Obvious Shintaro Ishihara quote of the week:
“I hate Mickey Mouse,” Ishihara said. “He has nothing like the unique sensibility that Japan has. The Japanese are inherently skilled at visual expression and detailed work.”
Obviously, this is a guy who’s never seen what American high school otaku can do.
Political commentator and psycho dragon bitch from hell Ann Coulter has this to say:
One year before elections in Japan, the [New York] Times was predicting defeat for Koizumi, a loyal friend to President Bush and an implacable supporter of the war in Iraq.
Reporting on the unpopularity of the Iraq War in Japan, the Times said “polls indicate that the population is against an extension” of Japanese troops serving in Iraq and that the opposition vowed to withdraw troops. Indeed, “some members of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s own party have been calling for the troops’ withdrawal.”
And then in September 2005, Koizumi’s party won a landslide. The Times described this as mainly a victory for the prime minister’s idea to privatize the post office, explaining that Koizumi had won “by making postal privatization — an arcane issue little understood by most voters — a litmus test for reform,” thus confirming the age-old political truism, “Most elections hinge on arcane, obscure issues voters don’t know or care about.”
As congressional Republicans decide whether to take the Times’ advice and back away from the war this election year, they might reflect on a fourth world leader who won re-election while supporting the Iraq war. Just about four months before Bush was re-elected in 2004, the Times put this on its front page: “President Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found Americans stiffening their opposition to the Iraq war, worried that the invasion could invite domestic terrorist attacks.”
Maybe it was his support for the post office.
As much as I hate to agree with her, I don’t think the war drives most Japanese voters. In fact, I don’t think it drives most American voters (although it certainly means more to them). And the NYT… just doesn’t get it, basically.
Of course, you would probably hear the same basic opinion from Jon Stewart. He would just be funnier about it.
Yomiuri reports that a sleeping LDP faction appears to be reviving itself for the post-Koizumi horse race. The Cliffs Notes version follows, with Wikipedia links for those of you just joining us.
The Asian strategy study group, headed by Ichiro Aisawa, the LDP’s acting secretary general and a member of the Tanigaki faction, shows signs of being anti-Koizumi in outlook.
The group appears to have come into being in an attempt to bring the Kochikai faction back–reuniting the three factions while, at the same time, reining in Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe who has made a great show of following Koizumi’s reform policy …
Kochikai was a prestigious faction founded by late Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda. It forms part of the lineage of the Liberal Party and carved out a policy that called for the nation to be lightly armed and focus on the economy.
Mainstream and conservative, the faction produced four prime ministers. [Ikeda, Ohira, Suzuki and Miyazawa -ed.] However, it often found itself outside of the political power struggles that mattered, which led to it being ridiculed as a “group of court nobles.” …
If the reunited faction takes an anti-Koizumi policy line by being pro-Chinese in terms of its Asian diplomacy and seeking to correct the economic disparity in Japan, it would be hard for its members to support Aso.
If Aso’s attempts to seek the highest position in the party through the reunited faction is derailed, he will be inclined to instead seek the support of the Mori and Tsushima factions.
Tanigaki is trying to win the support of the three factions, but whether he will succeed in bringing them together is still uncertain–some members harbor hard feelings over events that took place when the Kochikai faction was last active.
The unification of the three factions may need to wait for the party presidential election after this one.
A man almost completely severed his left hand with a machete in front of the National Diet Building on Tuesday, apparently to protest policies toward North Korea, police said.
The 54-year-old man approached the front gates of the building by car, stepped out, silently placed his left hand against the hood of his car and swung the 40 centimeter blade down across his left wrist, according to Tokyo police official Hideyuki Yoshioka.
The man, who identified himself as a member of a right-wing organization, then mumbled a few words about Japan’s handling of the abduction of its citizens by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s. Police snatched the machete and rushed him to a hospital, Yoshioka said.
The man “appeared to be in a lot of pain and his hand was hanging by a piece of skin,” according to Yoshioka.
[…]
Last October, another man linked to Japan’s extreme right tried to commit suicide outside the prime minister’s office by downing pesticide. Police said he was carrying a letter demanding that the prime minister pay his respects at a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan’s war dead, including convicted war criminals.In the past year, a woman has also tried to kill herself by ritual disembowelment in front of Koizumi’s office, demanding the leader resign.
Curzon, if this keeps up, it looks like you may not be able to make fun of Korean as easily. What’s a few psychos over there cutting off fingers compared to entire hands in Japan?
