I seem to be coming late to the party, but the amazing Wikiscanner has started to take its toll on the Japanese-language Internet thanks to a nice Japanese version of the site:

– Yomiuri reports that Wikiscanner has found that among other things the health labor and welfare ministry and the education ministry have edited articles on themselves and Diet member Nagatsuma (claiming he exploits his stance to make money on the national pension scandal). The rest of the article explains the concept of an IP address for anyone who is smart enough to make it into the government but dumb enough not to know that people can tell what you do online. – Kikko uses the emergence of this tool to make a rant and rave over the inaccuracies in her own entry, but makes the following commentary on the Yomiuri article:

So to sum up, looking at this web news article, I was angry to see that the MIC edited the “electronic voting” article to make the government look good, that the education ministry deleted a passage about the scandal surrounding former Tax Commission Chairman Masaaki Honma, or that the health labor and welfare ministry wrote bad things about DPJ Diet member Akira Nagatsuma, but it made sense just because that’s what they would do. What puzzled me was why someone in the agriculture ministry made a massive amount of edits to the entry on Gundam. We can tell it was accessed during work hours because of the MAFF IP address, but it has zero to do with government administration and could only have come from a Gundam maniac. And this guy is using the people’s tax money to play around on the Internet! So maybe we should find out his name and write a Wikipedia entry saying “He is a ridiculous civil servant who accesses Wikipedia from MAFF computers during work hours and plays around with the Japanese people’s tax money.” (lol)

– JCAST notes that NHK has been making lots and lots of edits to a wide range of subjects and whines that they are wasting too much time editing Wikipedia for “personal” use.

So with all the buzz, I thought I would take a stab at seeing what sort of edits Japanese IPs have been making. Feel free to try at home!

– Mainichi Shimbun – In the English Wikipedia, Mainichi has edited the post on “MOTTAINAI” a term it has been promoting (in the face of much MF skepticism). This only deepens my suspicions at the cynical Japanese media-government collusion attempting to turn this word into some kind of soft-power buzz word. – People at LDP headquarters are fans of rakugo and J-Pop singer Minako Honda (“Japan’s Madonna”), ego-Wiki, and delete a mention of the involvement with the LDP of someone in the Nagasaki local TV for reasons I can’t possibly understand.

... Someone at Dentsu changed the height of an actress by one centimeter. That is the attention to detail that keeps these guys on top.

... A second look shows almost 300 edits from Dentsu. A rundown:

A line was added to the entry for Calbee (a potato chip company) on the new president/CEO Yasuo Nakata. Previous: “He is the first head of the company from outside the founding [Matsuo] family.” Now after that, “However, Nakata is well-known in the IT industry as a CIO. He also serves as an external director of Autobacs, a car part retailer listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.”

They added this to the entry for Kirin Beverages: “Starting in Feb 2006, the company started a new Internet shopping business “markers” an experiment with Internet business including selling items other than beverages.” Oh, I wonder whose idea that was?

Lots of minor adjustments to musicians’ discographies, etc.

Multiple edits to the ‘list of fictional diseases’

More possible ego-editing to the page for “media creator” and former Dentsu-man Masahiko Sato

Special attention paid to the AIDMAS “Attention / Interest / Desire / Memory / Action / Share” theory of Internet marketing

...and a bunch of edits to pages for people that I’ve never heard of…

OK, we can do this TPMuckraker style. Search the site and tell us what you find! Things I want to look at at some point: Johnny’s, Yoshimoto Kogyo, Scientology, Soka Gakkai, other media institutions (Nikkei, Asahi, Sankei to name a few) and on and on… I am sure 2ch has it all in there somewhere.

OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I was looking around in the awesome retro video collections of the Internet Archive and thought I would re-watch what actually is my favorite film of the educational short film genre.

Edit: Flash doesn’t seem to be working, so try this link here.

Whale watching tourists encountered hunters in waters off northern Japan and witnessed the bloody killing of a Baird’s Beaked Whale, a report said Saturday.

—”Bloody whale hunt off Japan shocks tourists” (AFP)

From where else but Taiwan:

Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey juggles rings in Honduras yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA

I’ve posted on this before and I guess it’s kind of old news, but check out Captain Japan’s gripping description of a recent visit:

Inside this 25-table eatery of hermit kingdom blandness, slim and fair-skinned North Korean waitresses sing, dance in teams, and play violin in between serving a mix of Asian fare to customers who are afforded a zoo-like peek inside the illicit dining room of Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.

