February 2009 – Page 5 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

A birthday present for Charles Darwin

WOODS HOLE — A federal appeals court recently upheld a ruling from a lower court that dismissed a lawsuit from a former Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researcher, who claimed he was unjustly fired for not believing in evolution.

Nathaniel Abraham, who was hired as a postdoctoral investigator in fall 2004 for his expertise in working with zebrafish, sued WHOI for discrimination in 2007. Abraham claimed he was fired after admitting he was a Christian who believes in creationism and the infallible word of God.

However, WHOI officials told the Times that Abraham’s job description clearly stated he would have to apply evolutionary theory in reviewing the results of research.

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit in April 2008 because Abraham did not file his discrimination claim within three years of being fired.

On Jan. 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

Abraham’s last known job was teaching biology at Liberty University in Virginia, a college founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Academic freedom is a grand thing, but to deserve academic freedon, one should probably be doing academics-and of course fulfilling the actual job description one agreed to when hired. As a personal note, I’ve spent a lot of time near the WHIO, located in Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Massechusets as Woods Hole is a division of Falmouth, where my father’s parents used to live when I was a child, and where my father now owns a second house. The aquarium was a lot of fun as a kid, as well as the tiny bridge that opens for passing ships, which I thought was the coolest thing ever when I was small enough for the bridge to seem big.

Japanese Fashion

The Atlantic decides to illustration their article on the evolution of mainstream Japanese fashion with a photograph of three girls dressed so oddly that even the random passers-by in the background are clearly gawking at them.

Dubai’s downfall just as spectacular as its rise

NYT has a report on the situation in Dubai:

With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.
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“Why is Abu Dhabi allowing its neighbor to have its international reputation trashed, when it could bail out Dubai’s banks and restore confidence?” said Christopher M. Davidson, who predicted the current crisis in “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success,” a book published last year. “Perhaps the plan is to centralize the U.A.E.” under Abu Dhabi’s control, he mused, in a move that would sharply curtail Dubai’s independence and perhaps change its signature freewheeling style.
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But Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi or nearby Qatar and Saudi Arabia, does not have its own oil, and had built its reputation on real estate, finance and tourism. Now, many expatriates here talk about Dubai as though it were a con game all along. Lurid rumors spread quickly: the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s trademark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches come out.

Also, check this video from German TV (in English, via The Big Picture):

In a world full of knowledge, there is no more excuse for ignorance!

Friday food for thought: I think a lot of people didn’t really need a university study to tell them that some people are just wilfully ignorant. But just in case you needed proof, here is an article from last month:

Robert Proctor doesn’t think so. A historian of science at Stanford, Proctor points out that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed: Ignorance increases.

He has developed a word inspired by this trend: agnotology. Derived from the Greek root agnosis, it is “the study of culturally constructed ignorance.”

As Proctor argues, when society doesn’t know something, it’s often because special interests work hard to create confusion. Anti-Obama groups likely spent millions insisting he’s a Muslim; church groups have shelled out even more pushing creationism. The oil and auto industries carefully seed doubt about the causes of global warming. And when the dust settles, society knows less than it did before.

…Maybe the Internet itself has inherently agnotological side effects. People graze all day on information tailored to their existing worldview. And when bloggers or talking heads actually engage in debate, it often consists of pelting one another with mutually contradictory studies they’ve Googled: “Greenland’s ice shield is melting 10 years ahead of schedule!” vs. “The sun is cooling down and Earth is getting colder!”

I notice this all the time. On the one hand, Wikipedia has effectively made asking people questions obsolete — for any given factual question, Wiki is almost always going to give you a more reliable answer (with sources!) than any of your friends. And Google Maps and the like have destroyed the art of giving directions.

But at the same time, the human mind has an instinct to filter out unnecessary information. Sometimes you just have to ignore stuff you don’t care about, but at other times, for example, I find myself subconsciously avoiding looking up the history of bands, and the only reason I can think of is that I like believing in the image of the band better than I would knowing the actual facts.

Coming soon: Europe to Haneda?

