Early help desks
Having just bought a new Applebook laptop after years of using windoze, this rang a particular bell for me. (a hat tip to Ted at Cerebus)

Seal the border, part II
It isn't the heat, its the stupidity. Norbiz riffs on the results of this survey.

"6. Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001? 50% say "stop fucking asking that already," the other half is divided into "yes, I am dumber than fucking horseshit" (41%) and "[blank stare]" (9%). The number of shit-dumb Americans has increased by 5 percentage points over the last three years."


I'm guessing the 22% who thought the Amazon was located in Africa or the 3% who thought it was in North America, make up the bulk of the 26% of the people who still back Bush.

"We didn't do it, nobody saw us, and when we apologized for it, we didn't really mean it"

Some days I think I either need to get a new job, have my conscience sugically removed or simply have my jaw wired shut.

Get facts straight on comfort women
The Yomiuri Shimbun

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has adopted a resolution demanding an apology from Japan over the so-called comfort women. But the resolution was produced based on an erroneous perception of the facts.
The Japanese government should try to unravel the U.S. side's misinterpretation of history in order to remove a source of future trouble, while in the meantime working to block passage of the resolution by the full House of Representatives.
The resolution calls for the government to accept historical responsibility and apologize for "its Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery." It describes "the comfort women system" as "one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century."
The resolution was made without verifying the facts and smacks of cheap rhetoric. It makes us doubt the intelligence of U.S. lawmakers.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed "sympathy from the bottom of my heart" and said he "felt sorry" during his meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush and congressional leaders during his visit to Washington in April. The prime minister also said that the 20th century was a century of human rights violations and Japan was not totally blameless.
Abe's remarks did not postpone adoption of the resolution by the lower house committee.
The resolution is merely one of many adopted at the U.S. Congress. It does not have any legal binding force. Thus, some observers say Japan does not have to take it seriously.
===
Govt must dispute false charges
But this is the wrong conclusion to draw. If Japan refrains from making counterarguments, this erroneous historical view will become accepted as established fact.
Before World War II, there were many women who were put to work as comfort women against their will by parents and brokers. But this does not mean the Japanese military coerced the women.
In past studies, no evidence has been found showing "coercive recruitment of comfort women by military personnel or government officials." The government explicitly presented this observation in March in response to a question by an opposition lawmaker.
On what is the resolution based? Reportedly the 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono played a significant part.
The statement said that Japanese military and officials were "directly or indirectly involved in...the transfer of comfort women." Such wording apparently led to the misapprehension that there was coercive recruitment.
===
Kono apology politically driven
The 1993 statement was motivated by a political desire to deflect pressure from South Korea on the comfort women issue. And it has helped broaden the misunderstanding.
Apparently out of diplomatic consideration, Abe has said he stands by the Kono statement. But as long as the prime minister takes this position, the misunderstanding of coercive recruitment will never disappear. If the statement is found to be erroneous, it should be rewritten without hesitation.
In March, Foreign Minister Taro Aso referred to the lobbying in support of the resolution as an "operation to estrange Japan and the United States." Anti-Japan forces in the United States linked with Chinese and South Koreans have exercised their influence behind the scenes on behalf of the resolution.
If the matter is left unaddressed, further demands for apologies will be repeated. The government must methodically elucidate the historical truths involved in the issue.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 28, 2007)

If anyone is looking for me, I'll be in the shower for a few days

What Digby Said
Sometimes you read about stuff that really pisses you off - Bwana Dick Cheney claiming to be a fourth branch of government, Supreme Court decisions that err on the side of wealthy corporations and and bullshit front groups for political parties to wage dishonest character assassination campaigns - stuff you really want to blog about. Then you look around the internet and realize that it has http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-more-questions-for-you-by-digby.html. To borrow a phrase that has swept the intertubes What Digby Said...

Dubya: Still more popular than genital warts! (barely)

The latest Newsweek poll shows George W. Bush's is NOT the most unpopular president in U.S. --he is three whole percentage points more popular than Richard Nixon during Watergate.

Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans...In fact, the only president in the last 35 years to score lower than Bush is Richard Nixon. Nixon’s approval rating tumbled to 23 percent in January 1974, seven months before his resignation over the botched Watergate break-in.

