David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a very amusing series on The Rise (and hopeful Fall) of Dubbia the Incoherent, entitled “Empire Rising.” It’s pretty funny, and well worth looking at.

You can see the series on the Seattle P-I web site: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV… so far.

Thanks to my dad for pointing this one out!

And while you’re at it, go and look at Jib Jab’s funny and bipartisan flash animation featuring Bush and Kerry singing an altered version of “This Land is Your Land.” Look for the hilarious Howard Dean bit–but the whole thing is hilarious.

Can’t say what it is yet–though if you have been monitoring Democrats Abroad Japan’s web site, you’ll know–but tomorrow evening should be quite an interesting time for yours truly, along with about a hundred other people associated with DAJ.

Will have full details tomorrow night.

It’s a sad note that Americans need to be told this. Fewer than a quarter of eligible American voters “elected” Bush 43* into office (the asterisk indicates that if all eligible voters who tried to vote had been allowed to, or had their votes counted, then it would be Gore 43).

This time, we’d like to see more people vote, in hope of the votes being truly counted this time and not altered electronically or blocked by similar illegalities, or at the very least so that continued voter fraud by Republicans can be offset by enough legitimate votes against Bush.

Additionally, as pointed out by Mark at VuDeja, many voters may not be aware that they are in swing states; Mark tells of a voter he encountered from Wisconsin who thought that their vote may not matter much, when actually it will be of great importance.

And so Mark suggest that everyone visit Tell an American to Vote–which I enthusiastically second. TaAtV is a web site that makes it easier for Americans to get voting materials, and lets anyone inform Americans of everything they need to make sure they are registered and able to vote this November.

So vote, and get every American you know to vote. Every vote will be crucial.

The Air America Radio ratings are very strong, especially for a startup network with more than its share of birthing pains. The Franken show was not quite as strong as was hoped for, but it held its own, and the Majority Report dominated its time slot for talk radio.

According to Daily Kos, The Majority Report with Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder won the #1 Talk Show slot in the ratings–beating out WABC’s 2.7 with a 2.9 rating–in the key 25-54 demographic in New York City. Garofalo and Seder edged out Laura Ingraham on WABC, and absolutely smashed Michael Savage on WOR, which only got a 1.2 rating.

Al Franken’s ratings were not quite as good as that, but they were still competitive. According to Hoffmania, in the 25-54 demographic, Franken scored a 2.2 versus a 2.7 by Limbaugh–not the trouncing we expected and hoped for, but still highly respectable considering that AAR began at pretty much zero. Considering that it took Limbaugh five years to reach even close to his present ratings levels, the fact that WLIB has gone from dead last to competitive in just three months is saying quite a bit.

Not that the conservatives will pay any attention to this; they’ll point to the overall ratings, which include the above-55 numbers (weak for advertising) where WABC dominates. But where the ratings count, WLIB is holding its own against WABC. And as AAR continues to add stations–likely more and more, now that the first quarter’s ratings are out and showing strong advertising prowess–the next year or so will tell whether AAR will survive, and perhaps become the leader in talk radio.

Yesterday, as one of my school’s yearly events, all students who wanted to went to a bayfront park on the newly-built Daiba island for a barbecue. Could have used some actual barbecue sauce and maybe some ribs, but otherwise it was a perfect event. A bit hot–in the low 90’s–but that just made the water fun more appealing.

Too high a flame!

Getting ready some sprouts, sausages, yakisoba, steak and salad…

Ruth getting splashed after ambushing some students

Cheezu!

And one more, this a landscape from the park. Remember those matte painting shots from Star Trek episodes? This skyline really brought that to mind, looked as much like an artist’s rendering as it did like real buildings… and there are some more exotic buildings over on that island, let me tell you. Like an architect’s playground.

By the way, a thumbnail page with 64 photos from the event is available here.

They always hold a fireworks show over the racing track in Fuchu (visible only after going behind the hills in back of my building), and every year I forget to find out when it is, and I miss it. I only find out about it when I hear booming sounds from inside my apartment, and then I go out–and, like tonight, after 10 minutes of walking to get within view, the show ended less than a minute later. Yargh.

