That must have been really rough and worse being a kid. Not sure what the right phrase is, but you have my sympathies. If it's any consolation, it gave the industry the kick it needed to make sure it didn't happen again.
Anon Poster: Check the MIT link. They say Mode S with a mod can carry GPS data. From the link: "The GPS Squitter has taken [Mode S], added more bits and in those bits, transmits information as derived from GPS.'' The Mode S extended squitter was demonstrated by Lincoln Labs and the FAA in Boston and the Gulf of Mexico in 1994, and is one of three candidates being considered by the FAA for ADS-B."
Mode-S a very nifty datalink system that uniquely identified aircraft and can beam all sorts of useful traffic and navigation information. It was designed *WAY BACK* in 1975, only to be ignored by the FAA (the airlines the FAA works for didn't want pay for it). So they ignored it until a mid-air collision in 1986 woke up Congress, who mandated it in 1993. ADS-B (the Popular Mechanics article seems to be describing) AFAIK uses Mode-S to broadcast your aircraft's position using Mode-S, but the FAA have started shutting down Mode S transmitters 'because the safety benefits are not worth the cost'. Nice idea, but I hope it doesn't take another costly "wake up call".
> The RIAA has added 23 new colleges and universities to its hit list, but deliberately omitted Harvard, apparently afraid of the reaction it's likely to get there, having been told by 2 Harvard law professors to take a hike.
So I lawyers trained at Harvard Law Degree are pretty sharp. All it took from them was a sternly written letter back, presumably quoting the L.A.W..
Colleges that cave-in should consider, what sort of a message does it send prospective students? "Get your law degree with us, and you too can learn how to fold like a wimp" Probably not the best places to learn about Constitutional Rights.
> These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes.
This is nuts. Literally. Trained Squirrels? All they'll find is nut stashes along the border and maybe get some squirrel p0rn.
Do they really think these Squirrels will run around with little binoculars searching for WMDs? Someone has been watching too much Rocky and Bulwinkle.
> I swear this place is becoming more and more like Digg everyday.
Like Digg, Slashdotters vote which stories to run http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl so its a popularity thing. I've submitted some stories I thought were relevant and interesting to Slashdot's mission, but it's hard to get them run. If you don't get a lot of people voting for you quickly, you drop off. Ok: The R2D2 was borderline, but the academic study on narcissistic YouTube/MySpace isn't the sort of thing people want to hear: They'd rather hear the Tech-equivalent of Paris Hilton stories.
Takes maybe 20 minutes to submit a story to Slashdot: you need to write something postable, gather and cross-check background links, preview until it reads right and submit. Most of the time, your story won't run. That's just the way it is on a democratic news site. When you see ill-researched stuff like this get voted to the head of the queue, hmmmm....
As for this particular story, you're right: His claims are a flimsy. Doesn't tell us what he was doing, and he hasn't even resized the peer guardian window so we can see what the port numbers were. If he was running BitTorrent, that'd explain it. Haliburton is a vast corporation, and I bet there, even on ECT (Evil Company Time) some employees run BitTorrent. Does the guy really think the United Nation Development Program cares what he's running on his PC? More so some UN worker is experiencing the joys of capitalist bittorrent. The Hei Long Education network means China isn't as closed off from the world as you'd think. Maybe that would be a better story?
Cool. Cisco screws up, iPhone gets blamed, but nobody minds, because iPhones are so cool.
Boss: "Did you get those reports done?" Underling: "Sorry Boss, I Couldn't. iPhone Congestion." Boss: "iPhone?... (smiles) iPhones are cool aren't they!" Underling: "They sure are boss!"
Boss wanders off feeling good. Underling returns to screwing around with his iPhone.
> The university's ResNet website states that, 'Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is against the law. If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever. No second notices, no excuses, no refunds.
We've already seen that anyone outside the U.S can send a bogus DMCA takedown notice without penalty. Not often the US passes laws that prosecute Americans and give non-Americans free reign but there you go. Here are two recent cases showing how easy it is:
Now Kansas University has said they'll shut down students account if *anyone* sends a DMCA notice, with right of appeal. So if someone outside the US was to take the University's mailing list and generate a bogus DMCA notice for each one, the entire University would voluntarily shut itself down. This hole in DMCA has been suggested before, so it's hardly new.