I know what you're thinking -- it's the war. Americans are dying and voters are blaming the president. Well, yes...

The war in Iraq continues to drag Bush down. A record 73 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush has done handling Iraq. Despite “the surge” in U.S. forces into Baghdad and Iraq’s western Anbar province, a record-low 23 percent of Americans approve of the president’s actions in Iraq, down 5 points since the
end of March.

...And no. Turns out that American voters just aren't that into Dubya anymore.

But the White House cannot pin his rating on the war alone. Bush scores record or near record lows on every major issue: from the economy (34 percent approve, 60 percent disapprove) to health care (28 percent approve, 61 percent disapprove) to immigration (23 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove). And—in the worst news, perhaps, for the crowded field of Republicans hoping to succeed Bush in 2008—50 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of terrorism and homeland security. Only 43 percent approve, on an issue that has been the GOP’s trump card in national elections since 9/11.

"But, but, but" I hear the hardcore Bushniks sputter "Voters hate congress more than they hate Bush." True enough...

If there is any good news for Bush and the Republicans in the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, it’s that the Democratic-led Congress fares even worse than the president.Only 25 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.

...But I think the reason people hate congress is that they haven't managed to clip Georgie's wings yet. Thanks to Bush's veto power, Republican obstructionism and general gutlessness about being accused of "not supporting troops" the Democratic congressional majority hasn't done what people want to see them do. They haven't ended the war, done anythng on health care, or gotten rid of Alberto Gonzales. People hate the president and Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table.

At least George can take some joy in knowing that he isn't likely to be impeached. No matter how many people hate him, he's still more popular than his puppetmaster Vice-President Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney.

CBS News/New York Times Poll. May 18-23, 1,125 adults nationwide. MoE 3%."Is your opinion of Dick Cheney favorable, not favorable, undecided, or haven't you heard enough about Dick Cheney yet to have an opinion?"

Favorable 13%
NotFavorable 39%
Undecided 23%
Haven'tHeard 24%
Refused 1%

(cross-posted at The Galloping Beaver)

The not-so friendly skies
How long will have to wait for the federal government to start putting peace activists and opposition MPs on the new no-fly list, just like their American counterparts?

Barry Prentice, the director of the Transport Institute at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (quoted in the linked article) has it right:

"We're having a no-fly list because they have a no-fly list.… They want us to have one and we want to open trade with the U.S., so we're getting one."
Prentice said the Canadian government should limit the size of its no-fly list and make sure the number of names doesn't get into the thousands.
"Let's limit it to the size of a hockey team and let's kept it public," he said. "I just think this is overboard."

It isn't like the U.S. list has ever been abused by the authorities. Heaven forbid!