At least I was able to get a few shots off from the ending spurt–and now I’m reminded again to look up the local shows. In the U.S., all fireworks are on the same day, July 4, so you can only see the one. In Japan, there are shows all summer long. One of them is visible right out my dining room window; a nice show. This year, it’s scheduled for July 25th–August 11 if the weather turns bad. Good thing I heard this other show, I might have missed the big one!

…Or at least a long one. An earthquake just hit, lasting at least a minute, and it was pretty strong. Will update when I know more.

I felt it while laying down in bed for a rest (before going out on a Costco run), and it felt stronger than most I recall. I went out to the kitchen, where I have a hanging lamp that I use as a primitive earthquake meter, and it was going pretty strong–and then noticed that an open door was swinging a bit as well, and the building was creaking.

Update (3:19pm): Okay, reports are coming in that it was a 5.2 off the coast of Chiba (image from HiNet. Apparently, it was felt strongest in Yokohama (from reports on NHK so far).

Update (3:30pm): Tenki.jp is now reporting that the quake was 5.5 on the Richter scale. NHK shows that Chiba and south Kanagawa felt it strongest (using the Japanese quake strength scale), and that there is no expectation of tidal waves.

Update (7/18): HiNet has reclassified the quake as being 5.8 on the Richter scale; other reports hold it at 5.5.

There is a report out of Baghdad that Dr. Iyad Allawi, Bush’s hand-picked puppet prime minister in Iraq, personally shot as many as six suspected insurgents without trial or review. The new Iraqi government is denying the story, broken by the Australian Sydney Morning Herald.

According to the report:

One of the witnesses claimed that before killing the prisoners Dr Allawi had told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.

“The prisoners were against the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot. Allawi said that they deserved worse than death – but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them.”

Re-enacting the killings, one witness stood three to four metres in front of a wall and swung his outstretched arm in an even arc, left to right, jerking his wrist to mimic the recoil as each bullet was fired. Then he raised a hand to his brow, saying: “He was very close. Each was shot in the head.”

Witnesses said that this happened before the “handover” of power, and that there were several Americans in civilian clothes present at the time of the shootings.

“Young male prisoners were filmed being sodomised by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the journalist who first revealed the abuses there. … [Journalist Seymour Hersh] said: ‘The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking.’”

—The Independent, July 16, 2004

“I found a moment without meetings and sat at my computer and began: ‘Who did this? Why do they hate us? How will we respond?’”

–George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

The GOP has long held that it is the party that best handles the economy, and many American still believe that. It is, of course, completely false. The fact is, Democrats have a far better record.

The Clinton boom was longer and more prosperous than the Reagan boom, but try getting a Republican to admit that. And Clinton erased the deficit during his boom, while Reagan outrageously inflated the deficit during his–but again, don’t try to convince a Republican. A Republican will tell you that the Reagan deficit was the fault of Democrats in Congress, no matter how much you try to point out that 7 of Reagan’s 8 budgets asked for more money than the Democratic Congress finally voted into effect. A Republican will tell you that the elimination of the deficit under Clinton was really the work of the Republican Congress, despite the fact that the budget bill that got the deficit work done was passed without a single Republican vote.

Never mind that the GOP is wrong on all kinds of reasonable progressive issues, like minimum wage; every time the Democrats try to raise that rate to anywhere near a reasonable level, Republicans wail about how it will put small businesses out of business–and it never does. Minimum wage hikes are followed by a good economy as often as they are by a bad one, and usually are followed by a net increase in jobs.

Democrats believe in the same brand of economics that Henry Ford did when he decided to pay his workers well enough so that they could afford to buy his cars. Pay the people good, decent wages and they’ll buy things, thus generating a good economy. Republicans believe in the elitist trickle-down theory, which essentially says that if you give enough money to people who are already rich, enough is bound to trickle down to poor people, like scraps falling from an overloaded table, who will then use those scraps to buy more goods. Republicans see investments by wealthy people as strong for our economy, despite the fact that these wealthy people see more profit in investing that money overseas, paying people there a fraction of what Americans need to get by. It may be good for businesses, but that brand of business is bad for Americans.

And Democrats are good for jobs, too. Just refer to the chart at right (from American Assembler) which shows the net job increases of all presidents for the past 80 years, since Coolidge. What a surprise that job increases have always been better under Democrats and worse under Republicans–that the worst performance by a Democrat is better than the best performance by a Republican.

