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| More about our delicious friends of the deep |
| 07.19.05 (1:48 am) [edit] |
Surprise, Surprise. The New Zealand media are beating the anti-whaling drums again with the 'revelation' that Japan paid off Pacific nations to swing their votes at the IWC.
Just like China and Taiwan offer 'aid' to tiny Pacific nations in order to gain their recognition;
Just like America and the Soviet Union offered 'aid' to various nations (including tiny Pacific ones) to get them on side during the Cold War;
Just like the IMF and the World Bank offer 'aid' (loans) to nations that promise to restructure their economies along the lines of the trendiest economic theories in Washington;
etc, etc, etc.
Anyone ever hear of quid pro quo? It's used in diplomacy all the time.
Meanwhile, Liz Slooten has written a piece in the Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ind... that shows how Japan's whale research is a shonky cover for the nation's commercial whaling programme.
Well, fancy that!
We've covered this ground before.
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| Your Grandpa is a blast! |
| 07.18.05 (2:34 am) [edit] |
Odd news from 'Japan Today' http://www.japantoday.com/e/?...:
'Monday, July 18, 2005 at 10:42 JST
WAKAYAMA — A 70-year-old man in Gobo, Wakayama Prefecture was arrested Sunday for possessing 25 sticks of dynamite on the premises of a hospital where he had received treatment. The suspect, identified as Miichiro Yamashita, was quoted by police as saying medical staff had refused to administer him an injection that he had requested.'
Aside from the fact that his reaction was a tad excessive, where the hell does a 70 year old Japanese guy get his hands on 25 sticks of dynamite? I mean, it's not as if it's a common fashion accessory, right?
[image]secretsamurai_9864 06710.jpg[/image]
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| Billions of Asians can't be wrong. |
| 07.18.05 (1:19 am) [edit] |
I just read a fascinating Observer article on MSG. http://observer.guardian.co.u...,9950,1522368,00.html
Now, I've always thought that MSG was an evil artificial Asian substance that gave you cancer. I often found myself exhausted in Japan, and I always blamed it on the MSG that the Japanese use instead of salt (as opposed to the dozen beers the night before). As it turns out though, MSG IS mostly salt - well, the 'S' part is anyway. The other ingredient is an amino acid isolated by one Professor Ikeda Kidunae, who noted a flavour over and above the orthodox 'spectrum' of tastes (sweet, sour, bitter and salt) whilst eating his wife's broth and then set out to find it. By 1909 he'd isolated the 'new' taste, umami, meaning 'savoury', and started production after adding salt to the product to stabilise it. He died in 1936 a very rich man.
It turns out that the non-salt component of MSG is an amino acid that occurs naturally and can be found in a range of common products, especially, it seems, in Marmite. The Japanese get it by soaking kelp in water to produce 'dashi', an all-purpose stock.
MSG first attracted negative publicity when a scientist penned a flippant article about strange sensations caused by visits to Chinese restaurants. The article wasn't about MSG per se, but it was all downhill from there. Later, more scientists declared MSG evil when test mice injected with copious quantities of the substance were found to have brain lesions. This needs to be taken with a grain of *ahem* salt: if someone injected me with large amounts of saline solution that had been strained through seaweed, I'd go nuts too.
Nowadays, anti-MSG scientists are apparently more sophisticated, preferring to give children supermarket brand snacks containing the additive whilst monitoring their behaviour. Only, the snacks tend to be laced with colourings and additives as well, so it's easy to be sceptical about the fidings of any such research.
Are scientists really so dumb? Well, no. It seems the smart ones have mostly decided long ago that The product is safe, and anyway, the anti-GE movement is more trendy nowadays. 'Dangers' posed by MSG simply don't attract research funds anymore.
As for me, I'm just going to use the 'Jessica Simpson method' http://www.tblog.com/template... of calling attention to my thoughts. Here's a Japanese advertisement for MSG, called 'Ajinomoto' ('the origin of taste') throughout Asia after the good Ikeda-san's company:
[image]secretsamurai_1674 40120.jpg[/image]
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| Talent |
| 07.17.05 (3:07 am) [edit] |
A few weeks back Jessica Simpson's 'these boots are made for walkin'' was lingering around number six on the Apple startpage's http://www.apple.com/startpag... 'top ten itunes' when suddenly, the song shot to number one and remained there until it dropped a notch this weekend. Simpson's meteoric rise in the charts occurred shortly after the single's cover was pasted under the song entry:
[image]secretsamurai_1080 428622.jpg[/image]
This was even before her music video came out. You know, the one where Jess has sex with a CAR! http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdet... And how did she get so many vertebrae? The woman is a human caterpillar!