Who dreamed up this nonsense? Didn't they think it through to its logical conclusion? Don't Universities teach critical thinking? I mean, Double Duh.
I went there http://www.openlibrary.org/toc.html. All I can see is maybe 20 book covers, most of them too small to read. There's no search tab or way to search the entire library (which AFAIK could be only 20 books anyway). The 'Table of Contents' tab is a list of sponsors, not books. There is a link to upload books, but that's it. This is how *not* to design a web site. If this is all they have, forget it. If this is a 20 book technology demonstrator, they're about to learn the 'Marimba' lesson: You only get one chance.
You'll do far better with Project Guttenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page has thousands of books, and (WOW!) the ability to search by author or title. If only OpenLibrary.org had thought of that...
Consider what happened with the SONY rootkit? Bruce Schneier (Cryptography and Security Expert) reported that Symantec and McAfee who both knew about the SONY rootkit did not add it to their signatures file. Apparently if SONY hacks your computer, that's fine with them! They only updated their files once SONY themselves had retracted the rootkit. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/sony s_drm_rootk.html
If Symantec and McAfee will let SONY hack your PC, they'll let the government hack your PC.
Can anyone recommend a virus scanner that looks after the customer rather than the virus companies one-day maybe potential business partners if they get lucky?
Hmmmmm... an article about two corrupt Republicans, but your joke "i don't hate all republicans. just the corrupt ones" is somehow modded Offtopic? Was funny for me anyway:-)
As for Poor Senator 'Tubes', seek inspiration. Ask yourself, "Now what would Scooter do?"
> The basic reasoning is that if someone who injured you offers to pay you what your claim is worth, you should take it. If you don't accept the offer, you should have to pay him for the trouble you cause to HIM by not taking his reasonable offer.
I am intrigued by this posters ideas, and would like to subscribe to their newsletter, but being an anonymous coward I have no forwarding address.
Question: Is this a real principle of the they are quoting? (or something they made up?)
> If by "important politician" you mean Class A war criminal, you are absolutely right.
Huh? Now you've attracted my attention:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi says "Until 1948, Kishi was imprisoned as a Class A war criminal.... Shintaro Abe is Kishi's son-in-law, and his child Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister, is Kishi's grandson."
Eeek!!!!!!!! Well, I've wondered about Abe's extremist views and how he could justify them. There you have it: Brainwashed as a child. Richard Dawkins says 11 out of 12 kids stick with their parent's religion, when in theory at age 18 they should choose their own. This is the political equivalent.
Wasn't critizing the US Electoral College. Rather was pointing out it's not that different from a Parliamentary Democracy: In both cases you elect a proxy and the leader is elected through the proxy. The previous poster said Abe wasn't elected by Japanese Voters because Japan is a Parliamentary Democracy. I said if you claim that, you should equally claim Americans don't elect their President either. Just gluing back together a split hair:-)
> You're quite right. I live in Japan at the moment, and as far as I can tell, Japan is barely a democracy. There's one party that always gets elected and decides everything, and the average person neither cares nor talks about politics.
In much of the West, there are two parties which between then always get elected and decide everything. We act like we have a choice, but I'm not so sure. Millions of people in the US, the UK and Australia marched against the war, and our leaders took us to war anyway. Not really a democracy either, but we feel better if we call it that.
> That doesn't mean people don't have a sense of civic duty; au contraire, they're very active in the nighbourhood and in their kids' schools.
A friend who works in Japan noted to me in the West the Government cleans the pavement. In Japan, the shopkeepers clean the pavement in front of their shop. Either way, the street is cleaned, and perhaps even better and more often.
> Japan's culture is different, and I suspect it's the possibility of public shame and humiliation that restrains corruption -- the minister who recently committed suicide over what in the West would be a minor scandal comes to mind.
The Japanese concept of admitting a mistake and taking responsibility is pretty nice. It works too, because the people you apologize to accept it and everyone gets on with their lives. By comparison, apologizing in the West is seen as an admission of liability. It's said that Japan has more flower arrangers than it has lawyers, and the flower arrangers can get better results:-)
> The people don't seem to "believe" in democracy, "making their vote matter", or foisting their views on others; they simply live and let live, and I think that's a healthier attitude than many people in the West have, who seem to think life is all about politics and electing a government that gives you what you want.