You want a better job, better pay, better benefits and a sound economy overall?

Vote Democrat.

Republicans today are railing for the Democrats to release a video of Whoopi Goldberg using foul language to express her feelings about President Bush.

Democrats are, and have been for some time, railing for the Republicans to release the documentation of Cheney’s Energy Task Force, in which oil and energy industry executives set the nation’s policies on energy, most likely to their profit and to the detriment of the people of the country. They also want the release of records concerning the Medicare bill (about which Bush lied to Congress and the people), the Plame affair (in which a senior Bush official violated federal law and uncovered a CIA agent), and Halliburton (concerning massive fraud and apparent involvement of Cheney in getting the contract for his former firm)–issues which directly affect the American people and the quality of governance.

Not hard to see which party has the more reasonable priorities. The Democrats are more in line with what the country needs, are more focused on getting the people the quality government they deserve. The GOP, as usual, is trying to steer away from real issues to instead create mock issues which distract the public and serve no one.

Nicole Rank, a worker for FEMA, and her husband Jeff, attended a “presidential appearance” at the West Virginia capitol building. The appearance by Bush–not billed as a campaign rally–was on public property and was paid for using public funds–not paid for by the Bush campaign, but by the citizens of the state and the country.

The pair were wearing jackets when they entered, and during the rally took off the jackets to reveal T-shirts that had the name “BUSH” with a red line crossed through it on the front, and on the back, the words “Love America, Hate Bush” written on them.

According to the two page document given to attendees, T-shirts with messages were not prohibited. Many others at the rally had pro-Bush T-shirts, as well as buttons, pins, and signs.

But the Ranks were immediately told to remove themselves from the public event, and instructed to move to a “designated protest area,” which was likely well-removed from the area (but not specified in any article I found).

When the couple refused, quite rightly and legally asserting their freedom of expression, they were promptly handcuffed and arrested for trespassing. On public property. During a public event, paid for with taxpayer dollars. Simply for wearing T-shirts critical of the president.

This is not the first time this has happened, stories like this are appearing everywhere you look. Frank Van Den Bosch was arrested for holding up an “FUGW” sign as the Bush motorcade passed by (by that time, he had reworded the sign to read “Free Us, GW”). Bill Neel was arrested for showing Bush a sign saying, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” Three demonstrators, two of them grandmothers, were arrested in St. Petersburg, Florida, for holding up handwritten signs critical of the president during a public rally. The third protester, a 62-year old man, held a sign saying, “War is good business; Invest your sons.” Brett Bursey of South Carolina was arrested for holding up a sign reading “No War for Oil.” And the list goes on and on.

Bizarre excuses are given for the arrests. One secret service agent said on a radio show that “These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or nonsupport that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured.” The only other possible reason for the Secret Service to be engaged in this is for security reasons, preventing assassinations–but that would also be ludicrous, as the last thing a potential assassin would carry would be a protest sign.

Most of these people are told that they must take their contrarian views to designated “free speech zones.” I first heard of “free speech zones” on college campuses, used as a way to remove protesters from in front of the student union building, and restrict them to out-of-the-way locations on campus where they would not be heard by anyone. But now, it seems, they are designated at every single event the president attends and every public route he travels. And such zones are enforced just under Bush, by the way–Clinton was never “protected” in this way (although prior Republican presidents have also been known to arrest protesters on various grounds).

“Free Speech Zones” are both an oxymoron and an obscenity. The zones are an oxymoron because free speech is, by definition, universal, so it cannot be restricted to a specified area. If speech is allowed only in restricted areas, then it is not free. Just a few moments of consideration will reveal to any honest thinker that if there is a free speech zone, then by definition, there is no free speech outside of that zone. In theory, according to the constitution, the entire country is supposed to be a “free speech zone.”

These zones are an obscenity because they violate the ideals of freedom and equality that are central to the very concept of America, and make a cruel joke of the “freedom” that Bush himself so vehemently contends that he protects. So far as I know, this matter has not made its way to the Supreme Court, and one can only imagine that when it does, the “free speech zone” will be obliterated–unless Bush is elected in 2004 and gets to stack the court with 2 or 3 justices to finish the job that his father started.