It looks like the legal framework is now in place for flights between Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and the Netherlands. As mentioned in this space last year, the Japanese government has been pushing the notion that Haneda can replace Narita during late night and early morning hours as the capital’s terminal for long-range international flights, and this pairing seems to be the first beneficiary of the idea.

For those detached from the airline industry, KLM (the Netherlands’ main airline) is now owned by Air France, and has been partnered for something like 15 years with Northwest (the #3 international carrier in Tokyo) which is now owned by Delta. Haneda-Amsterdam service could be a boon for the AFKLDLNW bloc in securing a more solid position among frequent business travelers to Tokyo. JAL might be interested in the route as well, but they wouldn’t have the benefit of intra-European feed that KLM enjoys.

Fake investment update

On Dec 22, 2008, I announced that my good friend Dork Yenbuyer and I decided to go all in and invest our life savings in the asset of our choosing, his being yen and mine oil. To recap, here are our initial investments:

– Mr. Yenbuyer invested USD $10,000 at an exchange rate of USD $1 = JPY 89.81 and received 898,100 yen.

– I bought 233 barrels of oil at $42.96/barrel, also a $10,000 investment.

Today, here is where we would be if we immediately liquidated our positions:

– Yenbuyer: at a rate of 89.92, he is down about $12 or a value of $9987.77

– I am not doing nearly so well: 233 barrels of oil at the current price of 35.82 = $8346.06.

How are the prospects?

The yen continues to look good:

The Economist notes that forces appear aligned in favor of further yen appreciation. The article quotes former finance ministry bigwig Eisuke Sakakibara predicting that once the rate hits 85, it “will trigger a wave of stop-loss orders, sending the exchange rate quickly to ¥80 or even ¥75,” precipitating crisis response by the government to intervene, possibly in concert with the US and other G7 nations.

Oil, on the other hand, not so much. With demand likely down for the full year, prices seem to hang on whether OPEC will seriously cut production:

Tough decisions ahead

Despite oil’s record slide from $147 last year to the sub-$40 level, as production cut by OPEC is not a simple matter. Historically, when the market has been oversupplied and the price trend is bearish, some OPEC member become reluctant to cut production, in order to maintain needed revenue to fund government spending, Felson said. That tactic to maintain revenue at all costs has historically driven prices even lower, as was the case in 1997-1999. Hence, those who assume that $30 represents a floor for oil, are assuming incorrectly, he said.

“So far, it looks like a repeat of the late-1990s market. If anything, the pressure to continue to pump oil may be greater now, given the large increase in social spending many OPEC nations undertook during the oil price boom. But the reality is that OPEC must cut production now, or else,” Felson said. “If OPEC doesn’t cut again, we will see prices fall into the mid-$20 range.”

METI rushes to adopt anti-SLAM policies

When you are trade minister and the economy is in trouble, the last thing you need is to get SLAMMED!!!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

ANALYSIS: Exit Strategy Needed As Govt Role Expands

TOKYO (Nikkei)–The Japanese government is becoming more active in combating the ongoing downturn, and while such efforts might be necessary, an exit strategy must be formed so that the economy is eventually able to thrive without life support.

The government is under immense pressure to take action amid the crisis. In early January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) hastily created a program to inject public funds into nonfinancial firms. Late last year, METI was flooded with complaints — not only from small and midsize companies, but also from big ones — about the difficulty of securing loans from banks and fundraising through the issuance of corporate paper and bonds.
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The trend toward greater state involvement seems clear in Japan, with ruling-coalition lawmakers and business leaders now calling on the government to save jobs.

“Speed is essential,” said METI Minister Toshihiro Nikai. “Unless we do something now, we will be slammed (by criticism).”
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Private-sector activity is essential to healthy markets. Without an exit strategy, the Japanese government and the BOJ will find it difficult to withdraw to their proper supporting roles, and the Japanese economy will be worse for it in the long run.

Given that the current crisis is arguably the worst since the Great Depression, the government and BOJ likely have little choice but to take action.

I realize this is a semi-serious argument against how offering protection to industry over short-term concerns could crowd out the private sector and possibly lead to a deleterious trade war. But Nikai has it wrong — come September at the latest, the LDP is going to get totally SLAMMED no matter what.