> There is constant political and election coverage of election on the web (try Yahoo, etc. which have whole sites dedicated to election info.) Only political candidates are banned from updating their web pages. There is not suddenly a blanket thrown over the entire Japanese internet media.
I doubt news sites will be writing opinion pieces on the views of every candidate standing. A lot will remain unheard. It would be best if they could write it themselves, and the web would have been a good way for candidates to get their views to the voters they are trying to court, without having them "filtered" by a news site. Especially so since young people in Japan are very "wired" by world standards.
> There is constant political and election coverage in newspapers. How did you forget about those? As I recall, Japan has the highest newspaper readership in the world.
The Japanese media, both TV and print, are shy of controversy. The (English Language) Japan Times, which does occasionally tread on toes, is an unusual newspaper by Japanese standards.
> 3) There is a lot of political and election coverage on television.
Only if they're being watched. I've lived in households where neither news or current affairs never graced the screen.
> 4) Contrary to what you state, the purpose of posters and election vans is surely not to provide insight > into a politician's campaign platform. They are merely for publicity--the extremely annoying but more > sanitary and time-efficient Japanese equivalent of shaking hands and kissing babies.
Posters+Loudspeakers (esp without policies) are useless. It's a photo and annoying loudspeaker that tells you nothing about the candidate. Western baby kissing is equally useless, but they can at least voice their policies.
> 5) The LDP has indeed been the dominant power in Japanese politics since WWII, but you must realize that the LDP is a collection of competing factions with different political views that ***run candidates against each other***. In addition to all of these competing factions within the LDP, there are currently five other parties who have members in either the Upper or Lower House of the Diet.
All parties have factions, and like I said I don't pretend the west is any better: Republicans and Democrats have far more similarities than they have differences.
> 6) Japanese people may not talk about politics with YOU, but you can't necessarily misconstrue this as a lack of interest (especially on the part of older people). Voter turnout in Japan is consistently higher than in America. 67.5% in 2005, 56.4% in 2004.
Without laying my life story bare for you, let's say I have it on good authority. Japanese people don't sit around and talk politics. Why waste time discussing what you can't change?
> 7) No, of course Abe didn't get elected. At least not by the public. He's a *prime minister*, not a *president*. But don't act like he was just appointed by the LDP out of the blue. He was elected by the Diet (each member of which was elected by the public). You're confusing his role as prime minister with his role as president of the LDP. The two are not the same. This doesn't change the fact that he's a miserable bastard and a terrible leader, but you're absolutely wrong on your charges.
You're splitting hairs: Remember in the US people vote for an electoral college who in turn choose the President. Is that to say the President isn't elected either? Now in a Parliamentary Democracy, you vote for your local representative who is a member of the political party who in turn votes for someone from that political party to head it. Different names, but same animal.
It would be fair to say Koizumi, despite his foibles, *was* elected and at the time, he espoused a vision that got people excited. He stepped down, not because he wanted to go, but because of a power sharing arrangement that said he had to give Shinzo Abe a go. Ah Shinzo... I don't even think his mama is excited about him.
I've been in Japan at election time. There's a distinct lack of information to go off:
* You'll find each neighborhood plastered with election posters from 30 or so candidates. These show the candidate grinning or looking stern, their name and a 'Vote for Tanaka'.
* Election Vans drive around the neighborhood saying 'I am Tanaka. I am Tanaka. Please Vote for me. I am Tanaka. I am Tanaka. Please Vote for me. I am Tanaka. I am Tanaka. Please Vote for me.' These annoy the crap out of everyone.
* That's all folks! Try making your choice off of that!
* Websites would have given a place for some intelligent debate, because you get nothing from the above. If you watch NHK's News Hour you will get some reasonably intelligent analysis, but for local issues you have to rely on the local stations and they do next to no politics. If your household watches the variety show or the kids want to watch anime channels instead, you'll get no information at all.
* There's only one real party: The LDP. Sure, there are fringe parties, but apart from one glitch (quickly) corrected the LDP have always held power. (Don't get too cocky: In the US the Republicans and Democrats are pretty similar. Last Election both Pro-War and Pro-Big Business.)