Ice cold assassin a cool read
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Requiem for an Assassin
By Barry Eisler
Putnam, 368 pp, 24.95 dollars
The professional criminal planning one last job before retirement is a pop culture staple, as is the retired or reformed gunman being forced back into action to save a friend. Former Tokyo and Osaka resident and former CIA spook Barry Eisler uses these archetypal premises as the jumping-off point in his latest and possibly last novel featuring Japanese-American assassin-for-hire John Rain.
Like all genre fiction, the espionage thriller has its conventions, certain things the author is expected to provide. High-tech gadgets? Check. Cool, ruthless hero? Check. Exotic international settings? Check. Wisecracking sidekick? Check. Double-crossing villain? Check.
In lesser hands, Requiem for an Assassin could have been a standard-issue, cookie-cutter spy thriller of the sort that clog the shelves of airport bookshops around the world. But John Rain is not a standard-issue protagonist and Eisler, for all his respect for the convention of the genre, does not write cookie-cutter novels.
Rain is a thinking man's James Bond. While Bond's penchant for high living, beautiful women, gourmet food and flashy cars make him the most conspicuous secret agent ever, Eisler's Rain strives to keep a low profile, presenting the face of an anonymous salaryman or Japanese tourist to the world. He specializes in murders that look like accidents and is a study in emotional detachment, tradecraft and paranoia. He is constantly scanning the room for possible tails, wary of cameras, never sitting with his back to a door or going anywhere without an escape route and cover story. But is it paranoia when they really are out to get you?
In this case the "they" is Jim Hilger, a rogue Central Intelligence Agency contractor who, while still bearing a grudge against Rain for foiling one of his operations in the previous book in the series, nonetheless finds himself in need of the Japanese-American hit man's particular expertise. In order to persuade Rain, now living in semiretirement in Paris, to cooperate, Hilger and his henchmen abduct Dox, Rain's partner and one of his only friends. In order to free his comrade-in-arms, Rain must commit three murders for Hilger. Needless to say, tables get turned, plots get twisted and the body count mounts before the good guys save the world.
The Tokyo setting that figured so prominently in the earliest books of series has been replaced here with Saigon, Amsterdam, Singapore, Silicon Valley and New York, though Rain does make a brief stopover in his old hometown to recommend a few local eateries.
In addition to the emphasis on professional spycraft, Eisler has done his technical homework on all the hardware, but in the main avoids the common action novel trap of turning his books into catalogues of weapons and gear from Spies-R-Us.
What sets Rain apart is Eisler's ability as a writer to get inside the psychology of the character's almost split personality. Rain is surprisingly human and self-aware for an action hero.
In action, Rain is a cold-blooded, remorseless machine that kills without warning or emotion. But when the job is done, he hurts. Rain is a killer with a conscience and he worries about the emotional and spiritual price he has paid for all the deaths he's caused, while at the same time realizing that if his conscience causes him to hesitate at the wrong time, it could cost him his own life.
Rain recognizes the sociopath inside himself and worries that with each job, he is coming closer to turning into "the iceman" for good. It is this depth that makes the character, and by extension the book, believable and what sets Eisler head and shoulders above the pack of run-of-the-mill thriller writers.
(Jun. 16, 2007)

If I had a million dollars...
I'd buy you and me a drink. A tad pricey, but probably damned good hooch. I'm more or less an atheist, but if there is a God, when you die and go to heaven, this is what it has on its breath.

Seal the borders, NOW!
This kind of stupidity could be contagious. Don't misinterpret me, I don't think that belief in God should disqualify one from holding high office, but I do think that disbelief in science should. If you are superstitious enough to believe, despite mountains of empirical scientific evidence to the contrary, theat we humans were put here in our present form as a species less than 10,000 years ago by your mystical Sky Daddy, then you are denying basic empirical evidence. If you really believe this, I have no reason to trust that you wouldn't go along if the pope or Pat Robertson told you gravity was just God pushing down on your shoulders and that airplanes could fly because He chose not to push down on them. Would you hire a person who believed that to design aircraft? Or teach biology or physics?

From the linked USA Today/Gallup poll:

23.Next, we'd like to ask about your views on two different explanations for the origin and development of life on earth. Do you think Evolution, that is, the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life is:

Definitely true 18%
Probably true 35%
Probably false 16 %
Definitely false 28%
No opinion 3%
Total true 53%
Total false 44%

B. Creationism, that is, the idea that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years is:

Definitely true 39%
Probably true 27%
Probably false 16%
Definitely false 15%
No opinion 3 %
Total true 66%
Total false 31%

I suppose the difference between the percentage that are sure evolution is definitely false and the percent that are sure creationism is definitely true represents those who cling to intelligent design to try to put a faux scientific gloss on their superstition, but the notion that there is a core of about 30% or more that are just plain willfully ignorant is more than a little disturbing.

Plenty of surprises up its sleeves

By Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

The Prestige

5 stars out of five

Dir: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson

Watch carefully, for things are not as they seem in The Prestige. Writer and director Christopher Nolan's hand is quicker than the audience's collective eye, and while he provides plenty of clues along the way, surprising plot twists abound on the way to a stunning finale.

The structure of the entire film is set up in the opening scene, in which Mr. Cutter, a designer and builder of stage illusions played by Michael Caine, explains to a young girl the three stages of any magic trick: the pledge, the turn and the prestige.

Showing her a caged canary, Cutter explains how the magician shows you something ordinary. The second step is to make the ordinary object do something extraordinary, he tells her, collapsing the small cage and making the bird disappear.

