I found out about the link to this site from Tim at ChariOtaku in Kurashiki (who got it from S.N.A.C.K.F.I.G.H.T.):

The Cyborg Name Generator

And so here is mine, for BlogD:

B.L.O.G.D.: Biomechanical Lifeform Optimized for Galactic Destruction

The site allows you to download and use the graphic generated by your request, as pictured at right. I love fun stuff like this on the web. Reminds me of the one I posted on about 9 months ago, the Dialectizer. Here’s my blog in Jive, if you’re interested.

Anyone have their own favorite fun site?

In a discussion group I frequent, someone posted on a recent Bush campaign commercial that claimed Kerry was weak on National Security. In the ad, they mentioned terrorism as a major threat, and above the terrorist label, showed a picture of an obviously Arab-American male, looking back somewhat insidiously. At least one major Arab-American group is protesting this representation, and is demanding the ad be changed or pulled. Now, usually I would be posting about how it seems that Bush can’t create an ad without offending a great many people in some way or another, or how stupid and fake the ad is for saying that Kerry wants to weaken the fight against terrorism, but this time I’m focusing on the appropriateness of the image. The poster on the forum I mentioned usually provides a liberal view, but this time saw nothing wrong with the image. Just after 9/11, in one of Bush’s rare good deeds, he urged the country not to take out their anger at the terrorist attack on Muslims or Arabs; now two years and a half later, I think it is important for us to remember what Bush said then, as he so clearly has forgotten it himself. It is, in my opinion, not OK to use generic racial images like that one in the ad. You may not feel that is the case, but you may also be white. Let me explain.

This is where having personal experience with racial discrimination is necessary to understand the objections. You may think you can understand how people think and feel because of discrimination, you may even know people who have experienced it and think you understand because of that. But as someone who has been in both places, I can tell you that you have to be the recipient before you can really understand it well–and I believe I don’t even have the whole understanding of racism in America because racism in Japan is less serious, though more open.

In the 1980’s, Japan and America suffered a great deal of animosity due to adverse trade relations. On top of that, Japan was feeling its oats as a country, feeling on top of the world, and nationalism was enjoying a resurgence. As an American living in Japan at that time, I felt the repercussions of negativity against non-Japanese, and Americans specifically. Americans were all too often portrayed as violent, criminal, and diseased (AIDS-carrying). I got pulled over on my bicycle by police for ‘biking while white,’ accused every time of stealing it (even when well-groomed and dressed in a business suit, coming back from work). I was told to leave restaurants, denied membership in stores like video rental shops, and in the countryside I was stared at, pointed at and sometimes ridiculed. 95%+ of apartment landlords refused to let me even see an apartment because “gaijin wa dame” (“foreigners are no good”), and some even posted ads reading “no pets, prostitutes or foreigners allowed.” On TV, Americans were often portrayed as gun-loving, violent criminals or AIDS carriers; in baseball, American players were intentionally beaned far more often than usual, then labeled as violent when they rushed the mound. The word for “foreigner” in Japanese was even played upon to change the meaning to “harmful person.”

And when the cops pulled me over on my bike for the Nth time, surrounded me, checked my bike’s serial number and called it in while demanding my ID and grilling me on the street–I would see Japanese people passing by, carefully looking without looking, and I knew that at least some were thinking, “so it’s true!”

So if, on TV, someone showed a photo of someone who looked like me and labeled it “Criminal,” then hell yes, I would be offended. Worse, if I saw that in a political ad, I would be offended and not just a little scared. Because the ad would (a) play on people’s fears, and increase those fears they felt when they saw me on the street, and (b) if the politician won (and fear sells well), there would be yet another person in power who saw political gain in making me out to be a threat to the country.

Now, today, things are different and much better in Japan in these respects. The trade war pretty much forgotten about, the animosities not so prevalent. It’s a different story now. Foreigners are not so often pulled over and accused, apartments are easier to find—I haven’t been at the receiving end of any discrimination I can discern for many years now. But I can still remember, and I can still recognize the same elements of that harmful discrimination back home. Remember, Bush was supposed to be the one who didn’t do this kind of thing; that he approves of that ad, to me, shows that (a) he has changed his beliefs on the issue, (b) he never believed it and told Americans what he did after 9/11 for some other reason, (c) he still believes but is willing to betray those beliefs to get elected, or (d) his understanding of the issue is so weak that he simply can’t see the difference. Any way you look at it, it’s not pretty. As James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute said, “This is the very thing that the president warned against after 9-11. He was so wise to tell the country not to fall prey to the negative stereotypes that exploit fear. Now the president seems to be doing what he warned against.”

I have seen the ad, and I do understand how Zogby feels. So because of that, and not just a generic liberal principle, I agree with him wholeheartedly. The ad should be pulled, and Bush should not do that kind of thing again.

You may have heard the stories already about what happened in Madrid. This story held significance for me not just because it is a terrible terrorist attack, but because of my family in Spain–an aunt, uncle and cousins live in the part of Madrid where the attacks took place. Not long ago I had a conference call between my father in San Francisco and my aunt in the eastern section of central Madrid. She was terribly upset over the attacks, pointing out that the trains bombed were mostly used by working people in the communities hit. Her son, my cousin, used to take that exact train line to get to work, but not recently, and everyone in the family is all right. There are shades of the Tokyo gas attacks here, not a little because my brother and his wife narrowly missed that attack themselves.

Latest reports put the death toll at 186, with more than 1,000 injured. Stories are coming out of the gruesome nature of the blast scenes, stories of survivors, reminiscent of 9/11 in some ways. (I understand that this is perhaps the worst terrorist attack in Western Europe for some time.) My aunt was particularly touched by the story of an infant, with no parents to be seen, who was found near one of the trains. The child was brought to a hospital, and it turned out that its mother was there, a survivor, and they were reunited.

The government and the people seem pretty certain this was ETA, although some have mentioned the name al Qaeda. My aunt is not buying that, however, and blames the ETA for trying to blame someone other than themselves for their own attack. She says that news reports cite analyses of the explosives used in the attack and show that they are the ETA’s materials. The ETA are Marxist Basque separatists, an extreme terrorist faction. The Basques, repressed by Franco during his regime, are similar to Quebecers in that they are independent and would like a free state (Basques claim an area mostly in northern Spain, but that extends into France); Basque regions now have relative autonomy, and like many regions of Spain, their own distinct language dialect.

