Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi respectfully places his hand on the Wailing Wall, one of Judaism’s most sacred sites, in Jerusalem on Thursday during a trip to the Middle East that takes him to Israel, the Palestinian territory and Jordan. (AP)
(From Nikkei)
Who will stop Koizumi from continuing these perverse, random acts of worship?!
There’s a good article in the LA Times about some of the more extreme members of the three great monotheistic apocalypse cults of the Middle East (in chronological order, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) who take their religion so literally that they are actively trying to hasten the end of this world because, presumably, they just don’t like it very much.
some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam’s holiest shrines.
Artisans have re-created priestly robes of white linen, gem-studded breastplates, silver trumpets and solid-gold menorahs to be used in the Holy Temple — along with two 6½-ton marble cornerstones for the building’s foundation.
Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.
So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal’s body.
Interestingly, this phenomena is largely confined to the US and the Middle East. Yes, of course there are apocalyptic cults in other regions (Japan’s own Aum Shinrikyo being one near and dear to my heart) but they are hardly a mainstream phenomenon over there. In fact, according to the article as many as 40% of Americans believe that an apocalypse is not merely coming but imminent. Now, some people believe that some of the more obscure foreign policy moves engaged in by the US governmental leaders can be traced to this very belief in the end time-and I myself have even engaged in some joking speculation of such a nature-but of course when examined logically the argument falls apart. After all, how could anyone who believes that the world is coming to an end in a couple of decades time be so enthusiastic about being midwife to the creation of a landed hereditary aristocracy by enouraging the repeal of the inheritance tax?
You’ve probably already heard about how Ann Coulter said something stupid and offensive about widows of some WTC terrorist victims, and now thanks to the Internet you can also bet on whether or not she is going to be sued for defamation.
Analysts at BetUS.com posted favorable 4-6 odds that the Widows of 9/11, who were also called “self-obsessed women,” will sue Coulter for defamation. However, the chances of Ann Coulter retracting her remarks are slim with only 1-2 odds. Either way, Coulter’s outrageousness has shot her new book to number one on Amazon.com.
Executives at BetUS.com have posted the following odds:
Will Ann Coulter retract her remarks?
Yes: 6-4
No: 1-2Will the 9/11 Widows Sue Coulter for defamation?
Yes: 4-6
No: 11-10
Exercise of the FOIA process by the Asahi Shimbun reveals a “customary” practice in the Diet’s Lower House of using funds meant for the investigation of corruption for lavish meals at fancy restaurants:
Lower House spent 100 million yen in tax money for food and booze in fiscal 2002 and 2003
05/25/2006
The Asahi ShimbunLower House members and secretariat employees spent about 100 million yen ($886,839) in taxpayers’ money for food, drinks and parties often at posh establishments in fiscal 2002 and 2003, according to government documents.
Ironically, the money came from a secretive budget that is supposed to be used to investigate wrongdoings of government officials.
The expenses were listed under such categories as “consultation meetings,” according to the documents disclosed to The Asahi Shimbun.
Many of those so-called meetings took place at exorbitant restaurants, nightclubs, bars and hotels in some of the most expensive areas of Tokyo.
The misappropriated funds are used not just for the wrongdoing of government but also to investigate major scandals such as the recent scare over falsified earthquake safety data.
More lurid details of some of the misused funds (massive amounts of liquor consumed, time spent at Chinese hostess bars, etc) can (as usual) be found at ZAKZAK, the most entertaining news resource on Japan available outside the country. I may update this post with translations of some of them but not right now.
No sooner do I write about the misinformed campaign against Chinese PCs being carried out by certain members of the US Congress then the State Department announces that none of the 16,000 machines being purchased from Lenovo will be connected to any high security networks or used to process any classified data.
Long story short, an influential member of Congress played the China card, and the State Department folded.
It was a drama that reached a conclusion late last week, when the State Department, responding to fears that its security might be breached by a secretly placed device or hidden software, agreed to keep personal computers made by Lenovo of China off its networks that handle classified government messages and documents.
The damage to Lenovo is more to its reputation than to its pocketbook. The State Department will use the 16,000 desktop computers it purchased from Lenovo, just not on the computer networks that carry sensitive government intelligence.