"Now if you're looking for the secret, you won't find it. That's why there's a third act called the prestige. This is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you've never seen before," Cutter tells the girl, producing the canary from thin air.

The girl turns out to be the daughter of Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), a famous magician facing the hangman for the murder of his archrival and former friend, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman).

Set in late Victorian era London, The Prestige follows Borden and Angier from their early days as friends learning the tricks of their trade. When an escape goes wrong, killing Angier's wife, he seeks revenge on Borden. As the years pass, the two become famous rivals and the competition becomes obsessive with each seeking to sabotage the other. When Borden comes up with an inexplicable, showstopping illusion, Angier goes to exceptional lengths to duplicate and finally, with the help of mysterious genius inventor Nikola Tesla (an understated but magnetic David Bowie), to outshine Borden. Who will take the final bow, however remains a mystery until the last moments of the film.

As he did in Memento, Nolan very deftly manipulates the audience much like a magician, misdirecting our attention to spring surprise after surprise.

While a lesser film might have relied completely on a clever script with a surprise ending (see the works of M. Night Shyamalan), The Prestige provides the total package: a subtle, multilayered script (cowritten with his brother, Jonathan Nolan), smart dialogue, terrific performances by all the principal cast, smooth pacing, beautiful atmospheric cinematography and a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing final act worthy of the film's name.

(From the Jun. 9 edition of The Daily Yomiuri)

In yer ear

By Kevin Wood Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

WILCO

Sky Blue Sky

Warner Music, 2,680 yen

After soaring high with the more experimental Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born, Wilco return to Earth with Sky Blue Sky.

The album harkens back to their earlier alt-country roots. Despite major personnel changes, the Wilco of Sky Blue Sky sounds a lot more like the band that recorded the Woody Guthrie tribute Mermaid Avenue than the group responsible for the abstract excesses of Ghost.

At times, Sky Blue Sky sounds like the best '70s country-folk-rock album never made, with twangy hints of the Grateful Dead ("What Light"), the Flying Burrito Brothers, and God forgive them, even the Eagles. Mix that with a stiff dose of introspective, moody melodicism by songwriter and frontman Jeff Tweedy, punctuate with some guitar heroics by new member Nels Cline and the result is a largely understated song cycle about the uncertainties of love.

The gentle, tentative nature of the opening song "Either Way" with its pretty, breezy guitar solo sets the thematic tone: "Maybe the sun will shine today/The clouds will blow away/Maybe I won't feel so afraid."

Several songs, notably "I Hate It Here," and "Shake It Off" seem rooted in a fear of, or a reaction to losing love, while others such as "Walken" and "On and On and On" are more straightforward love songs, although they tend to dwell more on reassuring a lover than seduction or celebration. Others, like the title track and "Leave Me (Like You Found Me)" seem to be about surviving emotional chaos.

Musically, Tweedy's neurotic energy and famously jangled nerves come through in the arrangements. "You Are My Face" starts off quiet until a sudden burst of dissonant roaring guitar sends the song off in a much more intense, melodramatic direction. "Side With The Seeds" is a sonic standout, with the band showing off their chops. The acoustic-guitar folkiness and sunny harmonies of aforementioned "What Light" are balanced by the plaintive, lonesome plea "Please don't cry/We're designed to die" of "On and On and On."

While Sky Blue Sky may lack the alternative edginess of Yankee and Ghost, it also has a warmth the former lacks and the latter only hints at. Wilco has come full circle back to the classic rock elements Tweedy's early work with Uncle Tupelo was both a reaction to and a reflection of--and a welcome homecoming it is.

ALO

Roses and Clover

Universal/Brushfire 2,381 yen

The former Animal Liberation Orchestra returns with a follow-up to 2006's Fly Between Walls. The California-based quartet have tightened up their jam band-based sound, while still leaving lots of room in their songs for extended keyboard and guitar interplay.

