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the only solution is diplomacy. these people clearly think that their position is the right one; well, why is that? learn the answer to that question, and use diplomacy ...

I think it is a bit more difficult than that. North Korea recently threatened to turn Japan into a "nuclear sea of fire" should the US attack NK with nukes.

Rhetoric like that shows just how insane this regime is, and how difficult diplomacy will be. If the DPRK ("Democratic Peoples" Republic of North Korea) had their way, they would be blackmailing their way to wealth using what nuclear power they can ammass. So good luck with diplomacy. And we should probably start our diplomacy by addressing the nuclear issue. Somehow I think that the issue of hacking is pretty low on the State Department's to-do list.

Anyhow, I would like to contribute my little bit of success in the Japanese online dating world to counter this "sad and lonely online dating tale."

Anyone living in Japan and interested in online dating should check out http://asoboo.com/, and possibly http://friendfinder.japantoday.com/. The first is very cheap (Y500/month) and I've had quite a few dates from it. One relationship even became quite promising before she decided to give her cheating boyfriend a second try. :(

The other site is Y2500/month, although you can create a profile and be able to receive messages without paying. I haven't paid for this one yet, but still got one inquiry/date.

I'm looking for a long term relationship, but I think most people on these sites are searching for a short one, if you know what I mean. *nudge*nudge*wink*wink* My point is that there are plenty of options available here. Good luck to all you fellow geeks.

Slow news day or infatuated with Mozilla? Heck, I like Mozilla and use it at home and work, but I don't drop everything to see what's happened with their website in the last day. Gee willikers.

Here's some other fine articles which could probably have been posted:

Philadelphia Considering Free or Low Cost Wireless For All

Microsoft to Exploit Japan's Post Offices to deliver SP2 (their word, not mine!)

The Road Ahead, According to Steve Ballmer

X-Rays Reveal Mummy Faces (Low Cancer Risk to Mummy)

Owls Use Poop to Lure Beetles

Udemakura Arm Pillow
Article
Picture
Article

Udemakura Arm Pillow
Article
Picture
Article

Here's an in-flight picture, and another angle here.

Canadians don't actually think all Americans are evil. We do, however, think that a small number of them are evil, and they tend to have an immense amount of political sway in the country. But Canadians aren't alone in this view.
Personally, I think Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and the whole lot of them, are terrible people. But I have family in the US and I certainly don't think they're evil... well maybe my aunt...

The article states that "school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school." The submitter states "Japanese schoolchildren in the city of Osaka will be tagged with RFID tags."

Actually, the the Kinki Bureau of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (an organization you probably would not refer to as "school authorities," which happens to be located in the city of Osaka, Osaka prefecture) will be testing RFID tags with the cooperation of an elementary school in the city of Tabe, Wakayama prefecture.

You can read an accurate article here.

Slightly off-topic...

A friend was telling me that most of Yoshinoya's beef comes from the US. Since the recent mad cow ban they've started serving pork instead of beef. When news of the switch broke people started lining up for final bowls before the beef ran out. At about $2.50 a bowl it's a nice alternative to McDonald's.

This made me laugh out loud.

Live in Japan for a bit, grasshopper, and come back and tell us how "logical" it is. Most expats marvel at how contrary to logic life here is. Here's a classic example.

This became a rubber stamp court, with only one request out of over 7,500 since its inception being rejected by the judges. Of course, the people are unaware of it because the proceedings of the court are secret, and the defendents are usually unaware of the evidence being used against them.

The existence of the court is not secret though, as it was created by a law passed in the 80s, and the quantity of searches granted by the court is public. Indeed, the US government was accused of abusing this court recently to broaden its purpose, before the Patriot Act was "clarified" to permit such abuse by the US prosecutors, FBI and intelligence agencies. One of the judges on the panel scolded the US government for being deceptive in the types of cases it was bringing, indicating that the US government does try to bring people before FISA that are not spies, but instead ordinary criminals. The US appealed a decision to legally obtain a broading of the courts purpose, originally without legislation.