I previously mentioned the absurdity of even trying to find computer constructed outside of China, as well as the somewhat unlikely prospect that Chinese trojans could be hidden in the systems without being located. Well, naturally Lenovo agrees with me about that, but there’s more. Jeffrey Carlisle, vice president of government relations for Lenovo, describes
the worry that the Chinese government might secretly slip spying hardware or software on Lenovo computers shipped to the State Department as “a fantasy.” The desktop machines, he said, will be made in Monterrey, Mexico, and Raleigh, N.C., at plants purchased from I.B.M.
“It’s the same places, using the same processes as I.B.M. had,” Mr. Carlisle said. “Nothing’s changed.”
So despite everything, by going to a company partially owned by the Chinese government (and not incidentally, also partly owned by IBM, and by other American and non-governmental foreign investors) they are actually getting one of the few sources of computers NOT made in China! Do they now think that the former IBM executives and engineers that run the Mexican and Raleigh plants are now agents of the Chinese government just because of who owns some of the stock? This notion of Communist Party control over Lenovo just seems so overblown. According to Wikipedia the actual breakdown is “as of May 1, 2005 35.2% of Lenovo was owned by public shareholders, 45.9% by Legend Holdings Limited, and 18.9% by IBM.”
Furthermore, the headquarters of the company is located in New York State and is planning to relocate to Raleigh, where the Thinkpad group is based. Yes, the Chinese government owns a large chunk of Lenovo through Legend Holdings Limited. While the corporate entity known as Lenovo may have originated in China with government backing, it has transmuted into a very 21st century transnational company, in which the Chinese government is merely a stockholder. Certainly with the force of authoritarian Chinese law behind them the CCP could do much to control operations within China, but I find very little credible reason to believe that a minority stockholder would be able to exert the level of influence necessary to illegally alter the designs of systems in a way that would be economically suicidal if uncovered at a factory in Raleigh N.C. formerly owned by IBM and managed from the Purchase, NY headquarters.
It has been just about two months since I last discussed the Congressional revolt against Chinese manufactured computers and for a while I thought that perhaps the story was dead, but leave it to a Congress member to not merely flog, but actually hitch his wagon to a dead horse. Washingtonpost.com is running an AP story saying that the State Department has declared that the 16,000 computers they purchased from Lenovo will not be used for classified work. This followed a complaint by Virgina Representative Frank Wolf, who while he may have been elected to represent the good people of Virgina, seems unlikely to qualify for a job setting up internet connections at people’s homes.
The government, Griffin wrote, is committed to making sure the purchase from Lenovo, the world’s No. 3 PC maker, will not “compromise our information and communication channels.”
Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House subcommittee that finances State Department operations, said he raised alarms after he discovered that officials planned to use at least 900 of the computers in classified work and at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. That, he said, possibly could give China access to sensitive U.S. information.
While there may in fact be a miniscule theoretical possiblity of a security breach resulting from some sort of clever trojan hidden deep in the firmware of a China manufactured computer (such as if State were stupid enough to use the Lenovo security chip), there is something unaccounted for by Mr. Wolf that would prevent them from buying computers entirely manufactured inside the United States. Namely, there aren’t any.
As a chart in this piece at DailyTech.com illustrates, over the past several years every single PC manufacturer, whether Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese or even American, has come to do at least some of their manufacturing and basically all of their final assembly in China.
Unfortunately for Representative Wolf, banning the purchase of computers manufactured in China essentially means banning the purchase of computers. At least, unless he wants the government to trove attics and garage sales to collect 1980s models like my old Mac Classic.
But as for the real issue of whether or not manufacturing in China is a security risk. I would have to say, not particularly. While the computers may be “made” in China, they aren’t designed there. Just because a piece of electronics has “Made in China” stamped on its outer shell does not mean that the entire contents was made in China, only that the case was. But while the system may have been assembled and some of the components manufactured there, virtually none of the highest tech components responsible for the actual processing of the computer are made there.
Does it seem likely that it is possible to add a trojan to imported AMD chips made in Germany, or modify the design of an Nvidia chipset, designed in California and manufactured in Shenzhen, China by a Taiwanese company, so that it stealthily transmits keystrokes over the internet to Chinese servers?
Regardless of where the hardware is from, while the systems are preconfigured by the maker, we can assume the State’s IT department will wipe the hard drive and reinstall their own carefully tweaked (hopefully) secure disk image, and then replace the BIOS and firmware with vetted software written by the American or Taiwanese companies that actually designed the components.
