Author: Saru

A solution to the U.S.-China trade deficit?

With the successful launch and return of the Shenozhou 6 earlier this week, China is in the grips of space fever. And like most other things Chinese these days, it hasn’t taken long for someone to figure out how to make a buck/RMB/yen/Euro.

The Taipei Times is running a story today with the headline:

“US company begins selling lunar land rights to Chinese.”

A US company has set up operations in China to sell land on the moon for 115 yuan (US$15) a hectare, cashing in on renewed interest in space travel after the successful five-day voyage of Shenzhou VI.

The so-called Lunar Embassy, touted as the first extraterrestrial estate agency, started operations on Wednesday in Beijing, the China Daily reported.

It will issue customers a “certificate” that ensures property ownership, including rights to use the land and minerals up to 3km underground, said Li Jie, agent for the company in China.

“We define it as a kind of novelty gift with the potential of unlimited increase in value,” said Li.

Lunar Embassy was set up by US entrepreneur Dennis Hope in 1980, 11 years after the Apollo II mission first landed on the moon.

Hope believes a loophole in the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty makes his sales legitimate. The agreement forbids governments from owning extraterrestrial property but fails to mention corporations or individuals.

Apparenly, it isn’t just the Chinese that are buying. According to the article, over 3.5 million customers have been served a little slice of the lunar pie, and Hope has branches in 7 other coutries, including the US, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

I have no idea on what basis this guy thinks he can claim the moon on a commerical basis, but there is one interesting plot twist:

The company could run into problems in China, though, with the Chaoyang District branch of Beijing’s Administration for Industry and Commerce launching an investigation.

The Beijing News cited Chaoyang bureau staff as saying sale of land on the moon was not listed as the company’s business when it was registered.

I wonder how much longer it will be before we have a headline that reads: “Chinese company begins selling lunar land rights domesically.”

Wasting one of the world’s highest literacy rates?

In case the original book wasn’t mindnumbingly simple enough for you, it seems that a manga version of Kanehara Hitomi’s Hebi ni Piasu has been released.

Hebi Manga

I know that this book received tons of attention in Japan when it, along with Wataya Risa’s Keritai Senaka was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in early 2004, but after reading it in Bungei Shunju that March, my initial impresison was (and for the most part still is): publicity stunt.

Reading this recent post over at Japundit hasn’t given me cause for greater optimism. I know we’re admonished not to judge a book by it’s cover, but when a 13 year old kid wins a national literary award for a work called Kono Misteri ga sugoi, it’s time to start asking questions about the national intelligence quotient.

I think it is a wonderful idea to encourage the budding literary talents of Japanese youth, but are you telling me that the best Japan has to offer is in the first grade? At least one person seems to think so. The post links to a Yomiuri story (Aptly titled “Teen writers steal spotlight / Veterans worried publishers putting businessbefore talent”) has Shinji Inagaki, chief editor of Shogakukan’s literature section saying this:

“Young people in their teens and 20s, who have been said to be aliterate, are actually quite adept at reading and writing text messages on their cell phone. Their desire for creativity is strong,” he said.

Text messaging = creative drive???!!!

Fortunately, not everyone in the entire Japanese population appears quite so deluded as suggested by the article’s mention of declining sales figures. Let’s hope this trend, like most others in Japan, is short lived.

Chinese capitalism in action

From the BBC:

‘Babies for sale’ on Chinese eBay

Chinese police are investigating a report of attempted baby trafficking on an internet auction site, according to a state-owned newspaper.

The advertisement was reportedly placed on eBay’s Chinese website, Eachnet.

Boys were advertised for 28,000 yuan ($3,450) while girls were offered for 13,000 yuan ($1,603), Eachnet manager Tang Lei told the China Daily.

The offer could have been a hoax, but it comes as baby trafficking is seen as an increasing problem in China.

Bush to meet with Godless heathen?

Today the Taipei Times is running a story with the headline: “Dalai Lama to visit Bush ahead of his trip to China.”