* Most Japanese don't talk politics. They've realized it doesn't make a difference. They try and carve out a living and hope the politicians leave them alone (Again don't get cocky. The hours you spend sitting around shooting the breeze with your buddies might feel good, but ultimately makes no difference either.)
* There's a big disaster looming in Japan because the pension system has been paying out more than is coming in. This has been known for 20 years, but no one has had the guts to do anything about it. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to Save Japan? He's going to make sure children know how to use chopsticks. Other than that, he's done nothing. How did Abe get elected? He didn't. The LDP appointed him. His Grandpa was an important politician and now it's "his turn".
> I have written both my senators and my congressman about this issue. Looking at that link you posted it > turns out that my congressman and one senator take money from the RIAA. I was going to call them as save > internet radio suggests, makes wonder if I should even bother. But it does give me one more things to say.
It's all RIAA/MPAA-manufactured crap to convince shill politicians to pass pro-MPAA/RIAA laws. Here's a story published in Australia yesterday accusing it of the same thing:
Slashdot Mirror
That must have been really rough and worse being a kid. Not sure what the right phrase is, but you have my sympathies. If it's any consolation, it gave the industry the kick it needed to make sure it didn't happen again.
Anon Poster: Check the MIT link. They say Mode S with a mod can carry GPS data. From the link: "The GPS Squitter has taken [Mode S], added more bits and in those bits, transmits information as derived from GPS.'' The Mode S extended squitter was demonstrated by Lincoln Labs and the FAA in Boston and the Gulf of Mexico in 1994, and is one of three candidates being considered by the FAA for ADS-B."
OP asks "Is this the right way to handle the botnet problem? Is hijacking DNS legal?""
A good question. Let me check for you.... Hang on... looking up Time Warner's Bank Balance. Uh huh... HOLY COW!
In answer to your question, yes, DNS hijacking is most definitely legal.
Mode-S a very nifty datalink system that uniquely identified aircraft and can beam all sorts of useful traffic and navigation information. It was designed *WAY BACK* in 1975, only to be ignored by the FAA (the airlines the FAA works for didn't want pay for it). So they ignored it until a mid-air collision in 1986 woke up Congress, who mandated it in 1993. ADS-B (the Popular Mechanics article seems to be describing) AFAIK uses Mode-S to broadcast your aircraft's position using Mode-S, but the FAA have started shutting down Mode S transmitters 'because the safety benefits are not worth the cost'. Nice idea, but I hope it doesn't take another costly "wake up call".
y .html http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/air_traffic/tis.html http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2005/051020 mode.html http://www.avionicswest.com/myviewpoint/modestrans ponder.htm
http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/mode-s/toda
Lots of technogibberish here: Hey, Wiley! When are you writing "Air Traffic Control for Dummies"?
> The RIAA has added 23 new colleges and universities to its hit list, but deliberately omitted Harvard, apparently afraid of the reaction it's likely to get there, having been told by 2 Harvard law professors to take a hike.
So I lawyers trained at Harvard Law Degree are pretty sharp. All it took from them was a sternly written letter back, presumably quoting the L.A.W..
Colleges that cave-in should consider, what sort of a message does it send prospective students? "Get your law degree with us, and you too can learn how to fold like a wimp" Probably not the best places to learn about Constitutional Rights.
> These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes.
This is nuts. Literally. Trained Squirrels? All they'll find is nut stashes along the border and maybe get some squirrel p0rn.
Do they really think these Squirrels will run around with little binoculars searching for WMDs? Someone has been watching too much Rocky and Bulwinkle.
> I swear this place is becoming more and more like Digg everyday.
Like Digg, Slashdotters vote which stories to run http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl so its a popularity thing. I've submitted some stories I thought were relevant and interesting to Slashdot's mission, but it's hard to get them run. If you don't get a lot of people voting for you quickly, you drop off. Ok: The R2D2 was borderline, but the academic study on narcissistic YouTube/MySpace isn't the sort of thing people want to hear: They'd rather hear the Tech-equivalent of Paris Hilton stories.
Takes maybe 20 minutes to submit a story to Slashdot: you need to write something postable, gather and cross-check background links, preview until it reads right and submit. Most of the time, your story won't run. That's just the way it is on a democratic news site. When you see ill-researched stuff like this get voted to the head of the queue, hmmmm....