The band's sound also seems to have coalesced into a more cohesive style. While their broad range of influences--funk, '70s rock, soul, jazz, blues and folk--is still evident, they no longer seem to change genres from song to song. Where ALO once went from Motown Funksters on one track to Nashville Country Rockers on the next, the group seems to be on a more even musical keel on Roses and Clover, opting to blend styles within songs rather than jumping from one genre to the next.

One thing that hasn't changed is the infectious, sunny, groove-oriented nature of their sound. Roses and Clover is a danceable romp with a rootsy feel and solid musicianship.

(From the June 9 edition of The Daily Yomiuri)

Supporting the Troops
Over the last several weeks we've seen Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day twist and squirm on the issue of prisoners of war captured by the Canadian military in Afghanistan. They seemed to have hit a new low last week when Harper, who has never served in the military (or even had a job in the private sector) tried to deflect criticsm of his gormless defence minister by suggesting that anyone who hadn't served in the military was not fit to criticize those who had. By the same reckoning I suppose those who have never taught school should be barred from criticism of the education system and those of us who have never held a seat in the House of Commons should just keep our traps shut and be grateful for the fine job the Gnu Gummint of Kanada is doing on our behalf.
This is, of course, to use the technical term complete and utter bullshit. Canada is not a military dictatorship, the armed forces answer to their civilian overseers, who are supposed to answer to the voters.
This week, they've sunk a notch lower in their emulation of the national security state to the south, where anything the government does, no matter how many of its own laws it breaks, can be justified by claiming it is being done in the interest of national security (Just like they do in such enlightened democracies as North Korea and Burma. The government is now stonewalling on releasing information about the number of prisoners taken in Afghanistan, saying the enemy could use such information for propaganda purposes or to hurt our gallant boys in harm's way defending our way of life over there so that we don't have to fight the terrorists over here and why aren't you wearing red with yellow ribbons you islamoanarchofacist pinko bastard?
Doris wants to know how we dare to even ask questions:

"Detainees are not simply people who have jay-walked," Day said. "These are people who are suspected terrorists."

"That has been the air of the questioning, so much so that our troops tell us they think they're being accused of doing wrong things."

Doris better go read the Geneva Conventions again, because if the military is handing over prisoners to be tortured, they are doing the "wrong thing" -- the kind of wrong thing that could land people in the Hague. By asking these questions and demanding the military act properly we are supporting them, we are making sure they don't inadvertently violate international law and commit a war crime by mimicing the conduct of our neighbors to the south.
It is not the job of the grunts in the field or their immediate superiors to determine whether the Afghan government tortures prisoners. They should be able to take the word of the minister of defense and the prime minister and the chief of defense staff who job it is to determine what happens to prisoners taken on the battlefield. It very definitely is their responsibility to determine whether the Afghans are likely to torture any prisoners we hand over to them.
The opposition are doing their job, the voters are doing thier the troops are doing theirs -- why isn't the government doing its job?

crossposted at the Galloping Beaver, where Dave explains for the fourtyleventh time why it is important for us to follow the Geneva conventions, even if the other side doesn't.

Giving crazy a bad name

"With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine. By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future."

-- Iran president Ahmadinejad, on Israel

Because the—all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases.
There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those—changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be—or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the—like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate—the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those—if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.
---U.S. President Bush, trying to explaining his plan to save Social Security,
Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005

Shouldn't these guys be out on a street corner in tinfoil headgear, shouting at traffic?


We have suffered a bit of computer meltdown at home so posting will be light for the next few weeks, but stay tuned -- once we get things up and running again, I have a huge multipart post on race and immigration in Canada planned, and my new shipmate over at the good ship Galloping Beaver, Alison, wants me to finished the Execution sketch.

the swift and terrible sword of justice
In Ohio, the sword of justice is certainly terrible -- swift, not so much.

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- Death penalty opponents called on the state to halt executions after prison staff struggled to find suitable veins on a condemned man's arm to deliver the lethal chemicals.
The execution team stuck Christopher Newton at least 10 times with needles Thursday to insert the shunts where the chemicals are injected.
He died at 11:53 a.m., nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. The process typically takes about 20 minutes.

At least the condemned was a good sport about it:

But Newton, who had insisted on the death penalty as punishment and made no
attempt to appeal, chatted and laughed with prison staff throughout the delay.
It took so long that the staff paused to allow Newton a bathroom break.