As for why ETA would commit this repugnant attack, when it seems like it would only hurt their cause, there is speculation that they are trying to influence the elections Sunday; that such an attack would favor the conservatives, the conservatives would be tougher on the Basques, and that would push the Basque people more toward the direction that the ETA wants to go.

Time will tell more about the story; like all breaking news, there are bound to be many missing and erroneous details.

Got hit by another quake, this one as I was winding up a class. The quake measured 5.2 (some reports say 5.4) on the Richter scale, but was centered off the coast, so it wasn’t huge in town–it never got to the we’d-better-leave-the-room scale or anything. But the class did shake and rattle some. At that point in time, a student was giving her PowerPoint presentation, and as the students in the class reacted to the quake nervously, this one student just kept going right through her presentation without so much as blinking.

Turned out, afterwards, we found out she was the only one in the class that didn’t even notice the quake! She was so focused on what she was doing–and was pretty surprised to hear that it was the room that was shaking.

I know exactly how she felt.

Last weekend, Sako and I met to discuss the goings-on at The Expat, and sat down to eat at an Italian place near Hashimoto Station. As we were being seated, I asked if there was a no-smoking section. Sorry, the waiter told us. Not here. Afterwards, we went for a drink at Starbucks, the ubiquitous U.S. coffee and snack lounge–one of the few places in Japan that is non-smoking. That contrast might show the divide between past and present in Japan, but the country is still pretty firmly on the smoking side of things.

Historically, Japan has been a smoker’s paradise. Whatever concessions that were made for non-smokers was superficial, at best, and many times they still are. For example, not long ago I stopped at a McDonald’s for a quick lunch. I was told that in the seating area, there was a non-smoking section–but before I even got there, I knew what I would find. And sure enough, the “no smoking” section was three small tables at the back end of the room (almost always opposite from the windows), and not more than five feet from several other tables filled with smokers, with no air currents favoring the no-smoking area. When I left a half hour later, my clothes and hair smelled like an ashtray.

That’s what has been called the “Menagerie Lion,” a famous child’s mispronunciation of “Imaginary Line,” a standard smoking issue in Japan. Separate areas for smoking and non-smoking are found only when they are naturally formed, like restaurants with tables on two different floors. Sometimes the floor area is great enough to allow for some actual semblance of separation. But usually, you can expect no real protection from the smoke, and precious few eating establishments have entirely no-smoking policies.

Some areas have improved, however; trains and train stations are an excellent example. Local trains are now of course no-smoking, but many trains with seat reservations (like the Narita Express) have smoking cars. That would not be so bad, but the non-smoking cars allow smoking in the areas at the ends of cars near the doors. There is a door closing that area off, but it is motion-activated, and since the smoker almost always sets it off every minute or so, the smoke rushes in–which is less of an issue anyway as the air conditioning is recycled and shared through the areas, meaning that it’s pretty much a smoking car anyway.

Train platforms are mostly non-smoking; the Keio Line recently banned smoking altogether on them. Other lines have a few smoking areas along the platform, and despite the outdoor ventilation one generally has to stand a fair distance away from them (or upwind if there’s a breeze) to stay in fresh air–not that smokers will always honor the no-smoking signs.

Things are improving, but at a snail’s pace. I do remember back in the mid-80’s having to get up from my seat at the movie theater every other time I saw a film to tell some guy five rows in front to stop smoking (it’s not just the smell, it gets in the way of the picture), and that never happens to me any more. I see fewer people taking ashtrays from smoking areas into the non-smoking areas for a few puffs. And the yakitori place I’ve been a regular at for 15 years, despite being a smoking joint, watches out for me–the guys behind the counter, knowing my preferences, kindly try to arrange seating for me so as to keep me segregated enough to make a big difference.

But it should be noted that Japan’s tobacco industry is still coddled by the government, which is still a major stockholder in Japan Tobacco, the third biggest cigarette company in the world. Warning labels, last time I checked, were still very mild (along the lines of saying, “Try not to smoke too much”). Campaign girls can still be seen handing out free sample packs on the streets near major stations. And cigarette butts decomposing on the sidewalk and streets are still more ubiquitous than cell phones. So it’ll be a while yet. But things are getting better.

The Daily Yomiuri, for all its faults, has a nice event every year with its cartoon contest. Tied for third place was this cartoon, which prompted me to laugh out loud–but I caution you that you have to be a bit familiar with things Japanese to understand it.

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The Japanese government moves closer and closer to amending its American-imposed peacetime constitution so as to curtail or repeal the no-war stipulation. But it also realizes that Japan is going to need more soldiers when that happens. Not to worry; the Japanese government is on the job. What’s the strategy?

Dancing sailors.

Really. The commercial features seven men dressed as sailors, prancing about the deck of a warship, singing, “Nippon Seaman Ship, Seaman Ship, For Love…For Peace.” Really. I kid you not. I mean, they might have taken the “Navy of One” route. Or perhaps, “Sea All You Can See.” But it looks like they opted for, “The Few. The Proud. The Dancing Navy.”

You gotta take a look–the Japanese Navy, called the Japan Marine Self Defense Forces, has put the commercial up on their web site (Flash plugin required), complete with high kicks and gyrating hips. It’s quite a thing.

Update: Here’s the video via YouTube:

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The end of an era: Beef in a Bowl. Gyuudon, as it’s called, has long been a favorite dish for diners seeking fast food in Japan, at places like the now-famous Yoshinoya. But that is beginning to end now, after a single cow in the United States tested positive for Mad Cow Disease. The gyuudon restaurants are taking beef off the menu, as U.S. beef is banned and Aussie beef doesn’t sit as well with the customers. So beef is out, and many gyuudon lovers will have to find cheap culinary satisfaction some other way.

Of course, one has to wonder, why U.S. beef is banned. The single cow that tested positive came from Canada, and the U.S. has found no other cases in three months. You could say that they are being careful, but if that is so, then why is Japanese beef still on the market? Japan just uncovered yet another case of Japanese BSE, the eleventh so far since the first was discovered on September 10th, 2001. And all of those cows were born and raised in Japan.