Looks like the press is diving into the “post-Koizumi” story head-on today. This morning’s Nikkei has a profile of “young” Shinzo Abe, billed as the first in their series of articles about possible successors to Koizumi. Meanwhile, the Daily Yomiuri has a fun medley of articles today. The first two focus on Yasuo Fukuda and Taku Yamasaki, the “moderate” contenders. Then there’s this fun little nugget:
Taro Aso, on a trip to Australia for talks with his U.S. and Australian counterparts, said Saturday he thought he had had “more experience” in the political arena than Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe…
Referring to economics, Aso said, “I’ve never seen Abe talking about the economy.” “When it comes to diplomacy, he is a bit of a rightist, although there is no big difference in positions between the two of us,” Aso said.
As far as popular opinion goes, Fukuda and Abe seem to be the most popular candidates at this point. Of course, this isn’t a public election—it’s an internal LDP election, and their opinion will rule the day.
Earlier this year I spent an entire month working fulltime translating documents about Aum Shinrikyo into English to be used as research materials for a report on international religious terrorism being created by a Washington DC based organization that shall remain nameless.
While I did a couple of articles and some excerpts from various books, I spent almost the entire time translating large sections of Aum and I, the confessional jailhouse memoir of Ikuo Hayashi, a former medical doctor who helped to spread sarin gas in the Tokyo subway on that infamous day.
Although I was paid to do this translation, it was not intended for publication and my client has no rights over the material, only requesting the translation in the first place for their own reference. Therefore, I’ve decided to excerpt some of my very favorite sections of evil cult related goodness to post every once in a while.
Here is the very first installment – my translation of page 133 of Aum and I.
***
There was nothing I could say in response to that, but I do remember feeling terribly remorseful about delaying the salvation plan. Because of that., I thought that maybe I could perhaps advance my training a bit, and even performed a bit of secret surgery, cutting my tongue’s frenulum with the aim of perfecting my Yoga’s “Nagomdoni.” I also thought I had failed to become a Siddha because I hadn’t pushed myself to the limit, so I started fasting. The result was that my body became progressively weaker, and I became unable to do breathing exercises. Whenever I tried I would develop an irregular pulse.
Over the course of three days of fasting I was able to maintain consciousness even without getting any sleep. I tasted one part of the “experience” described as the so-called “sequential states of consciousness.” As a “prithag-jana” [an unenlightened person still a slave to their worldly desires], I had trouble during the period after the fasting, when I started eating again. I was reading an article by someone who had achieved Siddha, which contained some sections specifically talking about people tormented by gluttony, or pained by fasting. Upon reading these sections, I was swept up by the images of food, and felt the same lust to eat say, eel or bread. I thought that I had been overcome.
At exactly that time, the Aum magazine Mayahana printed a story about the Buddhist training from the time of Shakyamuni. It said that during the time of Shakyamuni’s spiritual training, there was a practice of eating the feces of some animal, say a dog. Thinking that the reason I hadn’t yet become a Siddha was because I just hadn’t been pushing my limits, I thought that perhaps I should try doing the same thing as the original Buddha. I decided to begin eating my own feces.
When first facing my own feces I seriously hesitated. It was originally a part of me though, and there are even living things that eat feces. Since it’s the same E. Coli that just came out of me, it couldn’t upset my stomach, right? Inflammation of the pharanyx is a possibility though… I tried to reason through the various possibilities before finally eating it.
Perhaps because at that time I had been eating nothing but roots and vegetables for three months solid, there was actually no smell.
Somehow, political robotic telemarketing seems even more annoying than robotic telemarketing that’s trying to sell me something. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten any of these calls:
Column: Just a bit of hypocrisy in Simmons’ attitude regarding robo calls
By RAY HACKETT
On Politics
Congressman Rob Simmons wants to share a phone number with his constituents in the 2nd Congressional District, and he’s urging people to call it: (202) 393-4352.
The number belongs to “American Family Voices,” the group behind the recent rash of the so-called robo calls — automated phone messages — that have flooded homes in Eastern Connecticut, urging residents to call Simmons’ office and tell him they don’t like his position against federal funding for port security.
Simmons has, in the past, claimed these calls have caused a major disruption of his staff’s ability to do its work as hundreds of constituents have called to complain about receiving the unwanted automated messages. So his solution to the problem is ask residents to call “American Family Voices” — and tell them to knock it off.