“I enjoy this job so much,” said one of the attendants, who like her comrades speaks a bit of English and Chinese, about working in Cambodia’s capital.
...
As cigarette smoke fills the air above each table, Korean firewater like the grain alcohol Jinro soju and draft Tiger beer are standards for washing down such menu items as beef rib soup ($10), roasted pork ribs ($9), and roasted eel ($15) – selections that do not match the mushrooms and grasses of foreign-correspondent lore, and considering a typical monthly wage for a government worker in Phnom Penh might only be $50 a month, such prices are quite high.

The stage show, which is the main attraction, starts at 8 p.m. One waitress, who like her sisters has been trained at an arts college in North Korea, will run through a karaoke number into the reverb-challenged sound system mounted on a small platform pushed into a corner. A duet, perhaps a slightly hip-shaking version of “Let it Be,” might follow. Customers are then encouraged to take their best shot at any of the thousands of English titles or Communist classics in the library. Finishing the set is a rather rousing violin and synthesizer piece.
...
The dance numbers get the most applause from the customers, who will pack each table on Friday and Saturday nights. With a backdrop of gold drapes adorned in tassels, the gals line up, spin and flail their arms in near perfect military-like unison to synthesizer accompaniment over a brown tiled floor.

Such uniformity seems to be stressed: shoe heels have been trimmed, giving the appearance of identical height; narrow mirrors are mounted intermittently between the windows to ensure that hair bows can be slightly adjusted while out on the floor; and housing on the property of the restaurant ensure that the girls room together. But lighter moments are possible, such as before the shop’s 11 a.m. opening, when the ladies can be seen happily folding moist towels and exercising their vocal chords.
...
In the northern Cambodian city of Siem Reap, where the majestic temples of the Angkor Wat complex are found, a sister restaurant operates under the same business model. And like the Phnom Penh outlet, which is slightly smaller and a year older, profits are funneled back to North Korea’s coffers. Similar properties have sprouted across Asia, including outlets in China, Thailand, and a fast-food variation in Vietnam.

Is adjusting shoe height (as Kim Jong Il is notorious for doing) some kind of virtue in North Korea? Check out the rest for awesome photos.

Here’s some video footage:

While I am sure most of you are watching the LDP get trounced by the DPJ in today’s upper house election (just as I predicted, of course), I just wanted to let you know that this isn’t the only election happening today (thanks to ZAKZAK):

Elections in North Korea, too? A Sunday election with no losers and 99.8% voter turnout.

On July 29, an election will take place in North Korea. However, with a voter turnout of 99.8%, just one candidate for each election district, and no writing implements to vote with, it would be better described as a “ceremony” than an election.

North Korea uses single-member election districts similar to Japan’s, but there is no proportional representation because of the de facto dominance by the Worker’s Party of Korea. Citizens can vote from age 17, and in this election provincial, city, and county representatives will be selected. On August 3, an election will be held to select members of the Supreme People’s Assembly (NK’s parliament), in which even dictator Kim Jong Il (age 65) will run as a candidate. Kim has won a consecutive 5 terms in office starting in 1982 (but of course, none of the “candidates” ever actually lose in this election).

An unnamed private researcher explains: “The election form says ‘I vote affirmatively to make X a representative’ and if the voter agrees, he/she simply places the vote in the box. The rules state that you are to place an X on the election form if you disagree, but they do not provide any writing implements at the election office.”

There are supposedly more than 600 members of the SPA, but the election districts are listed by number and do not specify which region the candidate is supposed to represent. Neither are voters informed who the candidates are before the election, so it makes no difference to the voters who is in office.

Kim’s election district changes each time: for example, in 1998 he ran in the “Korean People’s Army 666th Electoral District.”

Kazuo Miyazuka, a professor at Yamanashi Gakuin University who is familiar with NK’s internal situation, notes “Since 100% of the voters vote affirmatively, this is not an election at all. It is a chance to test whether the people will faithfully participate and is used as a way to dominate the people.”

I was looking up some statistics on the Ministry of Justice website tonight and, just for kicks, decided to take a look at their “How to Interpret a Gaijin Card” poster. I noticed this rather odd item on page two: it’s possible to get a gaijin card even if you don’t have a status of residence. Odd, because the only way to get to Japan without a status of residence is to hide on a boat or an airplane.

The MOJ’s explanation (in the fine print to the right) is that foreigners have to register even if they have no status of residence. Of course, foreigners have to have a status of residence just to be in Japan (even if it is as a “temporary visitor” on a visa waiver).

So I’m puzzled: why bother issuing gaijin cards to people who shouldn’t be in the country in the first place?

 Description Stuffed to the brim with wool, very soft and cuddle friendly. Mutant frog lady is a toy perfect for the office cubicle or even a tot(adult supervised of course.)

Ingredients:
wool felt, Barbie limbs, buttons, cotton thread, mohair, wool, Barbie face

This monstrous crime against human and frog kind alike can, tragically, be purchased here.