As for this particular story, you're right: His claims are a flimsy. Doesn't tell us what he was doing, and he hasn't even resized the peer guardian window so we can see what the port numbers were. If he was running BitTorrent, that'd explain it. Haliburton is a vast corporation, and I bet there, even on ECT (Evil Company Time) some employees run BitTorrent. Does the guy really think the United Nation Development Program cares what he's running on his PC? More so some UN worker is experiencing the joys of capitalist bittorrent. The Hei Long Education network means China isn't as closed off from the world as you'd think. Maybe that would be a better story?
Cool. Cisco screws up, iPhone gets blamed, but nobody minds, because iPhones are so cool.
... (smiles) iPhones are cool aren't they!"
Boss: "Did you get those reports done?"
Underling: "Sorry Boss, I Couldn't. iPhone Congestion."
Boss: "iPhone?
Underling: "They sure are boss!"
Boss wanders off feeling good.
Underling returns to screwing around with his iPhone.
> The university's ResNet website states that, 'Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is against the law. If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever. No second notices, no excuses, no refunds.
, 21563838-27317,00.html0 70329_001882.html
We've already seen that anyone outside the U.S can send a bogus DMCA takedown notice without penalty. Not often the US passes laws that prosecute Americans and give non-Americans free reign but there you go. Here are two recent cases showing how easy it is:
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20
Now Kansas University has said they'll shut down students account if *anyone* sends a DMCA notice, with right of appeal. So if someone outside the US was to take the University's mailing list and generate a bogus DMCA notice for each one, the
entire University would voluntarily shut itself down. This hole in DMCA has been suggested before, so it's hardly new.
Who dreamed up this nonsense? Didn't they think it through to its logical conclusion? Don't Universities teach critical thinking? I mean, Double Duh.
I went there http://www.openlibrary.org/toc.html. All I can see is maybe 20 book covers, most of them too small to read. There's no search tab or way to search the entire library (which AFAIK could be only 20 books anyway). The 'Table of Contents' tab is a list of sponsors, not books. There is a link to upload books, but that's it. This is how *not* to design a web site. If this is all they have, forget it. If this is a 20 book technology demonstrator, they're about to learn the 'Marimba' lesson: You only get one chance.
You'll do far better with Project Guttenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page has thousands of books, and (WOW!) the ability to search by author or title. If only OpenLibrary.org had thought of that...
Easily solved: Someone repeat their experiment and see if what they claim checks out.
Consider what happened with the SONY rootkit? Bruce Schneier (Cryptography and Security Expert) reported that Symantec and McAfee who both knew about the SONY rootkit did not add it to their signatures file. Apparently if SONY hacks your computer, that's fine with them! They only updated their files once SONY themselves had retracted the rootkit. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/sony s_drm_rootk.html
If Symantec and McAfee will let SONY hack your PC, they'll let the government hack your PC.
Can anyone recommend a virus scanner that looks after the customer rather than the virus companies one-day maybe potential business partners if they get lucky?
Hey thanks. It was meant to be funny. Guess the grumpy people are the ones who still don't have their iPhones yet? :-)
Troll? Someone got out of the wrong side of bed today! ;-)
Years from now people will look back and honor the day when Steve Jobs invented the telephone.
Hmmmmm... an article about two corrupt Republicans, but your joke "i don't hate all republicans. just the corrupt ones" is somehow modded Offtopic? Was funny for me anyway :-)
As for Poor Senator 'Tubes', seek inspiration. Ask yourself, "Now what would Scooter do?"
> The basic reasoning is that if someone who injured you offers to pay you what your claim is worth, you should take it. If you don't accept the offer, you should have to pay him for the trouble you cause to HIM by not taking his reasonable offer.
I am intrigued by this posters ideas, and would like to subscribe to their newsletter, but being an anonymous coward I have no forwarding address.
Question: Is this a real principle of the they are quoting? (or something they made up?)
> If by "important politician" you mean Class A war criminal, you are absolutely right.
... Shintaro Abe is Kishi's son-in-law, and his child Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister, is Kishi's grandson."
Huh? Now you've attracted my attention:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi says "Until 1948, Kishi was imprisoned as a Class A war criminal.