Seems to me U.S. beef is safer.

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You might enjoy this man-on-the-street bit from Japan Today. The question: What kind of attitude toward Japan or Japanese by foreigners don’t you like? Some pretty interesting answers there, and some discussion by mostly non-Japanese people afterwards.

Poor Mr. Aso.

As you may recall, Republican staffers were caught stealing Democrats’ files off the Senate server. A lot of this has been murky, as we have only had secondhand reports of what was going on, many of them coming from partisan sources. However, I just found a copy of the Pickle report, and here are some quotes that might help clear a few things up:

The clerk [Jason Lundell] first became aware that he could access the files of Democratic staff some time in October or November of 2001. He made this discovery after watching the Committee’s Systems Administrator perform some work on his computer. An admittedly curious person, the clerk attempted to duplicate what the System Administrator had done.

Now, that is kind of what we’ve heard so far–but it lacks in detail as to how it happened. From later in the report:

The forensic analysis indicated that a majority of the files and folders on the server were accessible to all users on the network. Any user on the network could read, create, modify, or delete any of the files or folders within these folders. The investigation revealed that users whose network profiles were established prior to August 2001- when a new System Administrator was hired by the Committee – were generally established correctly and had strict permissions; those established after the date were “open.” The investigators do not believe that the Committee’s System Administrator acted maliciously, or that he himself inappropriately accessed any user’s files. Rather, this significant security vulnerability appears to have been caused by the System Administrator’s inexperience, and a lack of training and oversight. This System Administrator left the Committee in July 2003, but permissions remained “open.”

And then we get to the details no one to my knowledge has reported here before:

According to Mr. Lundell, he accessed “My Network Places/Entire Network/Judak.” In so doing, he was able to observe all of the users’ home directories. He then clicked on different folders to see which ones he could access; he was able to access some folders, but not others. The folders that he could access, he stated, belonged to both Republican and Democratic staff.

Okay, at this point it seems pretty clear what had happened. The system admin, hired in 2001 right after he graduated from college, was reportedly “inexperienced” and “sloppy” in how he managed permissions. I work with a Windows NT 4.0 server at my school, the same system these files were on, and I have also worked with permissions (we don’t want students accessing teachers’ files). Each user has an account which is accessed by entering a user name and password. When you share a folder, you have the option of allowing whatever users you wish to access that folder. You can specify specific users, or classes/groups of users, or just “everyone.”

It is apparent that this green sysadmin somehow or other set most of the folders on the server to be shared by “everyone.” Pickle does not assume he was “malicious,” but frankly, I find it astounding that any sysadmin with even two day’s experience, working for the Senate, for crying out loud, would somehow “accidentally” allow all private folders to have “everyone” access. This guy should never again be allowed to manage a system–whether he intentionally set the permissions like that or not.

According to Mr. Lundell, all he saw was the sysadmin go to “My Network Places” and go to “Entire Network” at which point he could access the “Judak” server and see all the user account folders. At this point, it would not be evident that there was a security breach, because each and any of those folders could be protected and could refuse to open with the correct account login. One would actually have to attempt to get into the folders to know that security was not in place. So Lundell then went to work rifling through the Democrats’ files.

A few comments about this:

First, it does away with the claims by conservatives that the Democrats were at fault for the security breach or intentionally left files open for anyone to see. To their knowledge, each and every user folder was safeguarded so that only they and the admins could see the folders; they had every reason to believe that security was in place and their files were secure. A Republican legal counsel claims that a Republican tech, by his “firmest recollection,” says he “left a message” with his Democratic counterpart (conveniently unproveable, undocumented, and reeking of an after-the-fact attempt to avoid party culpability). This has been claimed by some to be proof of official notification to the Democrats, thus sloughing off the blame to them. However, if you read the report, the claim did not even state that the Democrats had been informed of the problem, but only that “What I can remember is leaving him a message to call me about a concern and he didn’t return my call.” In other words, he did not leave a message saying, “your files are wide open,” but just that he “had a concern,” and that when his counterpart did not call him back, he did not ever again attempt to notify him. Hardly exculpatory for the whole situation.

Second, what Lundell did was knowingly wrong. Despite his discovery of an easy access to private files, he was fully aware of the fact that these files were private and that he was not supposed to be accessing them. An honest person would have immediately contacted the sysadmin and informed him/her of the security flaw, so the admin could reset the permissions correctly. Lundell not only did not do this, he continued to access private files, and shared them with others.

The story continues:

Lundell tried to use his newfound access to the files to curry favor with a supervisor (he found documents pertaining to the Pickering appointment in late 2001), but when he showed her what he’d gotten, she admonished him and told him not to do that anymore and had the printouts shredded. It is not stated if said supervisor knew how the security was breached or if she directed Lundell to inform the sysadmin. But then:

In December of 2001 Mr. Miranda joined the Judiciary Committee as a counsel for the Nominations Unit. Mr. Lundell stated that a short time after Mr. Miranda was hired, he showed Mr. Miranda how to access Democratic staff files and explained that Mr._____ and Ms. ______ had instructed him not to use Democratic materials. Mr. Miranda’s response, according to Mr. Lundell, was that everyone knew about the open access and that he did not have to follow the directions given by Mr. _____ and Ms. _____. Furthermore, Mr. Lundell recalled that Mr. Miranda told him that Senator Hatch wanted the staff to use any means necessary to support President Bush’s nominees.

As a side note, the original file I have found has all names redacted, but I have filled in the obvious ones. I am 99% certain that the unfilled “Mr.” and “Ms.” are Alexander Dahl and Rena Comisac, higher-level Hatch staffers.

In any case, Lundell appears to be painting Miranda as the real black hat, as being the one who directed the continued access of the files over a period of 18 months, despite the fact that obvious ethics and the higher-level staffer’s admonishment clearly indicated that they were engaged in unethical and possibly illegal behavior. There are also emails recovered that proved that Republicans staffers knew this was all illegitimate; here are their email excerpts:

Can I ask you to undertake a discreet mission. Mr. _____ should get a complete relpcate [sic]of the Ame Ex binder. He needs to get up to speed with outr [sic] best info as he build [sic] relationships with the press.

Let me know how soon…assuming you accept, Mr.Phelps.