Reporting from a free speech zone outside the United States… good morning.

Update: The charges against the couple have been dismissed, as these kinds of charges often are. But the fact is that the couple were removed from the event, accomplishing the task of quashing their expression at the time. And if the same couple ever do the same thing at another Bush appearance, they would simply be removed again on the same charges, which again would be dismissed, but not after again quashing their free speech–with no penalty to those who abuse their authority to arrest people.

Additionally, Nicole Rank has been dismissed from her government job at FEMA because of the arrest. So, again, “Mission Accomplished” for the Bush administration. Criticize Bush, get falsely arrested, pay a lot of legal fees, and lose your job.

Usually, when you get blog comment spam, the link given in the spam leads directly to the spammer’s advertising web site. That’s often the way you can identify blog comment spam. If the comment’s link goes to another blog, you tend to think it’s OK. But today I got spammed in a new way: the comment’s link leads to a blogspot blog–but when you go to that blog, it’s a false front, a blog filled with obscenities and links to the actual spam site. Fortunately, the comment in my site was easily identifiable as spam, from the email address given and the short, generic and unrelated content of the comment itself. Still, an interesting wrinkle.

I also just realized that I never gave a completely clear definition of “blog comment spam,” and such a definition may be hard to find. So here it is:

Many blogs allow visitors to leave comments. When leaving the comment, one may (or may be required to) leave one’s name, email address, and web site. When the comment is automatically posted on the blog, the web site given in the comment automatically becomes a link to that site. This is intended to allow people to see where the poster was coming from, or which site they want you to look at. Additionally, some blogs allow HTML coding in the comment, so that further links can be created within the comment text. This is usually allowed so that visitors can point to interesting new web sites.

Spammers take advantage of these allowances. Spammers want their own web sites to be widely advertised, but more importantly, they want their sites to show up as close as possible to the top of search engine listings. For example, if you go to a search engine and look for “real estate,” you will likely look only at the first several listings that pop up. So the spammers want to be at the top of that list.

But how do they do that? One answer is to get linked to. Google and other search engines keep track of how many other people’s web sites make links to your web site. After all, making a link to a web site usually involves a conscious decision and some effort on the part of that person; therefore, the more links there are to a web site, the higher chances are that this web site is a really good one, and the search engines bump up the site’s ranking. So the spammers know that if a zillion sites make links to theirs, they’ll be in spammer heaven.

And one way to get that done is blog comment spam. The spammer finds your blog. The spammer leaves a comment. The spammer leaves their web site address, which is automatically made into a link to their site. Presto! They get an ad posted on your blog and a link to their site which increases their ranking, hosted by you–and they didn’t even have to ask you!

Of course, writing real comments to thousands of blogs can be time-consuming and expensive. The first spams I got were hand-made, but the spammers soon tired of that. So they turned to automated scripts. Instead of having any one person sit down, search for blogs, and enter comments, they created software which would automatically scour the web for blogs, or more specifically for the parts of the blogs which create comments. These programs can find thousands of blogs quickly and efficiently. Once they find a blog, they leave an automated comment. Again, presto! Now within a day or two, you have thousands of links pointing back to you, and you are the Spammer King!

Of course, most bloggers despise such spam. They usually delete it on sight. And since automated programs usually cannot read a blog entry and reply intelligently like a human being, the comments they leave behind must be either (a) carefully generic, or (b) obviously spam. Some spammers are obvious, but most want to disguise themselves as real people so they won’t get deleted. They use a few tactics for this.

One tactic is to be complimentary and short. “Great blog! I really enjoy this one, and will be coming back to read it often!” Flattery will get you everywhere, right? Sometimes, it’s just “Great blog!” and that’s it. However, these comments can be easily caught. Most blogs will send all comments to the owner in the form of email, so they can be screened. Any blog comment which is not specific in answering the blog posting is suspect, and all one has to do is look at the link–and if the link is to “pornpornporn.com” or the like, then zap! Dead spam. So spammers disguise their links, too; they will leave an innocuous-sounding link, like “fuzzykittens.com” or something, but when you go to the given site, it immediately redirects you to a godawful porn site.