Eeek!!!!!!!! Well, I've wondered about Abe's extremist views and how he could justify them. There you have it: Brainwashed as a child. Richard Dawkins says 11 out of 12 kids stick with their parent's religion, when in theory at age 18 they should choose their own. This is the political equivalent.
Wasn't critizing the US Electoral College. Rather was pointing out it's not that different from a Parliamentary Democracy: In both cases you elect a proxy and the leader is elected through the proxy. The previous poster said Abe wasn't elected by Japanese Voters because Japan is a Parliamentary Democracy. I said if you claim that, you should equally claim Americans don't elect their President either. Just gluing back together a split hair :-)
> You're quite right. I live in Japan at the moment, and as far as I can tell, Japan is barely a democracy. There's one party that always gets elected and decides everything, and the average person neither cares nor talks about politics.
:-)
In much of the West, there are two parties which between then always get elected and decide everything. We act like we have a choice, but I'm not so sure. Millions of people in the US, the UK and Australia marched against the war, and our leaders took us to war anyway. Not really a democracy either, but we feel better if we call it that.
> That doesn't mean people don't have a sense of civic duty; au contraire, they're very active in the nighbourhood and in their kids' schools.
A friend who works in Japan noted to me in the West the Government cleans the pavement. In Japan, the shopkeepers clean the pavement in front of their shop. Either way, the street is cleaned, and perhaps even better and more often.
> Japan's culture is different, and I suspect it's the possibility of public shame and humiliation that restrains corruption -- the minister who recently committed suicide over what in the West would be a minor scandal comes to mind.
The Japanese concept of admitting a mistake and taking responsibility is pretty nice. It works too, because the people you apologize to accept it and everyone gets on with their lives. By comparison, apologizing in the West is seen as an admission of liability. It's said that Japan has more flower arrangers than it has lawyers, and the flower arrangers can get better results
> The people don't seem to "believe" in democracy, "making their vote matter", or foisting their views on others; they simply live and let live, and I think that's a healthier attitude than many people in the West have, who seem to think life is all about politics and electing a government that gives you what you want.
Amen.
On the bright side, if you choose to remain ignorant the anime is pretty good. :-) http://animesuki.com/
> There is constant political and election coverage of election on the web (try Yahoo, etc. which have whole sites dedicated to election info.) Only political candidates are banned from updating their web pages. There is not suddenly a blanket thrown over the entire Japanese internet media.
I doubt news sites will be writing opinion pieces on the views of every candidate standing. A lot will remain unheard. It would be best if they could write it themselves, and the web would have been a good way for candidates to get their views to the voters they are trying to court, without having them "filtered" by a news site. Especially so since young people in Japan are very "wired" by world standards.
> There is constant political and election coverage in newspapers. How did you forget about those? As I recall, Japan has the highest newspaper readership in the world.
The Japanese media, both TV and print, are shy of controversy. The (English Language) Japan Times, which does occasionally tread on toes, is an unusual newspaper by Japanese standards.
> 3) There is a lot of political and election coverage on television.
Only if they're being watched. I've lived in households where neither news or current affairs never graced the screen.
> 4) Contrary to what you state, the purpose of posters and election vans is surely not to provide insight
> into a politician's campaign platform. They are merely for publicity--the extremely annoying but more
> sanitary and time-efficient Japanese equivalent of shaking hands and kissing babies.
Posters+Loudspeakers (esp without policies) are useless. It's a photo and annoying loudspeaker that tells you nothing about the candidate. Western baby kissing is equally useless, but they can at least voice their policies.
> 5) The LDP has indeed been the dominant power in Japanese politics since WWII, but you must realize that the LDP is a collection of competing factions with different political views that ***run candidates against each other***. In addition to all of these competing factions within the LDP, there are currently five other parties who have members in either the Upper or Lower House of the Diet.
All parties have factions, and like I said I don't pretend the west is any better: Republicans and Democrats have far more similarities than they have differences.
> 6) Japanese people may not talk about politics with YOU, but you can't necessarily misconstrue this as a lack of interest (especially on the part of older people). Voter turnout in Japan is consistently higher than in America. 67.5% in 2005, 56.4% in 2004.
Without laying my life story bare for you, let's say I have it on good authority. Japanese people don't sit around and talk politics. Why waste time discussing what you can't change?