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Of course I would be happy to assist in this covert action. The question is: exactly how much should I provide? You know, we have loads on [sic] information.

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As is the usual practice, please don’t let anyone here know that I know all this.

The quotes also demostrate that they were making sure that their own files were not accessible to others, as they pilfered the files of the Democrats.

Mr. Miranda’s statement that “everybody” knew about the open files was either a fabrication, or referred only to the GOP staffers gossiping about it (though in the investigation, some GOP staffers claimed to be unaware of the fact). Had the Democrats known, it is obvious that they would not have left their files open like that. But if the statement were true to the extent of all the Republican staffers knowing about it, that would also open up questions about who else may have been accessing files.

The final analysis is that Republican staffers knowingly accessed Democrat’s files; they knew this was unethical, and took effort to conceal what they were doing and cover it up. In short, they stole private notes and used them politically. That violated several laws, and a criminal investigation is forthcoming. The report, under the section “Referral for Sanctions,” outlines what laws may have been violated; this is probably the section that spurred even Republican Orrin Hatch to indicate that a criminal investigation is likely.

Watch out, the professional dirty-tricks teams are beginning to show their colors.

Kerry has already withstood three dirty-tricks attacks, all of those coming from Matt Drudge. The first was the Botox scam, where Drudge chose two groups of photos–one where Kerry had his eyebrows raised and was lit from above, accentuating his forehead wrinkles, and another group where Kerry had his eyebrows lowered, had a relaxed expression, and was photographed with straight-on flash lighting, thus de-accentuating the wrinkles. Drudge then called these evidence that Kerry had Botox treatments. The charges were ridiculously false, of course.

Drudge’s second attempt was to try to frame Kerry as being diabolically in league with “Hanoi Jane” Fonda. The evidence? A photo of Kerry in an audience standing several rows back and many meters away from Fonda, two years before she went to Hanoi. The fraud was initially taken as serious when another photo of Kerry and Fonda on stage next to each other was discovered, except that photo turned out to be a fake. The frame-up died a silent, withering death.

Drudge’s final attempt was his most bold: a claim that Kerry had had an affair with a woman who worked for the Associated Press, labeled an “intern,” who “fled to Africa” to escape the scandal; Drudge claimed this was being seriously investigated by several major news agencies, and claimed that three reporters had revealed to him that Wesley Clark, in an off-the-record comment, had claimed that Kerry would “implode over an intern scandal.” Well, the intern was not an intern, there was no affair, the woman’s parents, who were quoted as saying Kerry was a “scumbag” said nothing of the sort and planned to vote for him, and the woman had gone to Africa to be with her fiance. And the Clark quote was fake as well.

That was strike three for Drudge. I don’t know if he’s tried to put any more whoppers out there, but if he ever does, it is doubtful that anyone but the GOP faithful will take him as anything other than a sad joke.

Time for the next batter: the real dirty tricks artists. And they’ve just taken two swings at the plate.

First was an attempt to silence the public opposition with a letter to TV stations “urging” them to yank ads critical of Bush. The letter, fired off by the Republican National Committee (RNC) counsel Jill Holtzman Vogel, claimed that ads produced by the liberal advocacy group “MoveOn.org” violate federal campaign laws. The letter from the RNC chief lawyer name-dropped the FCC in a threatening manner, obviously intended to scare the stations into pulling the ads immediately.

MoveOn.org drew attention a short while ago when it put out the call for Americans to come up with “Bush in 30 Seconds” ads, designed to showcase the damage done by Bush, and reasons why he should not be re-elected. Many ads were submitted, a great many making salient points in both entertaining and sometimes poignant ways. These ads have been running on cable for a while, and MoveOn tried to get one aired during the Super Bowl–but CBS shot it down, claiming that it did not air “advocacy ads.” But recently, MoveOn has spent $1.4 million of small-denomination donations to air the ads nationally, with another $1 million coming soon. In steps the RNC, trying their hardest to distort the law and get TV stations to pull opposition ads while at the same time trying to smear the other side, not being able to fight on the actual issues themselves.

The RNC lawyer claims that MoveOn had to have used donations that exceeded the legal limit and pointed out big donations from George Soros and Steven Bing, and hinted that MoveOn could not possibly cover the ads with smaller donations only. But the letter is crafted in such a way that it does not actually name specific figures or provide any actual proof of wrongdoing–the closest it comes in actuality is that vague and unsupported claim that there are not enough small donations, and otherwise quotes a lot of legalese to make it sound like there’s an illegality. MoveOn, however, immediately pointed out that they have received $10 million in small donations, and points out that the RNC is distorting the law in order to scare FCC-regulated broadcasters into silencing the president’s critics.

So strike one. Next comes the second pitch, a wild throw, this in the form of a bizarre accusation against Kerry himself. The claim is that a Harvard Crimson reporter, some 30 odd years ago, trailed Kerry for a time and learned that Kerry had asked for a student deferment to study in Paris for a year, but was turned down, and that in response to that, Kerry volunteered for the Navy. Reported by the right-wing Telegraph news agency in the U.K., it quotes none other than veteran Republican dirty-tricks master Lucianne Goldberg as saying, “This means that Kerry didn’t jump into all that heroic service until he was pushed, and it is a very nice piece of information.” Republican strategists tagged this story as somehow canceling out Bush’s evading Vietnam by joining the National Guard.

That reaction is not just bizarre, but utterly insane. Those two cases are equal? Bush asked for, and got, student deferments all the way through Yale, and only after he had finished them and no more were forthcoming, did he use privilege to jump over 500 people in line and get the red-carpet welcome into the Texas ANG, his golden ticket out of Vietnam service–and after savoring several luxuries awarded solely for being the son of a politician, he went AWOL and then got out early. And let’s not even talk about Cheney’s string of deferments, because he had “other priorities” than serving the nation at that time.

Kerry, on the other hand, asked for one deferment to study, did not get it, and volunteered for actual duty in combat. And then he served in combat, saved lives, got shot, performed heroically, was awarded some of the highest decorations there are, and came back a veteran. And that’s the same thing?

Fortunately, it looks like this fell so spectacularly flat that Republicans have taken their hands off it like a red-hot potato (excuse me, “potatoe”). After the initial release of the story, few are jumping on it any more.