According to Simmons — and these are his words — American Family Voices is “notorious,” “a shadowy, partisan” organization using “these sleazy and deceptive” calls to distort his voting record.
I don’t recall the congressman being as equally outraged back in 2002 when another organization — United Seniors — flooded the homes of Eastern Connecticut with automated calls asking residents to call the congressman and “thank him” for passing a prescription-drug bill for seniors.
Continue reading When Robots Are Used for Evil, Nobody Wins (Except the robots)
Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who has no problem offending Koreans and Chinese on a regular basis, apparently doesn’t like to offend Muslims.
Aso criticized some European publications Monday for printing contentious cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, calling such action “shallow.”
“Even people like us who are not Muslims know the fact that idolatry is absolutely impossible (in Islam),” Aso told a Diet committee. “If someone familiar with that kind of thing did so, I say, from my personal feelings, it could have been shallow.”
Now I’m imagining the Saturday Night Live version of Chris Matthews interviewing Aso on “Hardball.”
MATTHEWS: This is great! Say something even more contradictory!
ASO: The U.S. government should stop glorifying war by building monuments to dead soldiers.
MATTHEWS: Keep it coming!
ASO: Asia should open up its markets to Japanese rice exports.
MATTHEWS: Wow! You’re unstoppable!
ASO: And the UK should give up its royal family…
MATTHEWS: (head explodes)
Ah, if only he weren’t #6 in the post-Koizumi opinion polling, he would make one hilarious Prime Minister.
Saw a great headline this morning:
Monday, February 27, 2006
Aso Urges Iran To Halt Uranium Enrichment, Iran Says No
TOKYO (Kyodo)–Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday said his country will not suspend its uranium enrichment, rejecting a request from his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso at their meeting in Tokyo, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
Mottaki was quoted by the official as telling Aso that Iran is currently engaged in ”research activities” and that halting such resumption of uranium enrichment operations is ”impossible.”
Nice try, Japan! It’s unlikely that the international community will hold this diplomatic exercise in futility against you, so no worries! Aso gets an “A” for effort:
[February 04, 2006]
Japan viewed most positively in world poll, Iran most negatively
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)WASHINGTON, Feb. 4_(Kyodo) _ Japan was most widely viewed as having a positive influence in the world, while Iran displaced the United States as the nation with the most negative rating, according to a BBC World Service survey released Friday.
Continue reading Japan and Iran: Good vs. Evil?
Saying that the Philippine government had foiled a military coup attempt and still faced the threat of violent overthrow, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared emergency rule on Friday and banned rallies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, the former dictator.
< ...>
Ignoring the ban on rallies, former President Corazon Aquino, who remains a popular figure here, led thousands of demonstrators in a march through the financial district calling for Mrs. Arroyo’s resignation. The opposition has crystallized around allegations that Mrs. Arroyo rigged national elections in 2004, as well as charges of government corruption and human rights abuses, charges that she vigorously denies.Mrs. Aquino urged Mrs. Arroyo to “make the supreme sacrifice by resigning.” Dozens of demonstrators were arrested.
Calls for Arroyo’s resignation are nothing new. Here is a photograph of graffitti saying “oust Gloria” that I took on December 7, 2005 on the wall of a street in a somewhat poor but not impoverished neighborhood of Manila.
Ever since the fall of Marcos in 1986 in the face of overwhelming popular protests, the threat of another such EDSA “people power” rebellion (named after a main street in Manila) looms every time the administration is in crisis. Not coincidentally, Aquino became president following the first EDSA rebellion-taking over for Marcos- and Arroyo became president by virtue of her being VP when the corrupt movie star and darling of the lower class electorate was forced out of office during EDSA 2. The big difference is that Aquino was a major organizer of the first EDSA, risking her life to protest against Marcos. And the threat was very real, as his government had killed her husband for political opposition. By contrast, Arroyo seems to be very much a typical politician.
Below I provide more detailed information, typed from a book published just last year on the political history of the Philippines, that I picked up during my recent trip there.
Excerpts from page 278-283 of State and Society in the Philippines, by Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, 2005. I’ve bolded the most important bits.
Continue reading Coup attempt and crackdown in the Philippines – some background information
Taro Aso, on a trip to Australia for talks with his U.S. and Australian counterparts, said Saturday he thought he had had “more experience” in the political arena than Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe…