having to write out a check (without without having filled out all the automatic stuff like the recipient, date and signature while they were waiting in line).

And then I realized what I hadn’t thought of before: they don’t use coupons at supermarkets in Japan. Some fast-food chains use them, but I have yet to see one materialize at the checkout stand in a supermarket.

Huh.

Air America Radio opened for business exactly two years ago with no more than six stations. Conservatives seemed to take unusual joy in predicting its demise. Here are a few of the comments I got to posts about AAR in the first year and two months on the air:

“As of July 16, 2004, the Arbitron shows that AA’s ratings are in the toilet where they belong. No doubt soon they will be silenced by commercial force majeure.” –July 17, 2004

“So much for the whiney liberal network.” –January 12, 2005

“RIP Air America.” –April 22, 2005

“AAR only has 52 stations.” –April 29, 2005

“AIR AMERICA RATINGS ARE SINKING.” –May 21, 2005

I love that second to last one, considering that AAR started with 6 stations, and a year later, had “only” 52. Today, AAR has 85 stations nationwide and can be heard on XM Satellite Radio as well. Not bad after two years’ work for a network that started from scratch and had lots of initial financial troubles–and far from the ratings failure that conservatives tried to paint.

The usual false argument from the wingnuts relies on flat ratings published by Arbitron–total viewers as opposed to demographics. Demographics are what really determine success. When Star Trek first came out, NBC tried to kill it repeatedly because its overall ratings were a flop. Demographics were still new then, and the network learned too late that among target audiences, Trek was a big hit. The same mistake was aired repeatedly by conservatives trying to wish AAR out of existence–they would point to overall ratings, and only occasionally refer to demographics when they found an isolated tidbit somewhere that fit their argument.

Unfortunately, the demographic rundowns are for paying subscribers only, and are complex at that, so I can’t reel them off for you. Nevertheless, AAR’s success is self-evident; you don’t go from 6 to 85 stations in just two years if your ratings are truly in the toilet. More proof can also be found in the average ages of the audiences. Franken’s audience is 45 years old on average, whereas Rush Limbaugh’s is 67–far outside the “golden” demographic that advertisers cherish most.

So, after two years, Air America is still going strong. Happy Birthday.

Turns out I was right. Google Page Creator, as I predicted, generates spam to your GMail account. Not intentionally on the part of Google, of course. But when you get a Google Page Creator account, it is based on your GMail account, and so the address of your GPC web site mirrors your GMail address. My prediction was that spammers would easily be able to spambot the googlepages.com domain and harvest the GMail addresses of all the members.

And so it has come to pass. My original GMail account has been active for 1 year and 9 months, and I get very little spam–two or three every week get through to my spam folder, and it took more than a year before those started showing up. The junk GMail address I created for the GPC account, on the other hand, has been active only a week, and yet already 15 spam emails have penetrated Google’s spam filters to show up in the account–and a few even got into my InBox, though most stayed in the spam folder.

No need to inform Google–there are already discussion topics about it and people have complained, so Google knows already. They simply haven’t fixed it yet. In the meantime, I am quite glad that I caught that before publishing under my original account, and used the junk account instead.

This is what the Democratic Party has to do. House Democrats joined together on a common theme and started pounding on the Republicans, hitting their major weaknesses and using a biting and recognizable motif–in this case, “The Republican Rubber-Stamp Congress,” something that has been around for a month or more but has not been getting too much attention until late. In a series of one-minute speaking allotments, different Representatives banged home on topics like prescription drugs, college aid, energy policy, hurricane Katrina, massive overspending and the deficits, the Iraq War, and Homeland Security. They pointed out that the Republicans in Congress have simply gone along with everything the Bush administration has asked for, and that has led to today’s sorry state of affairs.

I think they’ve got a winner with this one. “The Republican Rubber-Stamp Congress” is a catchy, memorable phrase, it succinctly sums up the problem, it allows for demonstration of what Democrats have been trying to do right but were overruled by Republicans, can carry a message of what Democrats would do if they gained control again, it binds the Republicans in the Senate and House with a highly unpopular president, and it is an omnibus vehicle, allowing for any and all issues to be discussed and associated with it. It will also send Republicans running from the president, and hopefully into fractured disarray.

If Democrats across the country can simply have the wisdom to pound home on this them, use it again and again until election day, I believe they will have a unified campaign slogan even more effective than the ’94 Republicans’ “Contract with America.” If the election were held today, Democrats would likely take over the House and come within a few seats of taking the Senate, despite strong non-census gerrymandering by Republicans. Even Newt Gingrich could suggest a slogan to defeat the Republicans: “Had Enough?” Although I do like the new catch phrase “Dangerously Incompetent,” I think that “Rubber Stamp Republicans” is much, much better.