Strike two.

Anyone want to wager on what the third pitch will be, and how the RNC will strike out with it?

After that, it’s either Bush or Cheney left to come up to bat, and they’ll have no one on base to clean up with. Pity.

One of the nice things about living where I do is that the neighborhood is very nice. I’m just 45 minutes from downtown Tokyo by train, but the town I live in is open, spacious and green. Lots of parks, great view from where I live. There are drawbacks, however–fewer stores, and my place is a good distance from the train station, so I have to depend on buses, and they usually are not very convenient.

And oh yeah, the cable TV sucks.

Cable TV in Japan is very different from back home. You don’t get fifty channels here. Nor seventy. With the most liberal count, you get 35 where I live. Only about 20 count as non-broadcast type of channels, the rest are just local stations you can get for free. And of the non-broadcast channels, few are worth watching. CNNj, Super Channel (U.S. TV shows), Movie Plus, and Discovery Channel are all that are really worth watching. MTV if you like that. But the rest are pretty much mind-numbing, like the “Go and Shogi Channel,” a channel devoted to the Japanese board games go (or “i-go,” the one with black and white stones on a grid) and shogi (Japanese chess). Not included are channels most other cable companies give their clients, like the BBC, FOX (entertainment, not news), AXN (lots more syndicated TV shows), TBS Movies, and lots of other good channels.

Every once in a while, they dangle the hope of new channels in front of you. I just got a questionnaire which asks to rate which channels you like, which you don’t, and which channels would you like to get. Last time this happened, they listed all the really good channels everyone else has–but the “results of the survey” apparently prompted them to get rid of an excellent news channel and a few other decent stations, and add pretty much just crap–including the “Go and Shogi” channel, yet another sports news channel (we already had three), and a home shopping channel. Oh, joy.

So I’m filling out the questionnaire yet again, but without hope of getting anything decent. Probably they’ll take away the Discovery Channel and give us “The Golf Network” or “The Golf Channel” (both are candidates this time, but I’d rather go with Nader on that one), “The Jidai Geki Channel” (24-hour bad samurai dramas from 30 years ago), and Yet Another Sports Channel (5 of the 20 extra choices offered are sports).

I’d go for the SkyPerfecTV satellite dish, but another apartment building is 10 meters too far in the wrong direction and is blocking the reception.

Ah, the horrible suffering I must endure.

In his recent batch of new election campaign ads, the more positive ad had George W. Bush talking about how good things are:

“And as the economy grows, the job base grows, and somebody who is looking for work will be more likely to find a job … I know what we need to do to continue economic growth so people can find work.”

And just a few days later, the new job numbers for February are out. With 150,000 jobs needed to just break even, with 200,000 to 300,000 net jobs gained every month seen as needed to truly break out of the recession, and with economists having averaged in their predictions that we would get 130,000 jobs in February… a grand total of 21,000 jobs were created that month. Relative to growth caused just by young people entering the work force, that’s a net loss. It is below any economist’s projections… and it gets worse: it turns out that January’s numbers, among the highest in a long time, weren’t as good as we thought. Instead of gaining 112,000 that month, we actually gained about 97,000, or 15,000 fewer than reported.

What’s more, factories, construction, and manufacturing industries lost jobs, while the greatest gains were in temp jobs, which have few if any benefits and are far less desirable jobs.

But look at the bright side: it’s all Clinton’s fault.

The question that will, without any doubt, be arising in the next eight months is, how far can Bush go to use 9/11 for his own personal political advantage?

The question first arose when Bush and the GOP tried to sell a photo of Bush on Air Force One on 9/11 to raise funds for the party during midterms elections. For $150, you could get a copy. 9/11 was a national tragedy, sacrosanct in a very real way. The key word there is that it was a national tragedy. Not a Republican one. Not a partisan one in any way. That would belittle it, and demean the price the country paid on that day, and what it means to us as a people. And you don’t lightly go around using such tragedies to ask people for money so you can win an election. At least you’re not supposed to.

Bush & Co., however, have been busy pushing the envelope on that one. It started with the fundraising photo, and escalated when the GOP chose New York for their convention venue this election year. Not that there is anything objectionable about New York, but at this time and with this president it smacks of opportunism. As if to say, “this is where George W. Bush had a good day.” And the GOP is playing this to the hilt: they have delayed their convention to the first week of September so that it will land as close as possible to the 9/11 anniversary, and most likely will blend into the memorial ceremonials to follow, tying Bush’s campaign in with the remembrance of the victims of that day. Add to that Bush’s recent indirect attempt to squash the 9/11 commission from extending their deadline to do the job right because it would come closer to the GOP convention, and what you have is a president crassly using a national tragedy as a showpiece, a PR stunt, a political ad. Three thousand dead to elect a president.

Recent reports that the GOP is seriously considering using Ground Zero itself for Bush to give his acceptance speech are hard to believe, but they’re there. And considering the fact that 9/11 families are already angry just because Bush has used 9/11 images in his new presidential ads, one can only imagine the firestorm of criticism and protest should Bush choose such sacred ground for what is one of the definitive partisan political events in the country. As if the GOP owns 9/11, and Bush has a right to capitalize on it for his benefit.

So you can expect to see a testing of these boundaries, and if the past is any indication, you can expect that testing to be done in a kind of blundering way, as Bush & Co. seem to be more than a little blind to the sensitivities involved.

Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Homer teaches Bart the most important lesson in life? When you screw something up, just say, “It was like this when I found it!” Bart, over time, has also used the old stand-by, “I didn’t do it.”

I guess we’ve got President El-Barto or something, because one of his first new ads (free registration required to access the page, with Real Media videos) essentially blames everything bad on Clinton. Over soft piano music and slow cross-fades between still images, the commercial displays the captions:

January 2001: The Challenge
An Economy in Recession
A Stock Market in Decline
A Dot-com Boom… Gone Bust
Then… A Day of Tragedy
Today, America is Turning the Corner
Rising to the Challenge
Safer, Stronger

Essentially, Bush is saying that everything bad going on is not his fault–despite the fact that most of it is wrong and, at best, misleading. The recession did not kick in until much later, and Bush ignored terrorism concerns before 9/11, essentially scrapping the plans and mechanisms built by Clinton (terrorism played against Bush’s campaign for missile defense). The economy he did inherit, but the ad is misleading because Bush has failed to pull us out of it. The last recession we pulled out of in three years, but this one Bush has yet to bring us out of, especially as far as jobs are concerned. OK, so he was handed a bad economy (after the biggest economic boom in history, led by Clinton)–it’s his job to fix it, and he failed to do so. His fix-all cure was to slash taxes for the rich while giving a modicum to the middle class, and then wait for a recovery so he could claim credit. The promised jobs and overall recovery as well have not come, but Bush is pretending like the dickens like it has.