If I remember correctly, congress passed a law to "clarify" that the Patriot Act extended this to cover those suspects of "terrorism". Hasn't it occurred to anyone that none of the trials of suspected terrorists are public?

This is such a sad demise of the US Constitution and American liberty. To me, I'd be willing to die like our forefathers did to preserve American freedom and create the Bill of Rights. I just wish we weren't so willing to discard it today under the illusion that our life-spans will be longer. When I was a child, being willing to die to perserve American freedom was a common notion. Now, being willing to give up freedom to avoid the remotest chance of dying, no matter how statistically improbable, has become a de facto notion. To suggest otherwise, well, that would be unpatriotic! Or would it be terrorist?

Unfortunately, without the ability for the press or the people to attend trials of suspected terrorists, it's unlikely that this will ever be overturned. We'd have to prove that the system as used unjustly, but the Patriot Act has removed all accountability, so that it is nearly impossible to prove the injustice.

The question is, if it was "spies" yesterday, and now includes those labeled as "terrorist" or "threats to national security" by the investigators and prosecutors today, then what label is next? Or, are the current labels broad enough to permit US prosecutors to throw anyone in prison for life that they see fit? It's hard to discern when our government is no longer accountable to the people it's supposed to represent.

Is there anyway to determine what cases the government has filed to prevent public accountability under the Patriot Act? I'd like to follow up on this to at least try to estimate how many cases there are today. If at all possible, I'd like to know if it even remotely possible to discover any injustices occurring. Justice is, after all, the purpose of all this. Right?

Links:

THE SECRET FISA COURT: RUBBER STAMPING ON RIGHTS
Secret court meets to consider Justice Department appeal
Secret court gives U.S. gov't wiretap powers
Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft
Secret court may limit government power to spy on domestic terror

These links aren't in chronological order, and I obtained them using a simple

Good point Sir. But hasn't the US imposed its values on other countries?

Iraq will soon be a democracy because you didn't like dictatorships. Chile became a dictatorship because you didn't like a left-wing president.

It's not only that, Sir. You have even violated the Intellectual Property Act. You tried to extradite an Australian under the similar regulations. And let's not forget the Byrd Ammendment

Sir, your government has shown over and over again that it is nothing but nasty playground bully, and shown great contempt and disregard towards the wishes of other sovereign nations.

But fear not, sir. Empires rise. Empires fall. The taller they stand, the harder they fall.

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It is interesting to note a few things about it. If anyone has ever studied in Japan, particualrly at University level you will notice that many foreign students are from other Asian countries. In the past the majority of people were from Western countries. This is a direct result of Japan trying to improve its status in Asia (most other Asian still hate the Japanese). Also it is easier for students from Asian countries to get funding. This is nothing but a cynical attempt but Japanese authorities to "buy" improved Asian relations.

There is an interesting debate on Japan Today

The example I stated above maybe somewhat hard to prove, but you only have to talk to decedents of the Koreans left in Japan after WWII and the treatment and humiliation they suffer, even the ones who where born and have lived all their lives in Japan.

Of course this also reflects poorly in Korea, which also shuned such Koreans after the war.

Speaking from an Australian POV while it is harder these days to get a visa for Australia is still easier than getting one for Japan.

I certainly concided that racisism is rampart in many countries...

A market for underpants

There might be good money in not washing them.

Transpost product homepage (Japanese w/ pictures) at Hitachi Human Interaction Lab.

Other products from this laboratory include Waterscape (English).

I guess the Army will be buying a couple of these to prototype their little "robotic minion" projects out on.

Shame it's not programmable, it'd be a great U.S. Wonderborg.

The thing that gets me, is the tying of products to regions.

On one hand, we have all the big media companies pushing for uniform (and to them, highly favourable) IP laws around the world. On the other, they engage in what is essentially price fixing by charging differing amounts in different markets, and then seeking technical and legal means to prevent the free trade of their own products.

This current story would be a storm in a tea cup if there were no issues in importing games from other regions.