So, I start wondering: Would Bush really meet with the Dalai Lama this close to his first official visit to China? We all know how snarky the Chinese can get when you provoke them. (And the Japanese may as well forget about restarting talks over the East China Sea dispute.)

Before I could go any further, I’ve got the link open only to discover:

Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is to make a high-profile 10-day visit to Washington next month, during which he is expected to meet with US President George W. Bush, a rights group said.

Rights group? Oh, you must mean the International Campaign for Tibet, the organization that keeps President Bush’s schedule.

The article contines:

The 70-year-old Dalai Lama’s itinerary during the Washington visit beginning Nov. 8 “anticipates likely meetings with US President George Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other key Congressional leaders,” the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.

After finishing the article, I noticed it was a feed from AFP, so I ran a Yahoo! News search. Turns out all the other outlets who ran the AFP story ran it under the headline, “Dalai Lama set for high profile Washington visit, may meet Bush.”

Nobody saw this one coming (UPDATED 10/21/05)

Update: I was obviously kidding about the comment below that, “all Chinese and Koreans should at all times maintain attitudes of extreme outrage towards the past aggressions of the Japanese and express these attitudes verbally, physically, and if possible even through pantomime.”

However, I attended a meeting a few days ago in which a Chinese academic suggested that Japan should, “always show sincere repentence voulnatily, without a time frame.” You could almost smell the smoke rising from the ears of some of the Japanese in the room.

Content from one of three links in MOFA’s latest e-newsletter:

Visit to China by Mr. MACHIMURA Nobutaka, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan

October 18, 2005

With regard to Minister MACHIMURA’s visit to China, a minister in the Embassy of Japan in China was contacted by the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China in the afternoon on 18th October, and the Chinese side informed the Japanese side that it is difficult to receive Minister MACHIMURA in China under the current situation, as the atmosphere is not favorable.

(END)

And since Joe’s last post on Koizumi’s Yasukuni visit attracted so much attention in the comments section, let me just say that I think all Japanese should visit Yasukuni at least three times daily, every single day of the year! And, all Chinese and Koreans should at all times maintain attitudes of extreme outrage towards the past aggressions of the Japanese and express these attitudes verbally, physically, and if possible even through pantomime! And, Rummy should skip Japan on every visit to Asia! And, God doesn’t exist, the death penalty rocks, all abortion should be illegal, and your parents lied to you about Santa.

A survey of frog odorous secretions, their possible functions and phylogenetic significance

That, my gentle reader, is the title of a scientific paper that was yesterday awarded the 2005 Ig Noble Prize in Biology. And what better place to announce it than here on Mutantfrog.com?

Here’s what the abstract has to say about this fascinating inquiry:

This study provides a survey of frog odour (with particular reference to Australian species) and discusses the human perception and classification of frog volatile secretions. Professional and amateur herpetologists were solicited for information on the frogs they perceived as odorous. In addition, volunteers were asked to smell stressed frogs and describe the odour that they perceived. A total of 131 species, representing 30 genera (14 Australian and 16 other) and 11 families were assessed for odour. Odours ranged from pleasant floral aromas (e. g. Notaden spp. and Neobatrachus spp.) through to acrid, repulsive odours (e. g. Litoria alboguttata). The systematic relationships of these odours and their potential biological roles are discussed.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Charging for content

As much as I would like to, I don’t have time right now to go into any deep philosophical musings about cyber-capitalism and online economic opportunity, or how the internet has freed information and charging money for it is against the spirit of blah, blah, blah… So just to be clear from the outset, however much what I’m about to say might or might not reflect my ideological attachments, the real purpose of this post is to let off some steam on a Friday afternoon, and the NYTand Mr. Roubini just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, so to speak. It is emotion talking, not reason, okay?

That said, here it is:

Why did you have to start charging for content!!!!!!!!!!?????????