There sure are a lot of teenage boys in the world.
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| Anti-Americanarama |
| 07.14.05 (1:39 pm) [edit] |
Oh my God! Perhaps I AM a terrorist sympathiser after all.
| You Are 29% American |  America: You don't love it or want to leave it.
But you wouldn't mind giving it an extreme make over.
On the 4th of July, you'll fly a freak flag instead...
And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch! |
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| Been to any good movies lately? |
| 07.13.05 (2:19 am) [edit] |
It's that time of year again, and I hate it.
I hate being asked what 'Film Festival films' I am going to see, because I generally don't notice that the festival is on until it arrives, and even then I'm not particularly interested.
I was a great fan of art house cinema in my University days, but then I went and lived in Japan, where an adult movie ticket costs 1800 yen. When I arrived that was the equivalent of around NZ$25, but after the New Zealand dollar dropped, I was forking out NZ$36 to see a bloody movie. (For the sake of comparison, an adult ticket to a blockbuster in New Zealand cost $12 when I left and $15 now.)
Now, ‘arty’ movies can be a bit hit and miss at times. The first movie I saw in Japan was ‘Wag the Dog,’ which was entertaining, but nowhere near twenty-five bucks worth. I figured Hollywood guaranteed a cheap thrill for my money and from then on spent my cash on Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt and the like. Throughout the course of my six years in Japan I saw only three more alternative films. One of them was ‘Bowling for Columbine’, which hardly fits the bill, and the other two only attracted my attention because they were New Zealand films (‘Topless Women Talk about Their Lives’ and ‘Whale Rider’). It’s a habit I have not kicked. I would still rather spend fifteen bucks knowing what I’m going to get than face the risk of being disappointed by some Swedish wanker's pretentious twaddle.
So anyway, at 11 this morning I was sitting in my office trying to study but getting nowhere. In the end I gave up and headed to the staff room for some bad coffee and a chat with the department's secretaries. I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done, so I started scanning the movie section of the Herald to see what was on at the flicks.
Batman – seen it.
War of the Worlds – seen it.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith – seen it.
And so on down the list.
In the end I turned to the ‘Film Festival’ page out of desperation and, low and behold, I find a Japanese movie screening at one o’clock that’s guaranteed to be value for money.
Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, Godzilla was in town, and it was a quintuple whammy. Not only could I indulge my love of special effects while absorbed in a Japanese-speaking environment, I now have something to say if someone asks whether I have been to a Film Festival film. And the icing on the cake – it screened at the Civic, New Zealand’s premier cinematory venue AND it cost a mere ten bucks fiffy.
The Civic, for those of you who don’t know, is the Grand Ol’ Dame of Auckland Cinema. It was built in 1929 to an Arabian nights theme, complete with fake open-air night sky and lions with glowing eyes. It really is marvellous in its level of kitsch. I saw many a movie there in my youth, both Hollywood and Classic. I remember taking my first girlfriend there to see ‘Casablanca’. You really couldn’t ask for a more perfect setting for that movie.
[image]secretsamurai_1692 43399.jpg[/image]
But, alas, sometime during the nineties, the Civic closed its doors to the public for restorations and only reopened them for occasional performances once the work was done. So I was pretty excited to sit in her again for a next-to-nothing ticket, even if I was only in the stalls:
[image]secretsamurai_7161 69526.jpg[/image]
Much as I bitch about the girl not opening to the public on a regular basis, the restoration is fantastic. The colours are amazing and there is now the added bonus of very realistic looking clouds moving across the 'sky', plus the occasional shooting star.
I may take my grandmother to see 'Battleship Potemkin' at the Civic later this month. The Auckland Philharmonic is playing the soundtrack on stage in front of the screen, and the old duck likes the classics. I can also say I've been to another Festival movie.
And anyway, it's worth it to sit there and stare at the clouds.
More about the movie later - I'm going to bed.
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| What kind of coffee am I? |
| 07.12.05 (3:22 am) [edit] |
Well, it's spot on about the caffeine addiction level and about me when I'm at my best, but at my worst I just tend to sit around doing nothing.
| You Are an Espresso | 
At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic
At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung
You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping
Your caffeine addiction level: high |
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| Why the hell are you reading this shitbag blog? |
| 07.11.05 (10:01 pm) [edit] |
Every now and then things get nasty on the web. Some get really offended by bloggers who can do nothing but offer the same tiresome inanities when bested. I don't. Years of hanging around with a certain libertarian have thickened my skin to bullshit posing as argument. In fact, I actually enjoy discussing such people into a corner, and plenty of that sort of thing takes place on the Internet, where every crackpot takes his or her own opinion as sacrosanct.