Highlighting this sort of hypocrisy is the recent move in Japan of the music publishing industry to restrict through changes in copyright law the importation of CDs of Japanese artists' music from overseas. These CDs, containing pretty much the same music, sell for a third to a half the cost in South Korea and Taiwan, and after importation, can be about 1000 yen (circa US$10) in Japan. How did these CDs get to be printed legally? Because these very same companies sell the rights to do so to the foreign publishers in the first place.

It must be great to have enough money that you can buy laws that grant you even more.

there's also no way you could fly it in a building to destroy said building

Maglev can't crash into anything except the train station or another train. Perhaps remote control would work, assuming that terrorists could never take over or hack into the control center......

French TGV does 515 km/h.

In regular service it doesn't. It can only manage those kind of speeds when given a nice straight, level track, consist of only one set of cars and isn't carrying any passengers/freight.

This is still quite an achievement though when you figure that the fastest maglev only went 560 km/s. Theoretically the "no ground friction" thing should give a significant edge to maglevs. But then at those speeds air resistance becomes the main factor. Plus TGV is a much more mature technology.

You know how, whenever you go to the zoo, you see the monkeys throwing feces?

I wonder if it's a good idea to have your monkey carrying your pack full of grenades.

On the other hand, perhaps we can train the monkeys to throw the grenades at the bad people. Even a stupid monkey could see who's wearing a turban. More effective than the bat bombs, I'm thinking.

I found this on Google: "Egyptian investigators who probed the 1999 crash of Egyptair Flight 990 in which 217 people were killed privately agreed with the U.S. view that it was probably caused by the co-pilot committing suicide, Newsweek magazine reported on Saturday." Sept. 3, 2001

Subaru has offered OnStar since 2001

For those people who can't be bothered to read the article, one of the main points was that:

A record 3 million people around the world are now studying the Japanese language, compared with only 127,000 in 1997, according to the Japan Foundation and Tokyo's Marubeni Research Institute.

So, in other words, there is a measurable increase in the cultural cachet of Japan, it's not just a static, ongoing event. And it's not just about manga and anime, but food (sushi restaurants are now ubiquitous in any large city), and jrock/jpop, the prime examples of which are Glay, KinKi Kids, Puffy (known in the US as Puffy AmiYumi so as to avoid confusion with a certain hiphop impresario), Hamasaki Ayumi, the New York born Utada Hikaru and Morning Musume, a group of currently 15 girls that form the most well known part of a pop empire.

Furthermore, even anime seems to be taking up an ever larger bite of the US Cartoon Network's schedule and the traditional Saturday Morning/after-school children's fare. It's even made a few recent ventures into wide release cinema in the US.

However, one could argue, I think persuasively, that's Japan's cultural upswing is part of a larger trend in the Asia-fication of Western culture. What started with egg foo yung and chop suey has now branched out to shabu-shabu and kimchi. What began with Speed Racer and Godzilla has developed into Princess Mononoke, cosplay and Shaolin Soccer.

>> You dont need nuclear weapons for that. Look at Japan. Heck even cuba doesnt have nuclear weapons. They all manage to stand up to US "bullying". And now after being nuclear power also, successive Indian govts vie (with pakistan) to be "better friend" of US rather than saying anything against their "bullying tactics".

Japan is virtually a colony of the west. Their constitution (whose drafting was overseen by the US) does not allow their military an offensive role, so they depend on the US for their external security. They have a colonial mindset where everything American and Western is preferred and many of their women prefer caucasian men
Cuba only survives because Castro has been extremely quiet after the fall of the Soviet Union and the US has bigger things to worry about.

>> There were many reports pointing the lack of safety in Indian nuclear power plants including some official/semiofficial agency report.
You mean like this, this, this, this, this or this?

Krishna

NTT and other companies have already been offering 100Mbs fiberoptic lines to homes in Japan for quite awhile now.

The best part is it's cheap, They usually cost a little more than $40 a month.