Bloggers fight back, using a variety of tactics; a popular one for those who use the “Movable Type” weblog software is called “MT Blacklist,” which automatically scans blog comments for offending or spamlike text or web site addresses. This software has blocked a couple thousand spam at least from entering my own site, and catches about 95% of what comes in. But as you can see from the top of this post, spammers are constantly finding ways around these defenses. And as much as we diligent bloggers are erasing the comments as soon as they appear, a large number of lazy or clueless bloggers do nothing, and so the spammers win–and are encouraged to redouble their efforts.

So if you run a blog, fight back.

Members of Democrats Abroad Japan, please visit the mailing list. You’ll find a very special announcement there, and you’ll want to make your reservations….

Saw it on the Daily Show Global Edition on CNN, it’s priceless. Samantha Bee takes a look at Michael Wilson, the right-wing rip-off Moore-basher who’s making the film “Michael Moore Hates America.”

The video, titled “I Dislike Mike,” is available along with lots of other video pieces (Real Player required) on the Daily Show site.

Wilson comes across looking like a complete doofus (which is probably not too far off the mark), and Moore makes a few really funny cameos with Bee.

You really have to see this, and it’d probably be a lot of fun to look around the site (especially for those of you based here in Japan, who don’t get to see the show except for the boiled-down weekly edition).

The date has been decided!

I just got off the phone with Gaga Humax, the information is not even up on their web site yet–but they have decided on an opening date for Fahrenheit 9/11 in Japan.

It will open exclusively at the Ebisu Garden Cinema in Tokyo on August 14th, and then open to a nationwide release in more than 140 theaters on August 21.

You heard it here first!

Update: And by the way, F-9/11 just broke the $80 million mark at the box office in the U.S.!

Another Update: Here is a partial list, in Japanese, of theaters nationwide which will carry the film. The list is not complete, and will be updated over time.

That headline almost seems like it was written for a sensationalist rag, but that’s the story coming from the Washington Post. It seems that Tom DeLay, then the House Majority Whip, asked Enron to contribute $100,000 to:

…come from “a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron’s executives,” with the understanding that it would be partly spent on “the redistricting effort in Texas,” said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.

The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts.

Yikes.

A GOP leader asked Enron to supply funds to allow them to take over the Texas legislature for the express purpose of redistricting the state in a non-census year for partisan political purposes.

Man, I hope the media doesn’t gloss over this one like they have so often before. This is a substantial pile of stinking muck that badly needs to be raked.

Yes, it is well-known that he is a liberal, and yes, he will speak about stem-cell research, and will not be nominating Kerry for the presidency.

Still, it is quite a substantial coup for the Democrats. The GOP will dare not try to besmirch Reagan, and yet the Democrats will in a very real way become the bearers of the Reagan family legacy, if not the Reagan political legacy. And that will be worth quite a bit, I think. Perhaps even extra TV coverage of the convention, and broader recognition of the true values of the liberal side.

At least according to NHK, the government (and therefore LDP-controlled) news station.

Party (Japanese Name)	Prior Seats	New Seats
Democratic Party (Minshuto)	38	50
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)	51	49
Clean Governance Party (Komeito)	10	11
Independent / Other	5	5
Communist Party (Kyosanto)	15	4
Social Democratic Party (Shakai Minshuto)	2	2

As you can see, the big winners are the Democrats, but they took most of their wins from other opposition parties, primarily the Communists. The LDP lost two seats, but the Komeito won one extra, and so their coalition only lost one seat; quite discouraging. This probably means that the assault on Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution will continue.

The LDP and Komeito are well beyond winning a majority, and the LDP seems to be catching up–unfortunately…

Party (Japanese Name)	Prior Seats	New Seats
Democratic Party (Minshuto)	38	46
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)	51	45
Clean Governance Party (Komeito)	10	9
Independent / Other	9	5
Communist Party (Kyosanto)	15	2
Social Democratic Party (Shakai Minshuto)	2	1

13 seats left. I am forced to agree with the sentiment that this will probably not generate any real changes, though this does still send a bit of a message. What is interesting to note is the huge loss by the Communists–most of the Minshuto’s gains have come from them, it seems. Though one has to wonder how the Communists have managed to stick around this long….