And weren’t “the Japanese government and the BOJ” already fulfilling a fairly intrusive role in the Japanese “markets”? Sure, many of the lost decade/Koizumi-era programs had been put to rest, but not that long ago. Japan remains full of so-called “zombie” companies kept afloat by previous bank bailouts and the like, but these new measures outlined in this article would presumably create a new breed of these – companies that would be insolvent without direct government support (or indirect through government-mandated loans). So while I share the Nikkei’s concern that the government of Japan will soon essentially become the “main bank” of a sizable number of companies, I just want to mention that rather than going from a state of being merely in a “supporting role” to an active role, these measures appear to push the GOJ from an already pretty active role to a very active role.

German expats in Thailand discuss Japan’s “charisma ones”

Machine-translated from the “Schoenes? Thailand” forum:

RATIO:

Which Bruno over Frodo says in such a way meets in some will coincidence also on me

Rear Schnacker, make for you not too much nen thick head, everyone must these “are I also like that?” Moment have, because there is ne quantity of Paralellen to have with the men the Asian friends, from Thailand to North Korea.

I had mean moment, when I am discovered a blog, in which a Japanese over its view on men write, who have a Japanese friend. Unfortunately I do not find the left any longer, at that time but I noted the most important points (with those some also to me to apply) more fuer to mean blog, did not gepostet her then however, because the whole topic somehow too negatively rueberkam:

1. The men came to Japan in a recent age and them come around this journey as part of the arising becoming to use.

2. They became acquainted with your wife in Japan and not in its homeland.

3. Most speaking very well Japanese, it prefer the society of Japanese, since they can impress these easily to be simply only thereby foreigners. They fall themselves into that learn the language.

4. Few of them had ever a western friend.

5 most of you has very negative stereotyped ones over western women.

6. however very positive opposite Japanese women, above all these is as feminine.

7. Many are arrogant and have large problems if their ideas and opinions are contradicted.

8. They may not other western foreigners and compare their language abilities and its cultural knowledge permanently with these over unterschwellig say them would be better.

Is to be become “gotten” always dumb and in generalizing Characteristika be recognized.

Interesting about also charisma one https://www.mutantfrog.com/2007/02/22/superman-meets-charisma-man/

A Comic over Canadian loose, which mutates in Japan to the Supercasanova.

Greeting:
Ben

Tokyo-based scammers targeting gullible UK investors in Nigerian-style scam

This is pretty shady, but I wonder if they are really even in Tokyo?

Phil, a Financial Mail on Sunday reader from Berkshire, was contacted by Calderton Capital Partners, a Tokyo firm that offers investment advice as well as acting as middlemen in mergers and acquisitions.

Calderton had some good news for Phil. It wanted to buy his holding of shares in a small American company called TBXR, and it was willing to pay $130,000 (about £90,000). This priced his holding of just over 31,000 shares at more than $4 apiece – even though the last time Phil had checked the shares were closer to five cents (less than 4p). Still, it was certainly a generous offer. In fact, it topped the almost equally generous offer made to another reader, John from Cheshire, who was also contacted from Tokyo.

This time the contact came from a firm called Cook Capital Partners, and the caller told a curious story. John held shares in an American company called Accupoll that had filed for bankruptcy in 2006. But the caller said Accupoll had been taken over by a different company, Rudy Nutrition, and he represented a bidder who was willing to pay over $98,000 (about £68,000) for John’s shares.

Cook Capital Partners certainly seems to be a busy firm. At the same time as contacting John, it was also in touch with another Financial Mail on Sunday reader, Roger, wanting to buy his shares in yet another company, Genmed Holding Corporation.

And this was the biggest offer of them all – a mouthwatering $240,000 (£166,000) for shares that Roger had every reason to believe were actually worthless!

Now for the snags. Roger, John and Phil were all told that the shares they held carried a legal restriction that stopped the deal going through. But the good news was this restriction could be removed, if they paid legal fees up front.
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The up-front fees were not quite the only snags though. According to investigators at Japan’s watchdog Financial Services Agency, Cook Capital Partners is a scam. It is not registered with the FSA or licensed to carry out shares deals. There is even doubt that it is actually at its Tokyo address and telephone number.

Wow