Of course, it's still twice the price of 12Mbs ADSL lines in Japan like Yahoo BB who offers 12Mbs speed for $21/month. Not that most people would know what to do with 100Mbs anyways (except for some stuff that RIAA doesn't really approve of).

NTT and other companies have already been offering 100Mbs fiberoptic lines to homes in Japan for quite awhile now.

The best part is it's cheap,
They usually cost a little more than $40 a month.

Of course, it's still twice the price of 12Mbs ADSL lines in Japan like Yahoo BB who offers 12Mbs speed for $21/month. Most people don't know what to do with 100Mbs anyways.

wonderful world, isn't it? How many years before we can't publish this kind of stuff on magzines?

You can Google just like anyone else...

I don't keep links to random articles I read on the Net...

Here's the CBS News "intelligence garbage" link I found with a two-minute Google search.

It took a little longer to find this Japanese newspaper article on Scott Ritter's comments on the mobile weapons labs. BTW, since Ritter is supposedly compromised for having accepted $400K from an Iraqi to produce a documentatry, it should be pointed out that the current chief inspector, Blix, has also said they've never found any evidence of such vehicles.

I go to a number of sites for "news" news; I find that the "same" news is very different coming from different countries:
BBC News, which everyone's familiar with;
CNN, the epitome of US government-sanctioned news;
The Economist, of course;
The Times of London,
Japan Today,
Pravda,
The Beijing Review,
Le Monde, and
The Tehran Times

...and a couple of sites for tech and science news:
EurekAlert, a great site for science and medicine press releases,
the former, but still running, Hacker News Network,
BottomQuark,
the phenomenal journal Nature,
Science magazine,
and, of course, The Source.

Some good comics, most of which you will all know, but which I love; here are a couple you might not know:
Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet, a comic that actually features a female sysadmin/techgoddess, and
Bateman Political cartoons, a fun political comic updated regularly.

And, of course, take a look at my sig... Click every day.

Also have a look at this comment from Bruce Perens and this comment from Eric S. Raymond from when the same thing happened in USA nearly two years ago.

-Filik.

Also have a look at this comment from Bruce Perens and this comment from Eric S. Raymond from when the same thing happened in USA nearly two years ago.

-Filik.

I never thought to look up the word until you posted that...

From Jeffrey's Japanese{-}English Dictionary Server:

mainichi
(n-adv,n-t) every day; (P)

(BTW, this site is a good place to go if you want to see the kana for an English word.)

MDN is one of the two Japanese news sites I go to, along with Japan Today. MDN is more into WaiWai and shocking news, while JapanToday covers a wider range of news topics, and has comment sections for just about everything they post, from quotes to pictures to news of the day.

This article talks about a new system that calls/emails your cell phone when there is a break-in, fire or other emergency in your home. Selecting the link displays webcam images of inside your house.

Sure, with a lot of hacking you could set up a similar system here but nobody's put together the full package yet. (AFAIK)

I haven't been able to find pictures-- but an article is available here. No pics, though.
(should have previewed that last post. sorry)

Saturday, April 20, 2002

Japan's plutonium stockpile alarming

Andrew Monahan

A prominent Japanese politician remarked last week that Japan could easily make thousands of nuclear weapons, drawing on the vast plutonium reserves from its civil nuclear power program.

Liberal Party President Ichiro Ozawa made the remarks in a speech delivered in Fukuoka, and said that he had made similar comments to the visiting deputy chief of staff of the Liberation Army of China.

"If China gets too conceited, the Japanese will get hysterical," the provocatively-inclined Ozawa said. It could encourage conservatives more aggressively nationalistic than himself to pursue a nuclear weapons program to counter the Chinese threat.

He later insisted that he had merely intended to warn against excessive Chinese military buildup, and that he himself would view a nuclear arms race between the two Asian powers as "a tragedy for both countries."

Ozawa is a politician who captured the public imagination in the early 1990s, both in Japan and abroad, with his book "Blueprint for a New Japan," that rightly advocated an array of forward looking political and economic policies that a decade and a faltering reformist poster-boy prime minister later, Japan still badly needs to implement.

