Author: Joe Jones

Ishihara: “Grow some balls and stop hitting on robots”

That’s the gist of his latest interview. Maybe he just wanted to make the otaku cry.

If you go out in the world, it’s filled with sensitivity, and it’s much more interesting. For example, there is no fun in seducing a female robot who only acts in a certain way. But it’s fun to seduce a human, because you can only predict, but not know what will really happen. When it comes to seducing, it is fun to think how you can successfully reach the heart of the target.

Lest you be misled, he still knows where Japan’s strengths lie:

My plan for the Olympics is to fully utilize robot and computer technology. For example, it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea to have Astro Boy fly with the Olympic torch.

At least it didn’t have liquid in it

Copyright be damned, this one is best in its entirety:

Man accused of telling US airport security penis pump was a bomb

CHICAGO (AP) — Prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately did not want her to know he had packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey.

So he told security it was a bomb, officials said.

Madin Azad Amin was stopped by officials on Aug. 16 after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade, prosecutors said.

When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb, said Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Lorraine Scaduto.

He later told officials he lied about the item because his mother was nearby and he did not want her to hear that it was part of a penis pump, Scaduto said.

Amin has been charged with felony disorderly conduct, said Andrew Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Amin faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

UPDATE: What actually happened was that he tried to say “pump” in a really bad Arabic accent and it came out sounding like “bomb.”

Google: Not for Japan

A while back I noted the superiority of Yahoo over Google for mapping Japan. Nowadays, I find that I have to keep both Google and Yahoo Japan as home pages because there are a lot of things that Google hasn’t yet figured out how to do. For instance:

  • Very few of Google’s products interface well with Japanese mobile phones. Take Google Calendar. It can only send alerts to Gmail, or to a U.S. mobile phone by SMS. Yahoo, on the other hand, can send alerts to any e-mail address, including my phone’s (both the English and Japanese versions of Yahoo are capable of this). Yes, Google Calendar is shinier-looking, and the ability to automatically pull events from e-mails is pretty cool, but how hard can it be to broaden the e-mail alert function?
  • Also, maybe it’s just my phone, but Gmail and other mobile Google sites almost never display properly on it–they either get moji-baked or they fail to load entirely.
  • I keep Tokyo weather on my Google home page, and half of the time, it’s totally wrong–i.e., the system doesn’t know whether it’s day or night, or thinks that it’s 100°F outside when it’s really 80°.
  • Google Finance, Google News, etc. are incapable of telling me how the Nikkei is doing. Granted, this is a two-way problem, as I can’t see the Dow on Yahoo Japan either–in fact, the only website I know that can seamlessly provide both is good ol’ Bloomberg. (Love you guys!)

I know Google is busy saving the world and all that, but can’t they save the world for people outside the U.S., too? Sheesh, guys, get off your high hammocks and get with the picture.

Asahi at its best

Today’s left-wing text-blob of hate:

Our 54-year old Auckland resident made his fortune in a housing related business back in Shikoku. There was a time when he felt a certain pride that the money he paid in taxes went to support his homeland, to provide education and build roads.

But he became disillusioned when growing budget deficits dried up cash flows to rural areas such as Shikoku.

It increasingly became apparent that all resources, be it people, things or money, got sucked up by Tokyo and big corporations.

Awww! All the money this guy made from his corporation ended up going to someone else’s bigger corporation? Shucks. He just needed to be friendlier with politicians. (Or, y’know, aim his marketing at Tokyo and big corporations to “suck” the money back.)

Our Japanese fails us

I’m back from my trip with Lord Curzon and will be posting some pictures in the coming days. This tidbit, however, just couldn’t wait:

On Wednesday, rather than take a bus around the peninsula to catch our ferry to Hakodate, we decided to hitchhike straight through the mountains. This turned out to be pretty strenuous, as nobody was going all the way to our destination, so we had to thumb five rides and do a lot of walking in between.

The last car to pick us up was an aging four-door occupied by three thuggish-looking guys with buzz cuts. As we zoomed up the coast, headed for the very northern tip of Honshu, the driver opened up the conversation something like this:

DRIVER: Where you guys from?
CURZON: America.
DRIVER: Ha ha! Oh! You heard about Koizumi going to Yasukuni?
CURZON: (knowing smile) Oh, yes.
DRIVER: (more nervously) Heh heh… (awkward silence)

After they dropped us off at the ferry terminal, I remarked to Curzon: “It’s a pity we don’t know how to say ‘fuck yeah!’ in Japanese.”

To the far end of the island, and the near end of the next

Lord Curzon and I are going on a little trip next week. His ultimate plan is to trek around the north side of Hokkaido by bicycle. Unfortunately, being all about the benjamins, I don’t have an extra two weeks to spare for that part. Instead, I’ll be accompanying Curzon on the first leg of our trip, from Tokyo through the northern tip of Honshu and into Hokkaido.

Our itinerary will find us visiting Aomori (population 300,000), Mutsu (population 50,000), Osorezan (a volcano traditionally believed to be an entrance to Hell), the miniscule port of Oma (population 6,000), and finally Hakodate (population 300,000–thank God, I was starting to feel lonely). From Hakodate, Curzon will continue on up through Hokkaido while I head back to Tokyo by train, seeing half of Japan in the process.

Aso’s plan to de-Shintoize Yasukuni

Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who is still trying to become the next prime minister despite not having a snowball’s chance in hell, has a new plan to save Japan. He reckons that by taking the gods out of Yasukuni, the Emperor will be able to visit and none of those pesky lawsuits will have any standing. The English report:

Aso, known as a diplomatic hawk who has offended China and South Korea with remarks in the past, said his plan was not aimed at mollifying foreign countries. Instead, he hopes to resolve a domestic debate that flares up whenever a Japanese leader visits the shrine and has prevented the emperor from going there since 14 “Class A” war criminals were added to the lists of those honored at the shrine in 1978.

“It’s about expressing our respect and gratitude for those who died for their country and praying for the peace of the souls of those who died…without all this fuss,” Aso told a news conference.

“The tens of thousands of soldiers who died crying ‘Long Life to the Emperor’ filled those words with deep emotion,” Aso said in a statement outlining his idea. “So I strongly pray that the emperor can visit Yasukuni.”

Yomiuri Shimbun’s blurb says that the strategy to pull this off goes roughly as follows:

  1. Dissolve the religious foundation that administers Yasukuni and set up a new private foundation (zaidan hojin) to run the shrine.
  2. By special act of the Diet, establish a special corporation to administer Yasukuni.
  3. Most amusingly, change the shrine’s official name to 靖国社 – removing the character for “god” in the word “shrine.”

Adding to the craziness of this scheme, Yomiuri mentions at the end of its article that Aso wants this process implemented for all of the “gokoku jinja”—a group of 52 shrines scattered across Japan enshrining those from the area who died at war–“regional Yasukunis,” so to speak.

Needless to say, if you can’t de-enshrine war criminals, it’s gonna be tough to de-Shintoize Yasukuni (and, for that matter, 52 other shrines).

Just in case you’re worried, Aso still does not have enough support to run and hasn’t officially announced his candidacy yet. UPDATE 8/10: I spoke too soon. Muddafugga gots his twenty. Looks like he’s announcing later this month.

The hiragana fad continues

First it was みずほ銀行 (Mizuho Bank), then it was さいたま市 (Saitama City). Now the word is that two of the new companies coming out of the postal privatization will be ゆうちょ銀行 (Yucho Bank) and かんぽ生命保険 (Kampo Life Insurance).

What is it with hiragana names these days? Have I studied kanji for so long, only to have the language be dumbed down before my eyes?

Hirohito’s Yasukuni issues, and whether they mean anything today

A memo drafted by the late Emperor Hirohito’s secretary in 1988 indicates that Hirohito purposefully stopped his visits to Yasukuni Shrine after Class A war criminals were added to its list in 1978. Hirohito had visited the shrine eight times between 1945 and 1978, but mysteriously stopped after that, and nobody was ever sure exactly why (although the implication was obvious enough).

After this news broke on Thursday, both Koizumi and potential successor Shinzo Abe stated that they would not change their personal Yasukuni policies, Koizumi characterizing it as an “issue of the heart” and Abe questioning the authoritativeness of the “personal” memo.

This might have seemed like a boon for Yasuo Fukuda, the only major contender for Koizumi’s throne to clearly oppose visiting Yasukuni, but then, just to make things more ridiculous, he decided not to run on Friday night. This makes the race a pretty one-sided game for Abe: while Taku Yamasaki and Koichi Kato continue to lead the opposition to Koizumi and Abe within the LDP, their support is not nearly broad enough at this point to stop Abe from winning the party election in September.

So do Hirohito’s opinions mean anything in today’s Japan? Well, they can certainly be used as ammunition for the anti-Koizumi guns, but they’re certainly not enough to pierce his armor. And if Abe’s current behavior is any indication, it will take better ammunition to bring him down as well.