But the big message here is one of pointing blame: it’s Clinton’s fault, then 9/11 hit, I got a Trifecta, so don’t blame me, I just work here, and if you don’t look too hard and squint a little, you can imagine things are fine.

This is leadership? This is accountability? Of course not. But as Kerry has pointed out, Bush doesn’t have much to talk about that doesn’t reek of failure or scandal. So everything has to be sanitized, whitewashed… or blamed on someone or something else. The thing is, this most likely will not fly. The American people, as a whole, are well-known to blame the sitting president for what problems exist, whether the president is actually to blame or not. And the people are not complete fools, either–the finger-pointing game will only travel so far.

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In other Bush administration business lately, the independent 9/11 commission, after asking for and getting a two-month extension (which Bush tried to block through Speaker Hastert), is now telling Bush and Cheney that the commission will not put up with Bush and Cheney chintzing out on their duties. The president and VP said they would appear before the commission to answer questions about 9/11 (if they didn’t it would have been a public disgrace), but they are trying to do it and avoid doing it at the same time: they say that they will visit only if the meeting is closed and private, and only for one hour each, and only before the chairman and vice-chairman, not the whole commission. In other words, they’re trying to blow it off.

Well, the commission is not having any of that. They are now insisting that Bush and Cheney appear in public in front of the full committee, without the strict limitations the administration wants to inflict. (Both Clinton and Gore have agreed to meet with the full commission without time restraints.) They cannot force Bush and Cheney to comply, but if they raise a stink–especially now that the election year is in full gear–it could look pretty bad. Particularly if families of the victims come up again and start criticizing them on TV. Hastert is trying to fix things up and cover for the president again by talking to the Republican head of the commission, but apparently the commission is a bit more independent than the GOP had hoped for.

Their evasions are lame as well–a White House spokesman claimed that executive branch members do not have to appear before “legislative bodies,” claiming that the White House-appointed commission (Bush insisted on appointing the commission himself to head off a Congressional investigation) is somehow “considered a legislative body.” It’s an executive commission! They don’t pass laws.

Bush has been dodging a real investigation into 9/11 practically since 9/12–and now, with all of this coming to a head at election time, he has no one to blame but himself. Had he started the commission right away instead of waiting a few years to get it going, this would have all been in the past already.

The AP has just reported this minute that Edwards is quitting the race. After losing Ohio to Kerry, and even with a possible victory in Georgia, Edwards has apparently decided that it just isn’t winnable. One can only imagine at this point what conversations must have been had, what deals might have been made. Edwards, speaking now, is making very conciliatory sounds about himself and John Kerry–it is possible that the VP slot has just been filled, and it would be very sensible this way indeed.

If the report is true–it is not unexpected, but perhaps is much earlier than had been expected–the Kerry will have a lock, no matter what the results here are. Although Edwards didn’t say it in his speech just finished now, CNN claims his withdrawal is now official, and Edwards will announce formally tomorrow.

So the HP All-in-one printer (HP PSC 2450 PhotoSmart All-In-One) got here as promised Sunday, and I’ve been working with it since then. Most everything works just great. I set up the software on both the Mac and the PC (both included English language versions of the software), and the functions mostly seemed to work just fine out of the box; the drivers do a good job here. Without any serious fiddling around, I was able to print very nicely.

One of the most impressive things–and not just for the all-in-ones, but for ink jets in particular–is the photo printing. Although a few printouts had noticeable banded lines running through lighter areas of the picture, most photos I printed (3.5″ x 5″) came out amazingly clear and sharp, pretty much indistinguishable from photos printed by a photo lab. And that’s using the cheaper photo paper, not the good stuff, and not at best printing resolution. I haven’t tried an 8×10 glossy yet, but will at some point. Most people who see the photos can’t believe they were made by an ink jet.

What impressed me as much was the copy feature. I took out a map book and put it on the scanner glass, and hit “copy”–and the copy came out very nicely. Even on regular paper at normal quality, it came out with quite acceptable clarity and accuracy. This will work much better than carrying a big map book around next time I want a street guide. Apparently, using photo paper at high quality, it can effectively reproduce a photo you place on the machine to copy–which I haven’t tried yet but can believe. I also haven’t tried to fax yet, nor have I tried the

The photo printing worked as promised–take your flash memory card out of your digital camera, stick it into the slot in the printer (there are four, for different types of media), and the images come up on the 2.5″ LCD screen. Select the one you want, change the settings for paper size, quality, etc., and off it goes.

The downside: so far I can’t even find the OCR program which is promised in the documentation. It is supposed to come with something called “ReadIris,” but it seems to not be included in the installation, which would be a big disappointment. HP’s customer support has been a mixed bag–their first reply came a day later than promised and was a canned response, which I hate (canned responses almost never accurately address the specific problem you have, and this one did not either). When I wrote back asking for a real person to answer, I got a prompt reply which was quite long, but boiled down to “call customer support by phone.” Yargh.

Another shortfall is the lack of network capability–I would have had to pay an extra $200 just for that one feature–so I have to suffer with a USB switching box, and will have to set up my Powerbook in the living room and plug it in there whenever I want to print from my Mac.

In researching the preceding story, I came across an interesting anomaly. I had Googled for information on bomb attacks in Iraq, and found a report that was repeated in many news sites. Now, that is normal. The Associated Press (the author in this case) and other wire services commonly put out stories that are picked up by many news outfits and are printed/posted verbatim, or cut down for size.

The question is, can the news organization that uses an AP story change the content?