I can see the Monty Python/SNL sketch already:

Executioner: Okay, are we ready? Doctor, have you found a vein?

Doctor: Yes

Executioner: Warden, can we go ahead?

Warden: Do your duty.

Convict: Duty? Duty? Wait a minute! Wait! I need to go to the toilet.

Executioner: Didn't you go before we left the cell?

Convict: I didn't need to go then!

Executioner: Well, can't you hold it for a few minutes? This won't take long.

Convict: No. I need to go now!

Executioner: (Sighs) Okay. Okay. Guard, unstrap him.

Convict: Thanks, I owe you one.

Executioner: Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can we just get on with this? I have to take my kid to soccer practice and I can't stay late tonight.

(Convict and guard shuffle out of death chamber, Executioner, warden, priest, doctor make uncomfortable small talk "how about those Mets, huh?" until convict and guard shuffle back in)

Executioner: Okay, ready? Can we do this now?

(convict is strapped in)

Bill Smith, you have been convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury of your peers and sentenced by a lawful court to death. Padre, would you administer the last rights?

Priest: Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy....Uh, can we just pause there for a minute, I need to visit the uh...

Executioner: Oh, for the love of God -- fine! Just hurry it up will you? (to convict) Sorry about the delay, really.

Convict: 'Sallright

(more uncomfortable silence, guard starts to whistle aimlessly, some lively tune like Oasis' "Live Forever" or Queen's "Who wants to live forever" or even "Live and Let Die" until he notices others scowling at him. Priest returns.)

Priest: Sorry about that, just got caught short, I had a lot of coffee this morning

Executioner: Okay, are we ready now? Bill Smith, you have been convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury of your peers and sentenced by a lawful court to death. Padre, would you administer the last rights?

Priest: Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit...

(Warden's cell phone rings, Executioner glares at him as it continues to ring. the Warden answers)

Warden: Oh, uh hello Governor...I'm fine, how are you?...really, I'm sorry to hear that. Have you seen anyone about it?..uh-huh...and the ointment is working, is it?...uh-huh...that's great!.....A 78, fantastic!...Uh-huh...uh-huh...no, not yet...okay...okay...right...Really! Gosh that is surprising...well, if that's the way you feel about it...I suppose it is for the best...Well, no, nobody likes to play God, I suppose....Yeah, I'll take care of it...Okay, thanks Governor, I understand... I'll talk to you later...right, okay...bye-bye.

(Warden puts phone back in pocket, resumes stance next to convict strapped to gurney. Executioner continues to stare at him)

Executioner: Well? (Everyone stares at Gov.)

Warden:What? Oh! The phone (laughs) yeah, it was the governor. He shot a 78 in the pro-am last week, can you believe it?
(They continue to stare)

Convict: AND?

Warden: Well, he's going on junket to Hawaii next week and he was thinking of having his hamster put down, since he won't be home to feed it, but I promised to take care of it for him.

Executioner: (sighs with relief and starts up again, very quickly) Bill Smith, you have been convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury of your peers and sentenced by a lawful court to death.....

You deserve a break today
A group of well-to-do busybodies in England are petitioning the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition of "McJob" from "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."

"We believe this definition is out of date, out of touch with reality and most importantly is insulting to those hard-working, talented and committed people who serve the public every day in the UK. As the namesake for this derogatory term, this prejudice is felt most sharply by the 67,000 people who pursue careers and jobs at McDonald's in the UK."
"It is time the dictionary definition of "McJob" changed to reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding and offers genuine opportunities for career progression and skills that last a lifetime."

In a related story, a group of serial onanists are petitioning the editors of the Cockney Rhyming Slang Dictionary to remove the term "Merchant Banker" as they feel associating their their sensual pursuit with such people is demeaning.
"At least our hobby brings pleasure to someone, even if it is only to myself," said Hans Innis-Pahnts, spokesperson for Onanists Organized Over Orwellian Humbuggery. "This lot obviously has too much time and not enough meat on their hands. Uh...I mean to say, Sir Digby obviously hasn't spent a lot of time flipping greasy beef, stuffing it between buns and slathering it with....uh, excuse me for a few moments," said Innis-Pahnts, who could not be reached for further comment.
In a related development the White House announced it would petition to have the definition of "corruption" changed to "a win-win situation" and "incompetence" changed to "doing a heckuva job." Other proposed changes include "Up" being defined as "Down" and "Black" being defined as "White."
The late George Orwell could not be reached for comment, but journalists visiting his grave reported hearing a definite whirring sound.


