As if it isn’t too much for Bush to be going to England at the taxpayer’s expense in what amounts to a campaign trip to make him look presidential, to a country which–although it is our strongest ally–has a huge number of its citizens up in arms about what Bush and Blair are doing to them. But Bush has to give it that little extra arrogant touch.

The least of his offenses is the fact that, as part of his already-overflowing 650-person entourage (I thought he was against big government?), he took along with him five personal chefs. The Queen of England, understandably, was a bit put off with the revelation–essentially a slap in the face of her own, presumably adequate, cooking staff. But then, President “You’re-Either-With-Us-Or-Against-Us”, Mr. “This-Is-A-Crusade”, Commander in Chief “You’re-Irrelevant-If-You-Don’t-Let-Us-Do-What-We-Want”–has never been known for his diplomatic prowess.

In the wake of his passage through Buckingham palace, Bush further proved himself the oafish guest by having his people trample the gardens, causing tens of thousands of pounds in damage and possibly ruining several rare plants, some cultivated and planted by the queen herself.

One of the more serious snags in the setup for the visit was about how well-armed and immune from prosecution the Bush detail would be. Bush’s people had asked for the subways in London to be shut down, to fly U.S. Air Force jets and Black Hawk helicopters above London, supply his guards with “mini-guns” (capable of firing huge numbers of rounds per second), to place snipers along the president’s path, and to give immunity to any Bush personnel who happened to gun down and kill any Brit who they felt threatened the detail. One wonders what kind of wild party they had planned.

Now, Robert Heinlein once said that the best way to judge the fairness of any deal is to turn it around and see if the other fellow is still willing to accept it. Let’s try that here. Imagine if Tony Blair were visiting Washington D.C., and he demanded that public transport be shut down for his visit, British RAF Harriers and helicopters be given free reign over Washington airspace, for his entourage to be magnificently armed and immune from prosecution were they to, for some reason, snuff an American citizen here or there. You think that George Bush would accept those terms?

Of course not. Not in a million years. So what in the world were U.S. negotiators thinking when they asked for such things? Did they seriously expect Blair and his people to accept an armed, immune American presence in London? Bad enough that British security is being taxed to the limit, that Londoners and Brits in general paying a huge sum, all for a PR stunt for a man many of them despise. All in a day’s work, I suppose.

It should also be pointed out that virtually none of this is being reported in the U.S. media.

More than half of all email sent today was spam. It is becoming the single greatest threat to the growth and prosperity of the Internet, save possibly for the unspeakable morons who actually buy things that spam advertises, thus giving the marketers a reason to do their stuff. The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a new bill that would, in theory, control most spam. The bill includes the following points:

• Allows the Federal Trade Commission to create a “do not spam” registry (the FTC is not required to do so);
• Requires “opt-out” links so people may unsubscribe from mailing lists;
• Messages must have a functioning return email address (to allow people to opt out);
• Messages must “obviously” be advertisements, no misleading subject headers (e.g., “Important Account Information”);
• Messages must have a valid U.S. postal address or P.O. box in the email;
• Outlaws dictionary spamming and address harvesting using bots;
• Outlaws automated programs that sign up for free email accounts to be used to send spam;

And in areas that particularly have teeth, there is a 3-year prison sentence for those who create fake domains or email accounts to send spam, and a 5-year sentence for those who send pornography in unsolicited spam.

I am not certain if it requires all spammers to put an “ADV” tag in each subject header.

Now, for the $64 question: will it work? In all likelihood–not a dang bit. All the spammers have to do is move their main operations off-shore, and they’re golden. In fact, some sources report that 80% or more of spam today comes from outside the U.S.

And if the FTC takes up the option of creating a “do not spam” registry, stay away–and stay away from those “unsubscribe” opt-out links–because it will only reveal your active email address to spammers, especially those overseas, who will then spam the heck out of you from their safe havens. More people may fall for that particular trap if it is legitimized by this legislation. Even if one were not so victimized, it is still a free pass for every individual spammer to send you at least one spam for free, and would require each recipient to opt-out from each spammer’s list–which could number in the thousands. A bit more effective, and much more protective of people’s privacy, would be an “opt-in” registry, requiring spammers to stay away from all addresses except those who add themselves to the list. Europe has such a law–and the irony of the new federal U.S. law would be that it would override state laws (like the new one in California) that do require the more restrictive opt-in requirement.

This new law really just appears to be showboating by the politicians to show they’re doing something about the problem, and, regrettably, may very well just lead to more spam overflowing your email box, rather than the reverse. What is needed is not a nation-wide, but a world-wide solution. There should be a new requirement for any country that wants to join the web: institute a set of tough spam laws, and enforce them–or else you get cut off from the web. Yes, that’s right–entire countries could get cut off. I really think that’s the only way to handle it, if it is technically possible. There might be some squawking, but if a majority of nations–especially those in Europe and North America, and key Asian countries–would stick to it and keep the rules reasonable, a great deal more progress could be made.

Another possibility I have heard and like is the charge-to-send (let’s call it “CTS”) email plan. Under this plan, everyone who wants to send email to a CTS email account would be required to have a pre-paid account on the web, say, five dollars minimum, attached to their email account. Every time you send an email to someone with such an account, the recipient has the option of charging you one cent per email. All they have to do is click on a button, or send the offending email to a mailbox where all contents are charged, and the sender notified. If the recipient does not do this, however, you are not charged.

Since most people send legit email to people they know, their accounts would never diminish. If someone abuses the system and tries to collect pennies, people would probably just stop sending emails to them. If you lose a few pennies here and there, however, there’s no big loss.