We’ve posted on the confusing case of Alberto Fujimori before, particularly this post by Joe, and mine on whether his Japanese citizenship seems to be legal or not, but I am a little surprised to see him free on bail within Chile.
Here’s the brief AP story:
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A Chilean Supreme Court panel freed former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on bail Thursday while he fights extradition on corruption and human right charges.
The president of the court panel, Enrique Curi, said the justices voted 4-1 to allow the former authoritarian leader to go free, but they prohibited him from leaving Chile.
Fujimori had been under arrest here since November 2005 after the Peruvian government requested his extradition. Fujimori arrived here after living in exile in Japan for five years.
Curi said the bail amount would be determined by the judge handling the extradition trial. Fujimori could be free later Thursday.
According to Asahi, he is also restricted from making political statements and appears to have also been decided that he will remain within the Santiago house that a supporter has lent to him. The extradition trial deciding whether he will be sent to Peru continues.
A Korean bee farmer was stung over 200 times in a puzzling statement of protest over Japanese claims to the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands:
“The honeybee dares to abandon its life when enemies are attempting to attack, to protect its own home. From now on, I hope these bees will contribute to protect our Dokdo”, Ahn Sang-Gyu said.
An impressive feat, not to mention a very creative way to attract attention to the issue.
While it can’t really be considered a “beard” of bees, the sheer number and weight of the bees beats out Grandpa Simpson‘s old fictional record of 15 pounds. Since Ahn wore a “symbolic” 187,000 bees, that means his bee suit weighed in at 41.1 pounds, assuming an average weight of 100mg per honeybee.
UPDATE: WOAH – this story is way cooler than I imagined – this guy wasn’t just standing around in a bee suit – he did a full-on cannonball on the Japanese flag covered in bees!
DOUBLE UPDATE: This guy is the world record holder for bee beards, so basically he decided to cheapen his accomplishment by rehashing the act to attach a small-minded political agenda to it. Way to go, chump. You’ll regret that on your deathbed, at which time ocean levels will have risen to the point that Dokdo no longer exists.
Update by Mutantfrog:I found a video clip of this online. Enjoy everyone!
This Japanese blog that also linked to the video has a little more to say.
* He first stood on a scale model of Dokdo and stripped off his outer hanbuk and stood in place for two hours so the bees could settle in place, and then jumped from a 60cm high platform onto a Japanese Hi no Maru flag that was laid out on the ground, so that the bees would “attack” it.
* The 187,000 bees represent the cumultative 187,453 square meter total of the Dokdo islands.
* He was stung in over 200 places, but isn’t allergic and the pain has faded in the 2 days since the stunt.
* He said, “No matter how much it hurts, I will not run from Japan’s provocation,” and “I wanted to show that not jus the people of Korea, but also the bees are angry.”
I can’t believe I’m going to see this guy next week:
The word “robot” is said to have come to us from the Czech word robota, which means “labor” or sometimes even “drudgery,” and thus is a word that originally carried a negative connotation.
But through Japan’s Astro Boy or the cat-like robot Doraemon, the meaning of the word “robot” shifted, instead becoming a benevolent friend who helps human beings. In Asia and elsewhere around the globe, robots came to be understood as the “white hats” -the good guys.
The impact of this situation is that countries with an affinity for Doraemon do not have workers who reject industrial robots, and thus in those countries, industrial productivity rises. In addition, you find that Japanese-made industrial robots sell well.
Yaskawa Electric Corporation and the other firms of Japan’s “big three” hold a market share of half the global market in the area of robots for welding or applying coatings. Of course, Astro Boy and Gigantor-what we in Japan know as “Tetsujin 28”-are there in the background to all this. In other words, what created the climate in which all this could take place was Japanese culture, and I am continually speaking of culture’s significant contributions in this area.
(Picture: Aso – 2nd from left – giving some kind of award to Bulgarian sumo wrestler Kotooshu (I’ll let you guess which one he is))
AMAZING stuff from a thread at the Something Awful forums. A White House staffer has apparently snapped and decided to spill the beans, albeit in a carefully guarded way. It starts like this:
This is all good information, personally verified or witnessed by none other than me, but I will not answer any questions about it or go into any detail other than what I’ve already typed out. I may reply with more information or anecdotes if I see fit, but I’ve pretty much already scraped the barrel of my experiences.
These are some facts I have witnessed and learned through my employment. Take it at face value, believe it or don’t believe it, because I’m not providing corroborating pictures, details, or evidence beyond my own testimony.