First, the NYT required registration, which was annoying enough because if you were in a computer lab and just wanted to check one story in a hurry, you had to remember your username and password. If, on the other hand you were always using the same machine, no problem – just have your computer remember your info. That works fine of course, until you go to a computer lab for the first time in ages, or use someone else’s machine to check one story in a hurry and it’s been so long that you have forgotten your username and password (I’ve had mine since around 1996, so this has happened to me a few times.)

Then, all these other journalistic outfits started requiring registration. If you’re a regular reader, this is not such a big problem. But if you follow someone’s blog link to an out of town paper, or one you don’t normally read, then you have to register just to read one lousy article. Well, it’s a good thing that both 12345 and 90210 are actual zip codes, and that most sites will let you in even if you enter your name as “George W. Bush” or “Zamfried Hockenluger.” (And don’t get me started on bastards who want to send your password to the email address you provide before you can sign in.)

Now we have NYT Select. Not that my lone volley of anger is going to hurt something the size of the NYT, but if you think I’m actually going to pay you money to read more M. Dowd or T. Friedman, when I rarely read it for free before you’re crazy. Besides, don’t all those folks make enough money recycling their op-eds in to another book every other year?

As for Mr. Roubini, I loved his blog. It just got better and better. I recommended it to countless people. His onsite reviews are right on the money – “…best economic website in the world.” But $599 a year for a subscription to the Roubini Global Economics Monitor!!!!!

This by no means a personal condemnation of Mr. Roubini. Hell, I would have done the exact same thing. I’ll still read his papers in academic journals or what have you. And I don’t feel guilty for attacking the NYT, because it’s a faceless, evil corporation, bent on destroying all good in the world (I’m kidding, of course). So to redeem myself for my emotional outburst against the spirit of capitalism, I’ll do something that no self-respecting would-be commie would never dream of and just admit the honest truth about my ire: I’m just pissed to have lost access to such a wonderful resource.

McSalothsar’s – I’m not luvin’ it

Ran across a crazy story in today’s Asahi(print edition, so sorry there’s no link) about a restaurant in Phnom Penh that was recently shut down by local authorities for it’s Pol Pot era themed decor and cuisine!

I ran a Google search in English and managed to find a Reuters report from last week that wasn’t quite as good as the Asahi story, but good enough to suffice for the purposes of this post. From Reuters:

Faithful to the Khmer Rouge era… the waitresses are barefoot and clad in the black pyjamas and red-white scarves of the guerrillas.

Speakers blare out tunes celebrating the 1975 toppling of U.S.-backed president General Lon Nol and the walls are adorned with the baskets, hoes and spades Pol Pot hoped would power his jungle-clad south-east Asian homeland to communist prosperity.

PPC

And it gets worse… Having adapted a move that sounds like it came straight out of Robert Mugabe’s playbook (hat tip to Curzon for that one), the owners are actually plugging their cafe’s appetizing menu of “rice water and leaves” as a way to lose weight!

Recognising that many tourists might not be able to stomach such a close brush with the Killing Fields, the “Khmer Rouge Experience Cafe” is also promoting itself to those wishing to shed a few pounds.

“It’s good for me to slim down,” said Tan, a 40-year-old Malaysian visitor.

Drunks with guns

I read in the WaPo yesterday that there were over 50,000 deaths annually in Russia as a result of alcohol poisoning!

That’s more than gun deaths in any country in the world!

Not to worry though. Even Russia has its Anthony Burgess fans (come to think of it Nadsat was actually created largely from Russian slang) and one of them discovered a wonderful way to keep people on the wagon – scare the shit out of them!

Coding was created by a Soviet psychiatrist, Alexander Dovzhenko, who assumed a cult-like status in the treatment of alcoholism. “The Dovzhenko method is basically a form of hypnosis: You drink, you die,” said Andrei Yermoshin, a private psychotherapist who no longer uses the method, preferring long-term therapy. “It’s fast and cheap, and supposedly you don’t have a problem for a year or two years or five years, depending on how long you have been coded for.”

There are a number of variations, but here’s basically how it works:

In Svetlana’s case, [fear of death] was induced by mild hypnosis followed by injection of a temporary but powerful drug that could attack her respiratory system. Before the drug kicked in, the doctor gave her a little vodka to taste. She became dizzy and had difficulty breathing before the doctor stepped in with some oxygen to revive her.

The injected medicine, the doctor said, would stay in her system. “I’ve coded you for a year,” he said, according to Svetlana. “And if you drink in that time, you will die.” He insisted that she sign a release form saying he would bear no responsibility for her death should she drink within 12 months.

“I believed him, because we had all heard stories about people who were coded and died when they drank,” said Svetlana

How effective is it? The WaPo reports that its effectiveness has never been tested, but poor Svetlana actually called an ambulance before taking a drink when she fell off the wagon two years ago (which is a pretty powerful statement about both the human condition and the questionable effectiveness of coding.)

I sure hope the tea-totalers in this country don’t ever find out and try to start a new prohibition movement. If the anti-gun lobby sides with the anti-drink fanatics, some of us might find ourselves in a tight (pun intended) spot.

Even worse, if neo-prohibitionists ever allied with the anti-gun lobby and everyone was forced to take sides, the opposition would be a bunch of drunks with guns!

Bowling for Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg?

The Washington Post reports today that Brazil is considering a nationwide ban on all firearms and ammunition for everyone except its police and military.

The Oct. 23 referendum, in which all adults must participate (voting is optional for those over 70), will be the first time any country has taken a proposed gun ban to the national ballot. Brazil has the highest number of firearms fatalities in the world, with more than 36,000 people shot dead last year, according to government figures.

Not surprisingly, shooting was the country’s leading cause of death. The article cites an estimate of 17.5 million guns in Brazil. That’s approximately one gun for every ten people! Must be that Brazil is a country of fear.

On a more serious note however, this prompted me to wonder about the causal link between the number of guns per capita and the number of deaths by shooting. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find data for this (and I don’t have time today to spend looking for it). However, I was able to find figures for gun deaths internationally, both absolute and for every 1000 citizens (Some of these numbers seem on the high side and there’s a pretty steep drop off between Zimbabwe and Mexico. I can’t vouch for their accuracy, but Nationmaster.com assures me that they are from UN data.). Although Brazil seems to have been excluded from the dataset, here are the results.

Top ten ranking of death by firearms per year:

1. South Africa 31,918 (2000)
2. Colombia 21,898 (2000)
3. Thailand 20,032 (2000)
4. United States 8,259 (1999)
5. Mexico 3,589 (2000)
6. Zimbabwe 598 (2000)
7. Germany 384 (2000)
8. Belarus 331 (2000)
9. Czech Republic 213 (2000)
10.Ukraine 173 (2000)

Top ten ranking of death by fire arms per year, per 1000 citizens:

1. South Africa 0.71 per 1000 people
2. Colombia 0.50 per 1000 people
3. Thailand 0.31 per 1000 people
4. Zimbabwe 0.04 per 1000 people
5. Mexico 0.03 per 1000 people
6. Belarus 0.03 per 1000 people
7. Costa Rica 0.03 per 1000 people
8. United States 0.02 per 1000 people
9. Uruguay 0.02 per 1000 people
10. Lithuania 0.02 per 1000 people

One interesting thing that immediately stands out is only three OECD member countries make the top ten in total deaths, although Mexico and Germany drop out when the data is adjusted to deaths per 1000 people.

Another thing I notice is that South Africa tops both lists. This is perhaps not surprising for a country where personal flamethrowers were actually marketed for a time as an anti-carjacking measure. Both the Economist and the New York Times recently reported that although crime rates, including carjacking (sadly, with little thanks to the flamethrower) have declined in recent years, South Africans feel unsafe than ever before. I’d love to like you to the NYT piece, which is great, but the bastards have started that “Times Select” nonsense and while I ain’t paying $3.95 for it, if you’re so inclined please feel free to check it out here.