Take this guy http://www.knockinonthegolden... for example. He was thoroughly bested by Berlin Bear http://berlinbear.tblog.com during a discussion at Not PC http://pc.blogspot.com/2005/0... . After it was clear his argument (I have read a book that I agree with - you haven't read that book, therefore you lose) was going nowhere, he starts swearing and generally abusing his opponent.
At this point, I jump in with an admittedly somewhat cynical comment about his propensity to run from an argument he can't win rather than accepting that the opposing argument has value. All of a sudden it's about me, Bear and others http://knockinonthegolden door... 'verbally beating someone about the head and neck with their twisted viewpoints.'
A lot of people find this sort of thing irritating. I actually think it's quite fun. Why? Well, I've never really taken the blogosphere 100 per cent seriously as a forum where intelligent people gather to express their views. Although it's a place where I can play around with ideas and see if they hold up, I certainly don't see it as a substitution for debate amongst live and informed peers. There are simply too many nutters around to make it such.
Thus, while I would never be offensive towards a polite and reasonable opponent, in my book rude raving lunatics are fair game. The thrust and parry entertain me. So, to dig deep down to the bottom of the barrel, here is my depiction of Mark at Knocking on the Golden Door.
[image]secretsamurai_1209 483665.gif[/image]
Oh, and a quick POSTSCRIPT: It seems I'm not the only person who has aroused Mark's ire. In 2003 Mark apparently criticised this guy http://spleenville.com/journa... for having the audacity to raise funds for the Iranian earthquake victims' relief effort. So you'll excuse me if the above cut and paste job was somewhat ad hominem, but I think it's justified in light of the type of ass we're dealing with here.
And it seems he has more to say http://knockinonthegolden door... . Whenever I see an intolerant or incoherent blog from now on, I think I'll give them a Firestone award for stupidity.
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| Condemn ALL Terrorists (even when they're just vandals) |
| 07.09.05 (4:25 pm) [edit] |
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I don't have much time to write, save to add my voice to the condemnation of attacks on mosques in Auckland last night. According to the NZ Herald, 'mosques in Ponsonby, Mt Roskill, Otahuhu and Ranui saw windows smashed and walls graffittied with the message "R-I-P London".' I'm sure the perpetrators believed they were fighting the good fight, but it's hard to see why a community on the other side of the world should be held responsible for what went on in London earlier this week.
[image]secretsamurai_7946 33021.jpg[/image]
Although nobody was injured, this was an act designed to intimidate - a soft form of terrorism, perhaps?
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| 3-0 |
| 07.09.05 (12:54 am) [edit] |
Well, that wraps things up nicely.
[image]secretsamurai_1923 97429.jpg[/image]
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| Trained Monkeys |
| 07.08.05 (3:24 pm) [edit] |
According to the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/as... , 'Japan has stepped up security around its nuclear plants and on its rail and subway networks following the attacks in London on Thursday.'
Japan already has substantial experience with terrorism. In the 1970s there were a series of incidents involving a loopy communist group and in 1995 a bunch of religious zealots attacked Tokyo's subway system with sarin gas, killing 12 and injuring 6000. It's therefore a wonder that Japan's transport networks aren't policed a little more stringently already.
In the middle of summer in Osaka, for example, it's fairly common to see homeless people - who have presumably bought one stage tickets - riding the city's loop-line to take advantage of the air-conditioning. Stations are also a favourite hangout of the destitute. The rail authorities claim that they have a no-shelter policy, but the cardboard cities remain. Moreover, instead of getting them off the street with welfare/job creation/shelter policies, however, government policy tends to consist of sweeping them from station to station.
Leave it to the gaijin community to further highlight railway staff incompetence. Every halloween on the same line (and the Yamanote line in Tokyo) large numbers of the ex-pat community dress up in silly costumes and commandeer the trains. (I remember crowd surfing down a carriage dressed as Bill Clinton once). The railway staff (and other passengers) stand around and gape.
[image]secretsamurai_8516 05495.jpg[/image]
I'm not claiming here that ex-pats and the indigent are somehow 'dangerous'; I'm merely trying to point out that Japanese subway security measures are still weak, despite the fact that the worst post-war act of violence their country has known occured on the subway system. If railway staff are obsequious when the rules are brashly flouted, then they are hardly going to be effective against 'terrorists' who, lets face it, generally look like normal people. Additional cameras and the like won't matter a jot if your staff are incompetent.
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| London Bombings |
| 07.07.05 (11:42 am) [edit] |
What to say about the London Bombings? A tragic affair perpetrated by self-important assholes. My heart goes out to the victims.