Spammers, on the other hand, would be in deep trouble. They routinely send out millions of emails every day. If their spam is caught by filters such as my own and routed to the “charge” folder, their spam–almost free for them today–could start costing them huge amounts of money. Heck, at a penny a pop, I estimate I could bring in $15 a month easy. And they could not circumvent the system, because it would have to be pre-paid, and if an account goes broke, email is returned. (We would have to increase security so that email accounts with their money prepaid could not be ‘stolen’ and turned to illicit spam-senders.)

The present email system could remain, but those entering the new system could have a new suffix added to their address to join the CTS email system. Those who don’t want to shell out the measly $5 fee could still use the old spam-infested email.

This would not be an undue burden on direct marketers–they already spend far more than a penny a piece to send ads through traditional mail and other routes; a penny per would still be a tremendous bargain–but it would force them to drastically cut their flood of spam, be very cautious of whom they send anything to, and actually honor anyone who wants to opt-out of their list.

If a business were to set such a system up, they might even make a fortune simply by collecting interest on the millions of multiples of five-dollar deposits they safeguard.

The night seemed clear, so I went up to the 10th floor to take some time-exposure shots of the city (from my floor, much of the city is obscured by local hills). They turned out pretty well, and I was able to fairly successfully stitch together some shots to make a nice panorama of Tokyo, spreading from Fuchu, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya, and down to Futagoyama, as seen from West Tokyo (the Tama area). Below is a much-reduced version, a thumbnail you could say (450 pixels wide). The full-size photo was more than 6000 pixels across, so I cut it down to about 3000 pixels wide (still more than 3 times the width of the average screen). If you click on the small image below, the 3000-pixel version will be displayed in its own window. The file is 376 KB.

Here’s a shot of downtown Shinjuku, first its size in the 3000-pixel version, then in the 6000-pixel version. You can clearly make out the twi-tower Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building–not bad for a shot taken 20 km distant with a digital camera with only a 3x zoom.

Spotted these on the platform while waiting for the train–rain geta. Geta are the traditional Japanese clog shoes, basic wooden platforms atop two wood blocks, with a thong on top. This is the first time I recall seeing a pair covered in clear plastic for rainy weather. They were worn by an elderly lady in a classic dark-tone kimono. An interesting modern touch on a traditional costume.

Yesterday, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that banning same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. Now everyone is in an uproar, and polls are saying that close to 60% of Americans disapprove of gay marriage, including half of all Democrats. (And naturally, Bush and the Republicans are positioning themselves to make this a hot issue to help them win the election next year.)

What the hell is wrong with people? Is this another one of those issues about which people form their opinions based simply on hearing that it is unpopular? It smacks of the cloning issue–most people were against it, but when it came down to it, they really had no idea why they were against it–they just heard that “moral leaders” said it was wrong and accepted that idea. I know a few people, whom I consider otherwise intelligent, who are against cloning–but when I asked them why, I got the “army of robots” response. Seriously. After I pointed out that a clone is no different from an identical twin and is no more a potential “robot” than any other child, the answer turned to ambiguous, subjective disapproval.

I get the same feeling on the gay marriage issue, because after looking at the arguments, I just do not see any sense in them at all. The basic argument (here is a representative sample) is that gay marriage will weaken the institution of marriage, effectively devaluing it like currency. More radical groups say it is “administering a devastating and potentially fatal blow to the traditional family,” and that a “tyrannical judiciary” is trying to redefine marriage “to the point of extinction.”

And I’m sorry, but those arguments are just about the stupidest things I have ever heard, even the more temperate ones. I mean, seriously, weaken the institution? How? Will hordes of couples who previously would have gotten married instead stay single just because gay couples are getting married? Will two people, madly in love, who want to have children, who desire to somehow represent their personal bond of love in an official way, will these two people seriously forego marriage just because gay people are doing it? That’s about as inane as suggesting that people would stop having sex because gay people do it.

Gay people serve in the military, and that hasn’t stopped anyone from signing up (though Bush’s Iraq policy is doing huge damage in that area–different topic for another post). Gay people work in show business, I don’t see any star-struck youngsters avoiding Hollywood for that reason. Gay people are religious and go to church–but they’re not the cause of straights giving up religion or staying home Sundays. Gay people work at jobs, they go on vacations, they have parades, they eat snacks, they run for office, they rent videos, they do pretty much everything straight people do–and there is not any reason I can see to believe that any of these things dissuade straight people from engaging in these activities. In fact, the recent popularity of shows like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” even suggest that straights might take cues from gays–maybe gay people getting married will even make it more hip again.

Have you ever heard anyone, I mean anyone, say that they were thinking of getting married but would not if gay people did it? Even fanatical extremists? When you hear people talk about not getting married, what are the reasons? From what I understand, it is often because people see marriages as often failing, and think that if they stayed unmarried, they could avoid the pressure of marriage–but that has nothing to do with homosexuality. Some suggest that gay marriages “lack permanence and fidelity” (see the sample argument above, and note they do not quote the study as it is almost certainly bogus)–but if gay marriages started failing, would straights follow their lead? I doubt it–more people would probably disregard it, or just shrug and figure that marriage works better for straights after all.