The incident, however, typifies a self-defeating tendency of some Japanese leaders, who speak menacingly about the consequences of perceived future threats, while leaving the historical fact of past unprovoked Japanese aggression largely silent. Such antics illustrate the surest way to fail in achieving a Japan divested of its former hindrances.

The Chinese People's Daily ran an unusually measured, strong criticism of Ozawa's bluster, dismissing the politician as out of touch with the anti-nuclear sentiment of his own country, a sentiment that translated into electoral-power makes points concerning weapons capability moot. China and Japan's other Asian neighbors, furthermore, could be counted on, diplomatically, to nip a weapons program in the bud.

The merest hint of any possible revival of Japanese militarism plays very poorly from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur, among all the countries Japan depends on for a wealth of trade and human capital. These countries still smolder with indignation over past Japanese aggressions and the continuing Japanese refusal to thoroughly acknowledge those crimes.

Tellingly, the People's Daily article on Ozawa ran beside another article detailing a recent contribution of forty-one photos to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, otherwise known as the Rape of Nanjing, and startlingly not known at all among some segments of the Japanese youth, kept ignorant by leaders who turn history textbooks into exercises in revisionism.

The newly donated photos, like the exhibit on the Nanjing Massacre that opened last December at San Francisco's St Mary's Cathedral and then toured other U.S. cities, document exactly what politicians like Ozawa should want the young Japanese to acknowledge and vow clearly never to repeat.

Blueprints bypassing any trace of this past cannot lead to a new Japan, or at least not to the strong and internationally involved Japan that Ozawa, myself, and many others would like.

For the moment, though, we had better not wait for the old guard of the Japanese political elite to have a change of heart. Their shortcomings will likely pass when they themselves pass from power.

Ozawa's comments, however, highlight a more pressing problem: Japan's huge plutonium stockpile. If the political life of the revisionist right in Japan seems long, consider the 24,000-year half-life of plutonium.

Japan's first encounter with this extremely toxic element came in the horrific bombing of Nagasaki on Aug 9, 1945. Unlike the uranium bomb that had been dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier, the Nagasaki bomb was made with plutonium. The 6.2 kilograms used in that bomb, however, pale in comparison to the 30,000-plus kilograms that Japan has accumulated through its plutonium-based civil power production program.

This plutonium could, as Ozawa noted, be used for nuclear weapons. It poses a huge threat to nuclear proliferation, as only a small quantity is necessary to produce a bomb. It is an easy target for terrorist groups, who covet it, stolen or purchased on the black market.

Certainly bureaucratic inertia, more than any sinister or secretive design, keeps the uneconomical and dangerous plutonium program alive, if but barely. Nonetheless, it compromises Japan's status as a key nation in the nonproliferation regime at a crucial moment.

Ozawa and others rightly recognize a Chinese nuclear buildup as undesirable, but the problem demands more than knee-jerk reactionism. Suspicions over the plutonium program already run high, and politicians here are mistaken to think that wielding such suspicions as a deterrent will work.

A better approach is suggested by the former director of the Nuclear Energy Division of the Foreign Ministry, Kumao Kaneko, who has been a leading spokesperson for the move to create a EURATOM equivalent in Asia.

This ASIATOM would likewise function to allay anxieties in the region over the proliferation concerns of the member nations' nuclear materials and facilities involved in civic programs, including of course Japan's. It would aim to include operable inspection and verification machinery to pave the way for the confidence necessary to establish a nuclear-free zone in the area.

Constructive Japanese moves in this direction, coupled with thorough apologies for its destructive past, would assuage Asian anxiety, and substantially elevate Japan's diplomatic voice.

Such a voice, if only leaders braver than Ozawa can assume it, will have the strength to challenge the silence, and offer instead the good sense to support an international system that seeks to prevent another Nanjing or Hiroshima from occurring.

The writer is a Fulbright Fellow at the Institute for Peace Science in Hiroshima.

April 17, 2002

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