> 7) No, of course Abe didn't get elected. At least not by the public. He's a *prime minister*, not a *president*. But don't act like he was just appointed by the LDP out of the blue. He was elected by the Diet (each member of which was elected by the public). You're confusing his role as prime minister with his role as president of the LDP. The two are not the same. This doesn't change the fact that he's a miserable bastard and a terrible leader, but you're absolutely wrong on your charges.
You're splitting hairs: Remember in the US people vote for an electoral college who in turn choose the President. Is that to say the President isn't elected either? Now in a Parliamentary Democracy, you vote for your local representative who is a member of the political party who in turn votes for someone from that political party to head it. Different names, but same animal.
It would be fair to say Koizumi, despite his foibles, *was* elected and at the time, he espoused a vision that got people excited. He stepped down, not because he wanted to go, but because of a power sharing arrangement that said he had to give Shinzo Abe a go. Ah Shinzo... I don't even think his mama is excited about him.
I've been in Japan at election time. There's a distinct lack of information to go off:
* You'll find each neighborhood plastered with election posters from 30 or so candidates. These show the candidate grinning or looking stern, their name and a 'Vote for Tanaka'.
* Election Vans drive around the neighborhood saying 'I am Tanaka. I am Tanaka. Please Vote for me. I am Tanaka. I am Tanaka. Please Vote for me. I am Tanaka. I am Tanaka. Please Vote for me.' These annoy the crap out of everyone.
* That's all folks! Try making your choice off of that!
* Websites would have given a place for some intelligent debate, because you get nothing from the above. If you watch NHK's News Hour you will get some reasonably intelligent analysis, but for local issues you have to rely on the local stations and they do next to no politics. If your household watches the variety show or the kids want to watch anime channels instead, you'll get no information at all.
* There's only one real party: The LDP. Sure, there are fringe parties, but apart from one glitch (quickly) corrected the LDP have always held power. (Don't get too cocky: In the US the Republicans and Democrats are pretty similar. Last Election both Pro-War and Pro-Big Business.)
* Most Japanese don't talk politics. They've realized it doesn't make a difference. They try and carve out a living and hope the politicians leave them alone (Again don't get cocky. The hours you spend sitting around shooting the breeze with your buddies might feel good, but ultimately makes no difference either.)
* There's a big disaster looming in Japan because the pension system has been paying out more than is coming in. This has been known for 20 years, but no one has had the guts to do anything about it. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to Save Japan? He's going to make sure children know how to use chopsticks. Other than that, he's done nothing. How did Abe get elected? He didn't. The LDP appointed him. His Grandpa was an important politician and now it's "his turn".
> I have written both my senators and my congressman about this issue. Looking at that link you posted it
1 .html http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-14-1 .html
> turns out that my congressman and one senator take money from the RIAA. I was going to call them as save
> internet radio suggests, makes wonder if I should even bother. But it does give me one more things to say.
It's not a Democracy unless you speak up. If more people did this, real people, not just lobbyists and corporations, the world would be a better place. Now at least his office will know somewhere out there is a contrary opinion. I doubt the RIAA bothers to tell the other side, which Orson Scott Card summarized so nicely here: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-
> There's a few, shall we say... urgent matters that need to be holding their attention right now.
a merica/contact-information-for-50-politicians-who- take-campaign-money-from-the-riaa-264638.php
Let's see.
Senate's recent accomplishments:
* Voted not to Vote on the Immigration Reform Bill
* Voted not to Vote on firing Alberto "I don't recall" Gonzales
Congress' recent accomplishments:
* Passed another 'Get out of Iraq' Bill that the President has already said he'll veto.
No, they've got time to do this. Congress may have received half a million messages. I'd suggest the Webcasters get their audience to donate to a fund that will in turn donate to these politicians who accepted money from the RIAA. It would make the point beautifully. http://consumerist.com/consumer/worst-company-in-
It's all RIAA/MPAA-manufactured crap to convince shill politicians to pass pro-MPAA/RIAA laws. Here's a story published in Australia yesterday accusing it of the same thing:
l ike-us/2007/07/11/1183833529685.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-music/pirates-
China has the right idea. Keep a steamroller mothballed, ready to pull out for the bi-annual "Drive over some CDs" Show.