Homeland security buys in bulk and at great premium millions of dollars of useless personal appliances from China, such as rice cookers, nose hair trimmers, massage wands, and heating pads, boxes them up, and buries them in railroad shipping containers in the Arizona desert for no reason whatsoever other than to spend its budget and prevent sub-agencies from getting the funds. I suspect that the money goes to a middleman in order to secretly siphon funds into foreign organizations which we can’t support over the table, but this is just me trying to find a justification for this massive and intentional government waste.
Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition, and he has his secret service detail hold his spares. He was recently getting uncontrollable long-term erections and had to change up his medical treatments. The underwear and the erections is why he uses a standing desk, not because he is some super-man. He also wears nylon stockings, not because he’s gay, but to control some vascular problem with his legs which causes him intense pain.
President Bush uses anti-depressant medication, a lot of it, at a stupendous dosage, and he is hiding it from the American public. This is the real reason he stopped drinking. Because of the dosage, he is also impotent.
Tom Ridge carries 20 credit cards with him at all times, each one with a very low limit. I have never heard of him using one, ever, but he has them. He also wears his socks inside-out, and will flip the fuck out and walk strangely if he is forced to wear them properly, because it drives him crazy. All of his socks must be laundered right side in and then turned inside out before they are returned to him. He gave specific instructions about handling his food, and not allowing his vegetables to touch any other food item on the plate. His utensils must be steamed over boiling water. He will not eat soup which hasn’t been boiled within the past 20 minutes or which he has not prepared himself. If any of these rules are violated, he flies into a rage, turns beet red, and will not eat a single thing. He has his personal attendants confirm over and over that the food is as he likes it. He also shaves his forearms and hands because he can’t stand the idea of body hair on his arms. He demands that his bedsheets are bleach white and changed fresh every night and he sleeps in a separate bed in a big, tight, body-length nylon sleeve, with a fan blowing over him at full power. He is terrified of animals which have fur or hair longer than one inch, and will not go near curly hair of any kind, even on people. At one time he ran from his office and demanded that someone look under everything for a rodent which did not and could not exist, then he had the entire place wiped down with disinfectant and vacuumed twice. While this was done he couldn’t even bear to look at the door, or come within 20 feet of his office. He was in hysterics.
President Bush, when dining at the white-house, does not eat any item of food which has not been first sniffed by a trained dog before being prepared. Think about that.
Word among the staff is that Cheney was drunk when he shot that lawyer, and secluded himself for a day to sober up and avoid felony firearms charges. I don’t have any direct information on this because the guys with him at the time are not talking. This is totally unconfirmed, but I think it is plausible.
Dick Cheney has chronic gum problems and his breath smells like shit as a result. He is also a CLOSE TALKER. He keeps a small bottle of diluted hydrogen peroxide which he rinses with every hour on the hour, and he swallows it instead of spitting. He also picks his nose vigorously (violently) and hums loudly and tunelessly to himself while taking shits.
There is a sealed room in the whitehouse which once held a half-ton block of cheese for about 30 years.
The White house is planting its own men among the press agents at press conferences.
The white house lawn is mowed every other day by the same man humming the same tune.
Despite all of this craziness, there is nothing strange whatsoever about Condoleeza Rice. She is completely balanced and normal, if slightly robotic in her personal demeanor. She smells very nice at all times. She does, however, constantly check her investments online from her office when she thinks that nobody is looking, and she has slept at her desk on multiple occasions.
There is an administrative law judge who sits in an office in a building near the white-house, earns around 200k per year and has a secretary, and he does nothing except sit, read, and listen to classical music all day. His secretary likewise does nothing. He gets meals taken to him from the White-house kitchen, and is so lonely that he latches on to whoever gets sent and talks to them for hours about the korean war. His family is all dead and his secretary hates him. In a drawer in his desk he has an old revolver, which he got in there somehow despite that he shouldn’t have been able to bring it in. I think he will shoot himself one day.
The “undisclosed location” is usually a local police officer training ground or state trooper college. Shh.
I can’t tell you if much of it is true or not, but it certainly rings true. Plus, it’s funny as hell!
What convinced me he knew what he was talking about was when he mentioned that a lot of our “foreign policy” is us using our economic power to twist foreign govts into enacting policies that benefit US companies. If you know anything about the USTR, that should hit home.