The attacks are all the more tragic because they were obviously planned meticulously, which says something about the malicious capacity of humans. Homino hominem lupus, or something like that. Timed to take place when all eyes were on Britian for the G8 summit, it's evident that the terrorists had anticipated security measures in London to be weakened by the transfer of police personnel to Gleneagles.
It's my hope, although it's a vain one, that this will not detract the G8 significantly from the agenda that it has set itself. London can and will sort itself out. Any impromptu discussion about terrorism at the summit will probably be little more than grandstanding.
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| Tokyo Election |
| 07.04.05 (3:33 am) [edit] |
Well, the results from the Tokyo municipal elections are in and its good news for the Democrats (Minshuto), who have managed to gain 35 seats, up from 19, in the municipal assembly. The ruling LDP lost three seats to 48, but still manage to run the assembly with their coalition partners, Komeito. However, commentators are already speculating about what this will mean for LDP popularity in the next general election, which will be held in or before 2007. http://www.asahi.com/english/...
Personally, I was happy to see that nationalist Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro's (or as I like to call him, Blinky) support for certain LDP candidates wasn't successful. It shows that the majority of Tokyoites probably voted for Blinky in the gubernatorial elections due to lack of credible opposition rather than for his funky political beliefs. Anyway, never one to lower myself to ad hominem attacks, here's how he earned his nickname:
[image]secretsamurai_1194 429666.gif[/image]
I think it might be a little premature to be counting on results devastating to the LDP in the next general election, however. And even if they and Komeito fail to get a hold of a majority (yeah, right), the consequences for Japan would be more psychological than political. There is no Left in the Diet in Japan anymore (bar the Communists, whom everyone believes are nuts) and Japanese electoral politics since 1994 have really been a question of what flavour of conservative pragmatism voters pick.
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| Love/Hate |
| 07.02.05 (6:41 pm) [edit] |
As everyone who is not living under a rock knows, a series of 'Live 8' concerts to raise money and awareness for African poverty were held around the world yesterday. I see the Western press took no time in characterising the Japanese effort as insincere. http://today.reuters.co.uk/ne...
According to Reuters, the ‘10,000 people who filled the sweltering convention center’ had really only come to see Bjork and didn’t really care about poverty (although the article notes that most of them were wearing white wristbands.)
Give me a break! It’s not as if the throngs in Philadelphia, London or Berlin were assembling to pour money in a bucket and sit around telling stories to one another. Certainly they were supporting the message of the concerts, but they were going to watch the show too.
Why is there an assumption in the west that the Japanese must act in a visibly contrite manner, but when high-minded westerners are put in the same situation they’re allowed to have fun?
I was also pissed off by criticism surrounding the lack of African acts in the programme. http://investing.reuters.co.u... For god’s sake, the concert is about making G8 leaders realise that their citizens are concerned about poverty in Africa. Inaction and apathy in the developed world have had serious consequences for African development, but at their root they are western problems, which will only be solved by western solutions. As such, the money raised by Live 8 won’t be its biggest contribution. As the brother of South African President Thabo Mbeki wrote http://investing.reuters.co.u...+03-Jul-2005+RTRS&srch=ga llagher+noel+live+8 governance issues in Africa really need to be sorted out by Africans. The developed world’s role is to apply pressure to make sure they have the motivation to do so. Let Noel Gallagher and Alicia Keys have their hissy-fits, any good policy analyst knows that civil society has had an increasing influence international relations in the last 20 years.
Expect the goods from the G8 summit and raise your voice if they don’t deliver!
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| The most expensive Lions tour ever! |
| 07.02.05 (5:47 pm) [edit] |
Never mind the slack refereeing, the All Blacks trounced the Lions at the cake tin by a wider margin than last week's match! http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ind...
(Why is it, by the way, that Wellingtonians have interesting metaphors for buildings, whereas Aucklanders just have apt descriptions? Maybe its all the time spent in cafes reflecting on life in general.)
There was much bad blood evident on the field, unsurprisingly given the bile that was spread around by the Lions' PR people. Did anybody else hear Umaga use the "c" word after the match? I also wonder what Sir Clive Woodward has to say about the blatent forearm stomp on Byron Kelleher, given his whining about Umaga's "spear tackle" last week. Oh yes, there was also the bad 'knock on' call from the ref in the opening minutes of the game that deprived us of yet another try. But never mind. We won.
Afterwards I went to an '80s children's television show party.' I was a very impromtu Velma from Scooby Doo.
[image]secretsamurai_2302 10068.jpg[/image]
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