Frankly, I cannot imagine the issue affecting any rational person. I mean, what difference does it make? And if I were to have my desire to marry influenced by the example of another couple, I would no be at all set off by a gay couple tying the knot–I would much more likely react adversely to the straight couple living next to them, who married too soon and had kids too early, feel trapped in their marriage but staying in it for just the kids, with spousal abuse, infidelity and other poisons rotting the family from within. But even with that, I would take it as a cautionary example, a lesson on how not to do marriage the wrong way, to avoid the pitfalls and mistakes other people make. At least in that respect, the hetero marriage would have some relevance to my own situation. The gay marriage would hardly even apply to my situation in any adverse way.

Marriage is not the fragile institution that many people seem to think it is. Gay marriages will have little or no effect on it. Some call it a religious bond, some call it a social institution–but they are wrong. When it comes down to it, marriage is an expression of love and commitment between two people, their children and no one else. It applies to others only as an outgoing expression of their private bond, like saying, “just wanted you to know we’re together.” Other marriages are simply outside that personal universe those people occupy.

So let’s stop this mindless objection, allow anyone to get married to whomever they please, and deal with more serious issues.

A few weeks ago, there was an anniversary that many people did not notice–the 20th anniversary of the barracks bombing in Lebanon that killed 241 U.S. Marines based there. With American forces withdrawing from that country a year later, it was a precursor to Somalia–though hopefully not to Iraq, not in the same way, at least.

For me, it was a bit of a political awakening. I had never approved of Ronald Reagan, but something he said soon after the tragedy made me feel physically ill. I recall it quite clearly. A reporter had asked Reagan about his responsibility in placing those Marines in danger, and the questionability of his political motives in sending them there and his lack of an exit strategy or even an overall strategy for them to act on. This was a legitimate question: if Reagan had placed those Marines in danger so he could look good politically, with no tangible goal or exit strategy, then he should damn well be answerable regarding his actions.

Reagan, however, took the coward’s course: instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he accused the reporter of suggesting that the Marines had died in vain, and then beat the reporter about the head with that. That response is what made me ill, made me enraged. What kind of a gutless coward would use the honor and sacrifice of 241 honorable men that he sent to a war zone for his political reasons, to protect his own miserable political hide? Worse, Reagan ordered other troops to invade Grenada just two days after the Lebanon disaster–leaving no doubt whatsoever that he was willing to put our soldiers’ lives in danger so he could control the news cycle to his advantage. Make a mini-series about that.

And yet it has happened many times, always with Republicans at the helm, and George W. Bush has now become the master of using the honor of soldiers he sent to die as a cover for his political PR appearance. How many times now have we heard that the president and his policies should never be questioned or criticized while the soldiers are out dying in the field? The same men and women whose returning remains are hidden and their funerals muted to keep the president’s poll numbers high.

And there is hypocrisy at play here, too–the Republicans never hesitated to scorch Bill Clinton while our troops were in the field. They did it repeatedly, constantly–and to his credit, Clinton never used the “troops in the field” defense card.

Now, I have not always been certain of Wesley Clark since he entered the race–he has said things which resonate strongly with me, but his past support for Bush and the Iraq war was possibly troubling, depending on where it came from within him. But in a recent interview with a snotty Fox newscaster, his responses to the issue of using troops as a human shield raised my esteem for him quite a few notches.

Fox reporter David Asman interviewed Clark (see Windows Media streams: 56 Kbps or 300 Kbps; reset options to get Real Media version), and true to Fox’s conservative tone, Asman tried to do a smear job on him. He first condescended by asking if he had gotten Bill Clinton’s permission to run (a surefire way to bring someone down in front of Fox’s audience), and then came in with his main guns.

“One thing that you must be sick of by now, but I gotta play the game too…” (yeah, I bet he’s just heartbroken that he “has” to bring this up) “… bringing up statements that you made in the past, you’re not a politician at heart, therefore you’ve made some more mistakes than other people have, so people throw ’em back at you. One of them, though, was just yesterday, maybe it wasn’t a mistake, but it caught our attention. On ‘Meet the Press,’ you said something about Iraq. You said, ‘President Bush has said the war in Iraq is the centerpiece for the war on terror; it isn’t, it’s a sideshow [emphasis Asman’s]. It’s simply their easiest means of access to attack American soldiers, that’s all it is.’ You really think Iraq is only a sideshow?”

It’s important to pay attention to the question, because it was obviously a direct criticism of Clark–particularly the emphasis on “sideshow” in the quote, and the emphasis on “only” in Asman’s direct question. It could not have been more clear that Asman was accusing Clark of belittling the efforts of the troops overseas. Later, Asman shows he’s a spineless chicken by claiming, and I quote, “I’m just repeating your own words to you… I just read back your own statement to you, General.” What a gutless coward–and representative of recent prominent conservatives, defending themselves and attacking their opponents by exploiting the armed forces to their advantage.

Well, Asman miscalculated on this one–Clark did not take it sitting down. At first, Clark tried to ignore the barb and answer in a civil way to simply state his position, making a lengthy statement about Bush’s huge tactical error in ignoring bin Laden and going into Iraq. Asman came back and tried to poke him with it again, asking “while our men and women are dying in Iraq, is it proper to call it a sideshow?” That is supposed to be “just repeating his own words to him”? Bullsh*t. He was now directly accusing Clark of impropriety on behalf of the soldiers. But he tried to smear the wrong man–and Clark proceeded to take his head off:

“Our men and women in Iraq are doing a fabulous job. They’re doing a great job, I love them, I respect them, and I honor them. My problem is with the president of the United States. He’s the man who is responsible for this, as he told us–he was going to make the decision when to go to war, and he did. Our men and women are doing everything their country has asked them to do. But for the war on terror, it is not the right thing that we should ask them to do. Don’t you dare twist words into disrespect for the men and women in uniform. I love those men and women, I gave thirty-four years of my life to them, you better take my words the right way!”

That’s what I want to see him say to George W. Bush in a debate. And that’s probably why Bush will chicken out and either not agree to debate or keep it down to one with no direct speaking between candidates.

And I’m that much closer to moving my full support to Clark.

The relevant part of the interview, mostly quoted above, is here: 560KB WAV file, 3:23 runtime. Listen to the wording, the emphasis, the way the words are spoken.

Be hypocritical and deny it. Par for the course.

Limbaugh, who received far more sympathy than he ever gave, is showing clear signs that he is still going to be as crass, dumb and hypocritical as ever. Returning to the airwaves to what must be sky-high ratings (for now), Limbaugh made it clear that he does not see the fault of his ways. “I don’t want anybody to get frightened about this, now. This has no impact on what you have come to know, love and respect here because I’ve not been phony here,” he told his anxious listeners.

Everyone has been wondering how Limbaugh will handle his own drug addiction in light of his conservative politics. Would he change his opinions on drugs? Of course not. “Many people feel and think that when you go to a rehabilitation center for addiction or other things that the people turn you into a linguini-spined liberal, and that’s not true,” Rush assured his audience. “I was a drug addict from about 1996, 1995 or whatever, to just five weeks ago. The truth of the matter is I avoided the subject of drugs on this program for the precise reason that I was keeping a secret.”

Uh huh. Right. Ahem. Mr. Limbaugh, what about:

“What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we’re not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.”

Some hoped that Limbaugh, now publicly outed, would at least remain consistent to the truth and realize that treatment, not incarceration, was the more effective answer. But he has made it clear, in principle if not in details: his tough-on-addicts principles don’t apply to him.

Note that he specifically mentioned a date from which he became addicted (95 or 96), and it seems to follow his prior remark on drugs (October 95), not concurrent with his addiction–so he claims. So will he end up try to somehow claim that a time difference between statement and illegal drug purchases was relevant? That it wasn’t hypocritical because he made that remark before he was addicted? Or will he try to spin what he said before, or spin what he did in buying illegal drugs? Or will he try to maintain the tension and, eventually, never bring it up at all, just ignoring the whole issue?

He did say this much: “This is something I am not able to be as blunt and open about now as I’d like to be. That day will come and it will come soon.” Meaning he’s covering his ample behind until he can cut a deal or otherwise get off the hook.

You can be sure that he will find some rationalization for his not being jailed despite his public statement on the matter in 1995. And, in true Rush form, it will be hypocritical, untrue–and he’ll undoubtedly find a way to make it insulting and denigrating to some group he doesn’t approve of. You can bet on it.

With the number of visitors reading the Matrix: Reloaded Spoiler Review on this site numbering over 600 now–just for the past two weeks–it is finally time to release my spoiler review for Revolutions.

I would have done this much earlier, but for the past week and a half or so, as I’ve mentioned, the video project for the Arts Festival at my school has completely occupied my time. And this review took the better part of two days to write, being essentially a fifteen page essay (single-spaced). The review talks about everything, explains the movie step by step, and analyzes much of what is going on ‘out of sight’ of the movie. From the Oracle’s maneuvering to the King Arthur reference, hopefully it’s all there, with transcripts of relevant conversations and statements. I’m sure some family and frineds will call me nuts for doing this. I didn’t intend it to get so involved, it just happened that way….

Anyway, enjoy.

Matrix Revolutions: Major Spoiler Review

Note: I just did a little proofreading and minor editing, and added a special comment area at the bottom. You can leave comments there or come back here when finished and leave comments in the usual blog style.

Another Note: The stats get calculated every 24 hours or so (can’t control it, alas). But in the 3 or 4 hours since this review went up, it has gotten 20 hits. Yikes.

Okay, it is a bit narcissistic. But partly that’s what a blog is about, you have to admit. Seeing how many people are interested in what you have to say.

If you own your own web site–not just a spot on a free blog service, but your own domain with a web hosting service you pay for–then you can get the full spectrum of services, including full-featured web stats. If you can get something called “Awstats,” then go for it, even if it means changing hosts; it is a very good stats package. It keeps track of how many visits, unique IP addresses, total hits, pages, bandwidth and other data on an hourly, daily and monthly basis. It keeps close track of exactly where your visitors are coming from, showing sites that link into yours, as well as how many hits come from search engines and even what the search terms were.

The stats made me aware of the fact that MacSurfer had linked to one of my stories and that some 8000 people dropped in over a two-day period last month (necessitating the removal of graphics that would have caused me to pass my bandwidth allotment–a handy warning there), and tells me this month that already 550 people have read my spoiler review for the second Matrix movie–meaning I should get right to work on the spoiler review for #3 this weekend, as promised. It also tells me that for the sixth straight month I remain Eyelid-Twitching Central (it all started from one of my first entries, where lacking much else to say at the time, I mentioned I had a twitch that day, and the attention has never ebbed), and, for some strange reason, my stories on Eudora 6 remain a strong draw.

Oh yeah, and 92 people have downloaded the Great Chicken Struggle movie starring my hamster. Without the MacSurfer draw, I can afford the bandwidth, though.

Other draws, in order: The Matrix: Revolutions non-spoiler review, an article on Crime and Foreigners in Japan, my famous Gyoza recipe, the Matrix: Reloaded non-spoiler review, and my article on the Yoshi Hattori incident.

General stats, by the way: average visitors per day this month: 310+ per day. 2050 or more of the 4670 visitors so far were repeat visits, as the hits came from 2620 unique IP addresses. The rate of increase in visitors is slowing, but the numbers continue to climb–on schedule for 5,500 visitors this month, far exceeding the optimistic hope of 4,000 monthly visitors by year’s end.

Well, the school had its Arts Festival yesterday, and it was amazing to see the talent so many of our students have. Not just your usual skits at the talent show–we have some serious composers, musicians, singers… One student, for example, played original piano compositions that were astounding. I was in back when another started singing “The Heart Must Go On,” and I swore that I was listening to a recording of Celine Dion. Paintings by some of the students I honestly mistook for art that the live house had purchased, and there was a fantastic brass section that performed “In the Mood.” Seven students made up a punk rock band, playing a popular Japanese song called “Train, Train” that had many of the students in the audience acting like groupies at a concert. And one of my former students, who I knew was talented, surprised me in showing an array of talents I never expected, from keyboard artist to trumpeter to half a dozen other talents.

Even a few teachers took the stage, including one that recited comic poetry and sang a great a cappella piece, and another who played solo electric guitar and composed a hilarious blues piece based on his classes. And my own contribution–a 17-minute video I edited from footage some students and I shot–went over very well, starting off the show.

Find below some photos of a few of the acts with the audience.

Lie #3: “Democrats are blocking Bush’s judicial nominees.”

You hear this one a lot. It just got smugly reiterated by Bush and made headlines, about how Democrats are using “ugly politics” in blocking his nominees. This just really ticked me off, considering how blatantly hypocritical it was; I was already drafting this article when Bush’s outrageous statement was reported.

Somehow there’s the idea out there that when Clinton was in office, the Republicans were quite cooperative and acted fairly, but now that Bush is in office, the Democrats are on a spree of blocking judicial nominees. Bush himself told fellow Republicans that “We have a vacancy crisis in America… There are too many seats that aren’t filled with judges and therefore America hurts. America’s not getting the justice it needs.” Senator Leahy (D-VT) countered that vacancy rates in the judiciary have been lower than at any time in the Clinton administration.

Bush, in his usual pattern of taking the few minority and women nominees he makes and putting them in the spotlight as if he never heard of a white male before, told the press that “These three women are being denied a chance to serve on the bench because of ugly politics in the United States Senate,” implying not only that Democrats are blocking his nominees, but also that they’re blocking women, just like they blocked Miguel Estrada, a minority. “It’s wrong and it’s shameful, and it’s hurting the system,” he said.

The fact of the matter is, only four Bush nominees have been blocked, and those nominees (Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owen, William Pryor and Miguel Estrada) have been staunch conservatives; Republicans regularly blocked Clinton nominees who were far less ideologues than these.

Bush claimed that as many as a third of all his nominations have been blocked, but he’s lying–either that, or he must believe his name is Bill Clinton, who was the one who had at least 30% of his nominations–predominantly moderate–blocked by the GOP (Here’s a conservative pundit who raved about how Clinton’s 31% block rate on the court of appeals was “not a bad deal”).

Democrats have blocked only two percent of Bush’s. And just the most outrageously conservative, at a time when pretty much every judge nominated by Bush is as conservative as his administration can find. 98% of them have been passed. And yet Republicans are screaming about how Democrats are being unfair, even going to the extreme of scheduling a 30-hour marathon session just so they can stir up publicity to show how Democrats are filibustering nominees (the filibuster was the weapon of choice when the GOP was blocking fully 63 Clinton nominees).

As for GOP claims that Democrats are “racist,” how about the fact that during the Clinton administration, Republicans blocked 35% of Clinton’s nominees who were minorities, but only 14% of his white nominees. If anyone is racist, it is crystal clear that it is the Republicans.

But the big lie keeps on getting pushed front and center; the GOP technique is to take their own worst sins and claim that they belong to the other guys.

It’s 3:42 in the a.m., and I’m finally about to get to sleep. I’ve been working on a 17-minute video for an Arts Festival held by my school. About 5 hours of digital video was filmed, and I had to run through it all with a fine-toothed comb to pick out the morsels that would eventually become the video. I also had to overcome some audio problems, and the inevitable editing nightmares (for example, when half a person’s sentence is a must for editing in, but the other half is illegible, and it shows if you cut it in half).

I had to clear about 30 GB of hard disk space, mostly on an external drive, to make room for it. To edit the video, I’ve been using iMovie on my PowerBook G4 DVI–and that’s the saving grace. After having stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning every night this week, spending every spare moment after coming home to get this done, I am incredibly thankful that at least I had really easy, worry-free (not to mention cost-free) software to use.

And the video came out great, by the way.

Once that was finished, I turned on my browser and checked the news. Wrong choice for this time of night. The headline reads, “Bush: Stop ‘Ugly Politics.'” The leader of the party which has mastered smears, lies, and dirty tricks–God, I have got to shut down or I will go on all night and get no sleep. I’ll cover it later.

Republicans have always claimed to be the friends of the military, but that appears to only mean that they like big weapons systems and starting medium-sized wars for political gain for themselves and financial gain for the corporations they pay off. As retired General Wesley Clark said not long ago, “Republicans like weapons systems; Democrats like the soldiers.” As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the administration has proven this animosity for the soldier by cutting their pay, their benefits, even money for their kid’s education that was supposed to be supplied, while chintzing on their supplies at the same time they hand out non-competitive billion-dollar contracts to Cheney’s firm. And that’s just for starters. I also recently reported on how any soldier who dares criticize the Bush administration publicly is prosecuted.

One thing is clear, and that is that this administration, led by a silver-spoon draft-dodger who went AWOL from the Guard, and filled with Chickenhawks who shirked their duty while demanding that others serve in their place–this administration misses no chance to short-change and slap down the very men and women who fight and die for them, while all the time monopolizing, cashing in on, and taking advantage of the honor and glory that belongs to those soldiers, and not to this cowardly and sickeningly smug mockery of a leadership.

The most recent example: after reluctantly approving Bush’s usurious demand for $87 billion to support his debacles in the Middle East, Democrats tried to give a small measure of support to the soldier in the field–$80 million, a drop in the bucket by comparison–that would pay federal employees who are reservists for any pay cut they suffer when mobilized. That would help 23,000 reservists, 14,000 of them now active, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would help them to stay afloat financially, keep them from having to take out mortgages in order to pay the bills, enable them to keep paying their kids’ tuition.

Guess what? Bush and the GOP slapped them down yet again. The same people who publicly encourage states, local governments, and corporations to take the action of helping out with soldiers’ pay (200 companies and 50 state and local governments do that), are themselves unwilling to spend a fraction of what they overpay Halliburton in order to help the common soldier make ends meet while serving far longer than anyone expected.

I guess that $80 million is earmarked for another corporate payoff. After all, they’ve contributed so heavily to Bush’s $200 million war chest for the election. How much did reservists contribute? Not enough, apparently.

In the United States, speed traps are usually cops on motorcycles or in patrol cars, hiding around a corner or behind bushes or other cover–usually a one-man operation. In Japan, they work in teams. I was able to observe one in action today, not too far from a station I use.

Here’s how it works: one cop, in this case, shown in the photo at top, finds a spot–usually behind signposts and/or telephone poles–and sets up shop. The radar detector goes out front, and the policeman, working with the control gear out of a metal suitcase, hides crouching on a chair behind his cover. He is in radio contact with a team of fellow officers about two blocks away. The team is located strategically so that a speeder cannot turn off somewhere or otherwise get by. A motorcycle cop stands ready to pursue anyone who tries to get away.

The cop in the chair detects someone going too fast. His gear displays the speed, and it radios the signal to the first guy’s counterpart (see bottom photo, guy sitting on a similar chair). The team gets a warning shout over radio from the guy up front, telling them that a speeder has just passed by. The team dispatches a pair of policemen–one regular cop, and one motorcycle cop–into the street to flag down the driver, and pull them into a nearby parking area (I caught the tail end of this in the photo at middle right). The driver is then taken to a folding table with chairs set up where seated officers get their information, give them a lecture, and write out the citations.

In the times I have seen this setup, I have noted that it is never in a place where speeding might be a problem. I know of many streets–a few right in front of police stations, no less–where the hazards are great: speeding cars, blind corners, pedestrians crossing at all places, the works–and there is never a speed trap or even an officer on patrol. In the places where they could do the most good. Instead, the traps are set up on long, wide straightaways with absurdly low speed limits. The street pictured here is a wide (for Japan) two-lane boulevard with little foot traffic (it’s an industrial area). I walked its length and maybe saw one or two pedestrians in total. Very little cross traffic. In other words, probably the place one would least have to worry about accidents happening.

And the speed limit is 40 kph, or 25 mph. This kind of street would be at least a 45 mph (70 kph) zone in the U.S. For the type of street it is, the speed limit is ridiculous. And so, naturally, everyone speeds. I believe that this is called “shooting fish in a barrel.”

The few other times I have witnessed speed traps in Japan, they have always been like this. Not for safety, not for public service. But for the sole purpose of writing out tickets. If this were a sometimes thing, like in the U.S., it wouldn’t be so bad. But from what I have witnessed, traffic cops never give out tickets for the purpose of safety. Just for revenue. And that’s completely wrong. These police should be at the dangerous locations, making the streets safer. I covered this in a previous entry, “Seasonal Fair-Weather Daylight Enforcers,” though I did not have artwork on the speed traps at the time. But the criticism still stands. It is almost emblematic of Japanese police, traffic or otherwise, to make more of a show than to actually keep the peace. They can do much better than this.

Some time ago, I went to Costco and, among other things, bought some of their rotisserie chicken–five legs and thighs, yum. The legs and thighs are still connected when you get them. After finishing a few of them for lunch and saving the rest for dinner, I started to throw the bones and scraps in the trash–and then realized that Mocha, my hamster, might enjoy chewing on the meat left on the bones. So I placed a leg-and-thigh bone scrap in front of her cage and opened the door. Mocha, sniffing some form of food, obligingly came out to enjoy the payoff. She was definitely interested in this particular morsel.

However, I did not expect her to do what she did next. You see, I expected that she would chew off whatever she wanted, then, as normal, scurry back into her cage and stash the booty. Mocha, it turns out, was feeling much more ambitious that day. You see, she decided to bring the entire leg-and-thigh bone back into her cage and then stash it. Which of course would be problematic, because the bone was longer than she was, not to mention bent in the middle at the joint, and she had to carry it, in her mouth, up the side of her cage to the door.