When I did the search, I got the usual string of identical articles from a variety of news sites, and it looked like this:

Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA – Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
Tuscaloosa News (subscription), AL – Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
Boston Globe, MA -Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
Times Picayune, LA -Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
NEWS.com.au, Australia – Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
Guardian, UK – Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
New York Newsday, United States – Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …
Akron Beacon Journal, OH – Twin suicide bombers kill 109 people …

And then there was one that looked a little out of place:

FOX News – Twin homicide bombers kill 109 people …

Sure enough, when I checked the article, Fox had changed every occurrence of “suicide bomber” into “homicide bomber,” a kind of terminology used by–you guessed it–neoconservatives. Apparently Fox News now changes every instance of “suicide bomber” into “homicide bomber,” a neo-speak expression coined by the Sharon government in Israel to try to cast the Palestinians responsible for such attacks in the worst possible light.

Aside from linguistic objections (I though these were the people who hated altered speech–I guess it’s just bad when it is “PC” speech), my question is–can Fox or anyone else change the writing of a story directly attributed to the Associated Press? Doesn’t the AP take a dim view of such things? I tried to find the AP’s license agreement, but couldn’t. Anyone know about that?

The good news is, fewer American and other coalition soldiers have been dying in Iraq. In February, only 20 American soldiers and three other coalition troops were killed in Iraq. That represents an average of 0.79 deaths per day, a distinct improvement over prior months–the next lowest casualty rate was in September, when the rate was 1.1 per day, and the highest was last November, when 110 people dies and the rate was 3.67.

As much as this news is greatly welcome, it is not, unfortunately, a measure of success in the country. That’s because the bad news is, as has become obvious in the past several hours, that the guerillas in Iraq have refocused their attention on Iraqi police and civilian targets, with devastating results. At the beginning of February, two suicide bombers killed at least 109 people at Kurdish Party Offices in Northern Iraq. 100 more were killed in blasts over two days on February 10-11. Attacks on police stations and other offices in Fallujah left 27 Iraqis dead on February 15th. 10 Iraqis were killed on an attack on a police station on the 23rd. Furthermore, the attacks are less and less the purported works of foreign terrorists, but instead tend to be natives, willing to blow themselves up for whatever cause they may have.

And now today, coordinated attacks in Baghdad and Karbala have killed at least 141 civilians as they celebrated Ashoura, a holy Shiite celebration banned under Saddam Hussein. More than 400 were injured in the attacks.

The fallout from the attacks is yet to be known, but it will probably not be good. Many are already blaming the Americans and Israelis, and this attack on a Shiite holy pilgrimage is bound to make things much more difficult in the attempted transfer of power back to Iraqis. Shiites comprise 60% of the population and are demanding that the new constitution be at least partly based upon Islamic law; they want direct elections that would give them de facto control over Iraq, while the Bush administration tries to institute caucuses or other measures that would prevent such a thing. The American welcome is wearing thin in Iraq, and the commission set up to write the constitution is more and more being dismissed as a puppet institution controlled by the U.S.

The conclusion on all of this is that things are not going well in Iraq. And a serious question is, as the election draws closer and if things continue to go wrong, will Bush pull out our troops without leaving anyone except the Iraqis in charge? The insurgency has not faded, it has simply redirected its attacks. The Shiites are still opposed to any form of government which does not give them a strong hand in running things the way they want, and now they are bound to play the victim card.

When July comes around and things have not been settled, will we–or, that is, Bush–bug out for the election’s sake?

Calpundit quoted the Washington Post article on Bush’s new “Greater Middle East Initiative.” It includes:

It calls for the United States and Europe to press for and assist free elections, foster new independent media, help create a “literate generation”….[promote] freedom, knowledge and women’s empowerment….increase funding of democracy, human rights, media, women’s and other groups….assistance in civic education, the creation of independent election commissions, and voter registration, particularly of women….with special emphasis on providing computer technology to schools and on teacher-training institutes to target women….It also suggests that providing $500 million in micro-loans — of about $400 each — would spur 1.2 million small entrepreneurs out of poverty.

Calpundit noted that there was a lot of mentioning of women in that, and he is right. But my first thought was, “OK–when will we get all those things in America?” In Iraq, Bush is pushing for more funding for education, is fighting tooth and nail to keep religion out of government, and is trying to establish rights for women… while in the U.S., he gives unfunded mandates that strap schools financially (so he can look like he’s doing something to fix education while still starving them for cash), wants religion (Christianity) to be an integral part of government, and is trying to take away reproductive rights for women.

In addition, he is offering money for small businesses and trying to fight poverty in Iraq, while in the U.S. he only gives handouts to megacorps and the wealthy; in Iraq, he wants an independent media, while in the U.S. he tries to get the media to be lapdogs for his administration; he wants increased voter registration for Iraq, while he is against making it easier for the poor to register back home, because they’re more Democratic than Republican; Iraq should get independent election commissions, while in Florida, he did everything possible to stop a legal counting of the vote and asked the Supreme Court to decide the election for us….

If Bush just applied the governance he wants in Iraq to his own job in the U.S., he wouldn’t be half-bad as president.

What happens if, sometime in October this year, news agencies report that Osama bin Laden has been captured?

The story comes from Iran, where state radio has announced that bin Laden has already been captured; that he was captured in a tribal area of Pakistan, and that Rumsfeld’s latest visit to the area was in relation to this. The IRNA news agency claims this all comes from “a very reliable source.” So far, it is not being widely reported in the U.S. (except mostly for denials), but international news organizations are reporting on it quite a bit, particularly in the Middle East and India, though the story is spreading (The Telegraph, Daily Times, Haaretz, The Australian, Xinhua, Express India, Bloomberg). This supplements conspiracy-theory rumors in the U.S., where not only are theorists contemplating a bin Laden capture, but there are more than a few doubts about whether Saddam had been captured weeks earlier and released according to political timing. The Pentagon denies bin Laden has been captured, as does Pakistan, but there are fresh rumors that there will be an “October Surprise.”

The October Surprise scenario is not unimaginable; in 1980 and ’81, Iran withheld the hostage release until Reagan took office, clearly to damage Carter; it is rumored, though of course not confirmed, that Reagan’s people made deals with the Iranians (considered to be the first contacts in what later became the arms-for-hostages scandal) to not release the hostages until Reagan could take credit for it.