Already someone has put together a campaign to have people chip in and buy a $6.50 rubber stamp saying “Rubber Stamp Republican Congress,” so that a multitude of them can be delivered to yet-unnamed congressional Republicans on the day that Feingold’s censure of Bush is discussed in committee.

Let’s hope the Democrats have it together enough to keep this slogan going, and to present a unified face to the public.

As the last installment of my past month of birdwatching, this one catches up to today. First I went to the hilly park around the corner from my apartment building, hoping to see the Red-Flanked Bluetails I spotted a year ago. No luck on that, though I did catch some Japanese White-eyes attracted to the blossoming trees…

…and some Oriental Greenfinches.

I also saw some Tree Sparrows, White Wagtails, crows, a variety of ducks, some Egrets (Little, Great, and Grey), some ubiquitous White-cheeked Starlings and a Thrush–I’m pretty sure it was a Dusky, but a construction traffic guard, apparently bored and wanting something to do, flushed off the bird when he came up to me to tell me to be careful of trucks passing by (which there were none, and not as if I wouldn’t have noticed them coming).

But I did see get one other bird that I’ll have to have checked out by people who know more than I do. The bird first appeared above me, chattering away, almost hovering–it didn’t fly off in any direction, but just tread the air, slowly drifting up and up in what appeared to be a courting display of some sort. After maybe five minutes, it dived down and landed on the river bed nearby. I saw it land, but its coloring was so perfect a camouflage, it immediately became invisible to the eye. But since I knew where it landed, I zoomed in and snapped several shots blindly, and got these pictures:

Now, I think that’s a Eurasian Skylark… but I’m going to have to have that checked. It’s missing the usual crest, but otherwise it seems to be spot on. But this is a tricky one to identify.

According to Snopes.com, this image is being circulated as a a photo of “sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point.”

A little thought, using facts that pretty much everyone should know, should quickly provide you with two reasons why this photo could not possibly be real. The idea here is how uncritically we tend to accept information, without comparing the information we receive against what we know to be true. Because we don’t filter new information against known facts, we tend to accept rather obvious untruths as real.

See the two points that immediately came to me below the fold…
Read more…

Last week, I finally got around to going to the Oi Park. As usual, few shorebirds were there–seems to be the norm for my visits. I’m told that April will see more birds there–but then, my first visit was April 15 last year, and there were few birds there–a swallow and a plover, aside from the ever-obligatory cormorants. Hopefully, I’ll be luckier this year. But not so far. Still, the lack of water birds didn’t mean there was nothing there. I did actually get a new life bird:

That is a Daurian Redstart. A female alone, unfortunately–the males are much more colorful, with a full red breast, black back and face and a white cap. What marks this bird as a Daurian is the white patch on the wing. This bird is related to one of my first finds a bit more than a year ago, the Red-flanked Bluetail. Both birds are about the same size and shape.

Actually, there was one other life bird, though I’d seen it before. I simply had not been able to identify it with certainty. It’s the Buff-bellied Pipit (also called the Water Pipit):

Also at the park, but not pictured here because I so recently showed them elsewhere, were Tufted and Spot-billed Ducks, Pochards, Mallards, and Northern Pintails, as well as Coots and Moorhens, Cormorants, Bulbuls, and Wagtails. There was also a Kingfisher, an Oriental Greenfinch, and a Grey Heron, not shown here because I couldn’t get decent shots.

There was one bird that I couldn’t get a good shot of because it was maybe half a kilometer away, across the park. I did manage to shoot an image through an available spotting scope to get enough of a shot of this Northern Goshawk:

There was also a Herring Gull, though this one was on a rock in the Tama River, I spotted on the way in:

Near the gull was a wagtail, this one the less common Japanese Wagtail, with the black head and white brow:

On my way out of the park, I saw a few Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers in the trees:

And almost as if to console me for not seeing so many nice birds, a big flock of Azure-winged Magpies escorted me out of the park, flying and perching right above me for the last hundred meters and more to the exit.

One other note: there are cats in the park, which when you think about it, is kind of natural. But this one cat was super-friendly. It walked straight up to me and demanded to be petted. After giving it a good neck-scratch and petting, I got back to the birdwatching. And the cat not only followed, it jumped up onto any available surface near my hands and started going back and forth. When I walked away, it chased after me, walking between my legs. Probably the friendliest cat I’ve ever met in Japan–or perhaps the most attention-starved. I practically had to run off to leave it behind.

Recently I reported that Japan was going to outlaw sales of secondhand electronics starting April 1st. Due to a great deal of protest, the government has stepped back from the ban, in that they introduced a gaping loophole for shops to drive through. They will allow “rentals” of the goods instead of sales. Presumably, a ¥1000 sale item will instead be rented, with a non-refundable deposit of ¥1000, followed by monthly rental payments of ¥10 or something like that, with the proviso that if one fails to pay the rental fee, the deposit is forfeit and you keep the product. I presume.