Meanwhile, I was in the living room, and became aware of her valiant efforts when I heard repeated knocking noises and went to investigate. She had already spent several minutes trying to get the whole thing back in her cage, and after I watched her for a few minutes, I decided to get this on film. My video camera being at school, I used the video feature on my digital camera. The results are available in a link below. Needless to say, she was absolutely hilarious. Completely unfazed by the enormity of her project, and seemingly clueless as to depth and size perception, she nonetheless doggedly continued her great struggle with the chicken bone. At one point, she fell over backwards and, with the rather large chicken bone clamped into her jaws, was unable to right herself. She was not about to let go of that bone, though. So instead of letting go, righting herself, and trying again, she spent about 45 seconds on her back, furiously waving all four paws in the air, trying to turn herself over while pinned by a chicken leg. She was finally able to do so, and set back to her main task. The whole event lasted more than fifteen minutes. This was one determined hamster.

The fun did not stop when, to my amazement, she actually succeeded in getting the whole thing in her cage. You see, she likes to stuff food into her habitrail tubes. You know those commercials for moving companies that have a pair of idiot movers trying to bring a sofa through a door the wrong way? You know, whump! Hmm. Try again. Whump. That didn’t work. One more time. Whump! Hmm. Maybe it’ll work now. Whump! Well, that’s what Mocha was like. Completely oblivious the the fact that a 6-inch-long bone could not fit perpendicularly into a two-inch tube, she nonetheless spent about five minutes trying to do exactly that, until it dawned on her tiny hamster brain that maybe by getting it in end-first, it would fit. Eureka!! It worked!

So enjoy “The Great Chicken Struggle,” it’s hilarious. Perry Como has even been added. View it in small (2MB), medium (8MB), or large (15MB) sizes. The files are QuickTime movies (so QT is needed to view them. If you have trouble viewing the larger two on your browser, then download them directly to disk, it may work better that way.

I went to the bank today to transfer some money and to get traveler’s checks. I wanted to transfer 2 million yen from my account at a Japanese bank to my account at an American bank here in Tokyo. When I asked for the cash at the first bank, they caught me off guard–I’ve never been handed wrapped stacks of bank notes before.

Pictured is what they gave me, two stacks of one hundred 10,000 yen notes (each one being worth roughly $91 by today’s rates), quite a hefty amount–about $18,000 in all. A little nerve-wracking to carry around town, though in Tokyo there’s really very little worry. It was just fun to get stacks like that, frankly.

The traveler’s checks, by the way, are for my trip home in a month. Took the opportunity to pay off the remainder of my airplane ticket. I get almost a whole month off at the end of the year, this time from December 8th to the first Monday in January (the 5th, I believe). I will try to keep mobile with the blog.

Wow. This story is really quite impressive. It gives details on the Power Mac G5 supercomputer cluster formed by people at Virginia Tech. They bought 1,100 of the new G5 Macs, connected them in a massive cluster, and, within just a few weeks, writing their own software, were able to create from them the world’s third-largest supercomputer, at just a fraction of the cost of a supercomputer of similar size and power.

Shows what’s possible to do at the grass roots–and what potential Macs have, their power and ease of use, in the face of all the nay-saying criticism about them.

I find that I have been remiss in covering one of the themes of this site–Mocha, the hamster, pictured above in her nest. Now well past middle age (hamsters commonly live only a few years), Mocha is still going strong, running in her little wheel, enjoying her running-ball excursions about the apartment, and so on. Also responsible about food–she always has more than she needs, and never overeats–she has taken to stuffing whatever food she doesn’t immediately chow down on and stores it in her habitrail tubes. So much so that, when she travels through the tubes, she makes a very loud crunching and grating sound as she bulldozes past all the sunflower seeds, stale bread bits and other hamster food as she goes.

In case you feel that today’s security measures are necessary and do not unduly harm any innocent, especially without need, I would refer you to the story of this Canadian citizen, who, merely by passing through the United States, stopping briefly in New York to change planes on his way home, was subjected to an ordeal of nightmarish proportions.

I would warn you that you may not be able to stomach this story. I would still suggest you read it, however. There is still much that is not known about the reasons behind his illegal detention, imprisonment and torture. Why was this software engineer, father of two, with not even a spot on his criminal record, taken from the airport and detained? Why was he questioned without a lawyer–in fact, through his entire ordeal, only allowed to call someone once, only allowed a single brief visit with an attorney that gained him no representation? Why was he shackled and chained, injected against his will with a substance that was never identified to him, repeatedly strip-searched, and made to sign documents he was not allowed to read?

But most importantly, and least explained, is why he was not sent back to Canada, his country of citizenship, as was his right under international law. Why was he instead chained and shackled, flown to Jordan, thrown blindfolded into the back of a truck, repeatedly beaten, and then driven to Syria, the country his family had fled when he was a teenager? The American government claimed the reason he was sent there was classified; but what possible reason, classified or otherwise, could they have had to send him to an unfriendly country, against international law, to be inhumanly tortured for almost a year?

There is now a call in Canada for an inquiry into this hideous miscarriage of justice, but you can count on the fact that the Bush administration will never reveal their reasons. The American media is practically silent on the matter. More information can be found at in the Canadian media or through Amnesty International Canada.

As long as the American people allow the government to perform such ruthless acts, without any fear of consequences of any kind, without any sort of public oversight, they will simply multiply and flourish. How far will you allow it? Until people you know personally are treated in this manner? Is this the United States you know? Is this the government you want?

Do not forget that if you are an American, and you remain silent on actions your government takes such as this, then you are complicit in and responsible for such things. The actions taken by my government in this case are inexcusable. We know that police-state barbarities are being committed in our names, but we are too fearful to stand up and do anything about it. That must stop. Refer this story to people that you know. Tell family and friends of it. Contact your representatives; make clear that you do not support these actions, that there must be an investigation, that the powers given to the government through the Patriot Act are far too strict, and Patriot II must never be allowed to pass. Ashcroft has to leave office, and the Bush administration must be voted out.