Now here’s the problem with conspiracy theories: they sound like conspiracy theories, and from association with nutball conspiracy theories (the government is practicing mind control, Clinton had JFK Jr. killed), you sound like another nutball. On the other hand, some conspiracy theories are very possible, and some are certainly true. It’s certainly a big plus for someone planning a conspiracy–just call anyone who accuses you a “conspiracy theorist,” and you’re golden, so long as there is no smoking gun. Such theories are also next to impossible to disprove, meaning that believing in them is usually an article of faith.

So what happens if it is announced that bin Laden is captured sometime in October? Or even in August or September? The timing will be suspicious–but there will be so much happiness and relief that most people will not care when he was captured. Many will be wary, but without proof, Bush will be able to laugh off any accusers and bask in the light of “winning” the war on terror.

One problem with that, of course, is that the war on terror is unwinnable; just as capturing Saddam did nothing to stop the resistance in Iraq, capturing bin Laden will not stop the terrorists. And here’s where a timing problem comes in: if the conspiracy theories are true and Bush has bin Laden, when should he announce it? If he does so too close to the election, suspicion about an “October Surprise” will be strengthened. But if he releases bin Laden too early, his people may carry out one or more terrorist attacks to demonstrate that they are still in business.

Suffice it to say that if we hear reports of a bin Laden capture before the election, I for one will be extremely suspicious; these current reports would bolster that feeling. Frankly, considering what Bush has already done, it is more than conceivable that he would not hesitate to stoop to something like this. One can only hope that if it is true, then more than just an anonymous report from Iran pops up.

Saw this in Calpundit, from a news story from The Hill (second story down), about what the GOP might do for their convention in New York this year:

The source, a veteran official of past GOP conventions, said the 50,000 delegates, dignitaries and guests would watch off-site events on giant TV screens. “Now, we’ll go to the deck of the USS Intrepid as the U.S. Marine Corps Band plays the National Anthem,” he said, pretending that he was playing the part of the convention chairman.

“Or, and this is a real possibility, we could see President Bush giving his acceptance speech at Ground Zero,” he added. “It’s clearly a venue they’re considering.”

Now, it’s already bad enough that Bush has taken advantage of 9/11 for his own political purposes. Bad enough that the only good the attack could have brought would have been to unite the nation and bring the world to our door, asking how they could help–and that Bush divided us and pissed away that sympathy by going with the Neoconservatives in their bid to invade Iraq. Bad enough that the GOP chose New York as their convention center in a crass political move to use the deaths of all those people to engender political popularity.

But, giving the acceptance speech at Ground Zero? That generates disgust beyond imagination. Why not hold the nomination celebrations atop the graves of those who died in Iraq? How about Bush wrapping himself in the flags that covered the coffins of those who came home silenced? Maybe Bush could announce his decision on his vice presidential candidate in Arlington National Cemetery?

And even the alternative merits revulsion–using members of the military on a U.S. warship to provide color for a partisan political event? But then, none of this is new for Bush, is it? He used the entire military in part to win the midterms. He turned around an aircraft carrier full of men and women waiting to meet their families, at a cost of more than a millions dollars, so he could fly in as if he were some top gun (he didn’t pilot), and strut around in a flight suit, all for political campaigning and posturing.

Probably neither he nor his people even are aware that using the military in that fashion, or more to the point, using the sacred ground where thousands died to campaign for election, is in some way… well, “distasteful” is not the right word. Maybe, let’s see… “so crass as to be virtually unthinkable” might come closer.

On a related note, the GOP, still trying to squirm out of actually having any responsibility for the intelligence failures that caused Ground Zero to exist in the first place, tried vainly to block the 9/11 Commission (which was only approved far too long after the tragedy, and only if Bush got to hand-pick the members) from getting a much-needed extension in order to do their job. House Speaker Dennis Hastert took point in denying the extension, doing the job that Bush obviously wanted done but couldn’t dare do himself–deny the extension so that Bush wouldn’t be embarrassed too much by having the report released too close to the GOP convention. After all, it would be kind of uncomfortable for Bush to be delivering his acceptance speech at Ground Zero within a few weeks of his own commission talking about his intelligence failures that helped 9/11 become possible.

But the outrage was palpable. Nobody bought into the fiction that Bush wanted it, but Hastert was the bad guy. Everybody saw through the sham, and Hastert had little choice but to do a 180 and allow the commission to do their job they way they felt necessary. This was such a bipartisan necessity that even the Republican-led Commission felt is was of great importance to have more time, whatever the political cost.

One can only hope that the commission finds more than what we already know–that Clinton left Bush with a strategy to fight terrorism, and Bush and his people ignored it, letting security slide in that area because they were focused at the time on the missile shield (remember that?) and the prospect of terrorism was inconvenient to that program. After all, terrorists wouldn’t fire ICBMs, they would sneak attacks in like they did on 9/11; if a nuclear bomb were to be delivered, it would by by surface. But that didn’t sit well with Bush’s plan to pay his contributors billions to create a useless boondoggle.

Notice how the whole missile defense idea kind of disappeared from public view after 9/11? Naturally, it’s still there, though. It’s just overshadowed by Bush’s reckless bent to rack up even more hundreds of billions of dollars more in deficit spending. Your money, being wasted.

Sorry, no full-blown blog today. I will be back in full bloom tomorrow, with luck. I have been spending all night figuring midterm grades; I just got through the last of them, and now I have to create about 50 emails and send them off to each student–each email with an itemized list of grades, including the midterm class grade. So I’ll be up a few hours still.

But one thing of personal note today–I finished my evaluation period and bought the HP all-in-one printer, the one I mentioned before. Had them do a little presentation for me, printing some photos, going through the functions, et cetera. I decided it was pretty easy to use, made nice photos, and for about $300, was a fairly good deal (as you can get in Japan). Figured that it wasn’t going to change between now and next week, and I knew about as much about it as I would without having it.

So I took my old, noisy, troublesome Epson printer (only good for use on my 6-year-old 500 MHz PowerMac MiniTower G3 anyway, as it was an old-style serial-cable printer, not USB), and, not knowing if it even worked anymore, tossed it into my closet. The new printer/fax/scanner/copier/yaddayaddayadda is due to arrive by express delivery Sunday morning. I will talk more about it then, I am sure.