The case of Mr. Arar is not an isolated one. This has gone too far. Make it stop.

Note: For those who are looking for a detailed look at Revolutions, you can see my
Matrix Revolutions: Major Spoiler Review.

I just finished watching the film tonight. If I had felt more up to it, and didn’t mind being all the way in to Shinjuku (an hour from home) at 11:00 pm in the pouring rain, I could have seen Keanu Reeves and the Wachowski brothers at the Milano-za in Kabukicho last night for the premier. But frankly, even if I had been feeling better and had not had so much work to do, I probably would not have gone–too much effort. Good enough to see it tonight.

I was quite surprised to see that the theater was relatively empty–maybe 1/10 of all seats were filled. Of course, it was a 6:30 show on a weekday, and the same film was showing on two other screens, those shows having started within an hour before this one–still, I expected huge crowds (which is why I bought the tickets two weeks early). Go figure.

By the way, when I say “non-spoiler” for this review, I do not mean that there are no details here; I presume that you have seen the previews, and so you know a few things. If you have not seen the previews and want no information about those specifics at all, then stop reading here.

Okay, the movie. Overall impressions: good and bad. The good is that the movie is long on action and special effects. If you thought that Reloaded was too short on action, you’re in for a treat here. The battle for Zion goes on for a long time, is filmed beautifully, and barely gives you time to breathe. The fight between Neo and Smith is similarly well done–almost overdone, in fact, with huge rain-driven water impact bubbles formed by their collision, and almost Wile E. Coyote-like craters formed by impacts. No shortage of action in this film. So much so, in fact, that you won’t realize until after you leave the theater that they did not use the trademark Matrix “bullet-time” shot (where the action freezes and the camera pans around) even once. Hmm.

The bad: don’t expect much in the way of definitive answers. Why does the Oracle look different? How was Neo able to blast the sentinels (the squid-like robots) at the end of the last film? What does Agent Smith really want? Well, the Brothers Wachowski don’t exactly tell you as much as they hint at it, suggest it, or even riddle it in a way. I do not think I am giving anything away by telling you–the Oracle made a choice and this is part of the price. (Huh?) Neo is still somehow connected to the Matrix. (Uh… how?) Smith wants–well, haven’t you figured that out by now? Not me. You just gotta figure he wants to control everything, or destroy it or something. Not made tremendously clear. See? You still don’t know much more than you did before you started this paragraph–and that’s kind of how you feel coming out of the film. Like too many loose ends were left for you to figure out. Yes, it’s sometimes good to leave some things open so the viewer can imagine what happens. But in Revolutions, there’s way too much that is not answered directly, and you get the feeling that the Wachowskis just weren’t really able to figure the answers, so they fobbed that job off on you. Open-ended, but not very satisfying.

The film begins where we left off, with Neo and Smith/Bane out cold, and the Hammer (the hovercraft that rescued our heroes) looking for the Logos, Niobe’s ship, disabled by the EMP blast Smith/Bane set off. And it is here, right at the start, that the film takes a kind of left turn into philosophical exposition, primarily discussing love and what we do for it. Don’t worry, that doesn’t give anything away, certainly no surprises, and might help you focus on a relevant point that comes in later on. Neo is trapped where he is, and Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph (on loan from the Oracle) have to go see the Merovingian to free him. Of course they get Neo out, he sees the Oracle, and the story is set.

From that point on, it’s pretty simple. Neo and Trinity go one way, and everyone else goes the other. Each storyline is pretty single-minded, almost relentlessly so. The action, while beautifully filmed, is almost comic-book in style, going to extremes. Machines and characters get banged up and damaged so ruthlessly it is hard to accept that they still function; sometimes it feels like a demolition derby. An unbelievably cool demolition derby.

Philosophy still had quite a part to play here. We get the themes of choice and control coming back, discussed and acted out in various ways, with love now thrown into the mix more than before. What would we give? How far would we go? What did we choose, and do we realize it?

After the first and second film, you came out feeling like you really learned new things about the story and the characters, that there were twists and turns and revelations and surprises. Not so much in Revolutions. It’s like they ran out of clever ideas, and so just ran the story and the characters out to their conclusion. You do find out a thing or two about what was going on that you didn’t know before, but none of it comes as much of a surprise or a twist. Even the ending is a bit inconclusive; you get a fair understanding of what happens in the world, but what might happen next, and even the ultimate fate of a character or two, is not spelled out exactly. You’d almost think that they were leaving things open for a possible future sequel or maybe a TV series (I won’t say how casting would work), if the producer had not made it painfully clear that this was it for the Matrix, no more.

The first Matrix film was the best, partly for its innovation and mind-blowing revelations. It’s a hard choice between second and third place, but all told, I think I came out feeling better about the Reloaded sequel than I did about Revolutions. A lot of that may have to do with the revelations and surprises in Reloaded that were missing from Revolutions; a lot may have to do with the interesting possibilities that Reloaded left open, but Revolutions did not.

Revolutions is still a great film, no doubt about it–I will see it again, maybe even a few times. It just had a few hard acts to follow. I would have preferred the Wachowskis taking a bit more trouble to lay out their world for us. Still, it is all right as far as wrapping up the series goes, and more than all right as far as being entertained goes.

Note: a spoiler review, nothing held back, is on its way, in a few days. It will be linked to here as well as from a new entry. Keep your eyes open.