I've had my share of jobs in the service sector working in kitchens and classrooms where everything has been time-and-motion studied to death and all actions, attitudes, attire and thoughts must conform with the manual. It seems that according to the authors of the aforementioned letter -- Sir Digby Jones, late of the Confederation of British Industry and David Frost, director-general of the British Chamber of Commerce and about a dozen others who have probably never flipped a burger, scrubbed a hotel toilet or read from a call center script-- the problem with demeaning, soul-destroying low-wage jobs is not that people are forced to smile while working long and hard at tasks that would bore the shit out of your average farm animal, but that the Oxford English Dictionary acknowledges that fact in its definition of "McJob."

I'll give him the hard-working part, not that most service sector workers have much choice. Slack off when you're feeling tired and you'll be replaced by another faceless cog in short order. "Talented" -- well, it's called "unskilled" labor for a reason. Any half-bright cro-magnon can be trained to do most McJobs - I know, I've done them. Most consist of very simple, very repetitive tasks -- the more repetitive the better from a management point of view, because then employees can specialize and get really good at cleaning toilets or pulling french fries out of the grease in the manner laid out in the manual. "Committed" -- yeah, more than a year at most McJobs and you'll feel like you're ready to be committed to an asylum. There is a reason the employee turnover rate at Micky D's is over 300% and it isn't because good help is hard to find.

"Stimulating" -- yeah nothing is quite as stimulating as choking on the rancid fumes while cleaning out a grease trap, taking crap from arrogant teenage customers who think its funny to leave your tip in the ketchup or having some stressed out yuppie unload his rage on you because his burger has pickles, but not tomatoes instead of the other way around. "Rewarding" -- ooooh, $6 whole dollars an hour, assuming your area has an enforcible minimum wage law. And you can progress from fry cook to crew chief to assistant manager to the lofty pinnacle of manager in just a few short years, making almost enough to move out of Mom's basement.

I will admit that learning to repeat "Would you like fries with that?" or "Your call is important to us" like an automaton and getting the hang of smiling at customers and sleeping at night while knowingly selling an obviously inferior product do have wider applications in life. Likewise significantly increasing the saliva and mucous content of an annoying prick's take-out order can be satisfying, but I suspect that isn't what Jones, Frost and company had in mind.

I think a quick poll of the 67,000 people working at McDonalds in the UK would indicate that barring the trainable mentally handicapped and the brainwashed cultists from Hamburger University, most would say the definition is entirely accurate. Just ask these folks if they are "lovin' it."

And it isn't just McDonald's that is guilty of exploiting its employees; most fast food chains and other low wage franchise and chain service businesses like Molly Maid, Wal-Mart and most supermarkets stay in the black by paying as little as the traffic will bear. That why companies like McDonalds and WalMart hate unions or anyone who rocks the boat and demands a little dignity -- there just isn't any room for that in the manual or the budget.

If you've worked enough of these kinds of jobs you know they are a tough slog and means to an end, not a career choice. I'm not talking about middle-class teenagers working part time for a little spending cash- being on the exploited side of the equasion might actually teach them a little humility - I'm talking about adults who take these jobs because they need work and can't find anything better. Someone will always have to do these jobs, but shouldn't they be entitled to decent treatment and a living wage? If you think people in the service industry are just lazy and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, go read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America while I get your take-out order ready Mr. merchant banker.

Master of creepiness pens dark tale of damaged lives

Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Piercing

By Ryu Murakami

Translated by Ralph McCarthy

Penguin, 185 pp, 13 dollars

An ice pick is a very simple tool that focuses the strength and weight of the user's arm onto a tiny, needle-sharp point, allowing the shaft of the ice pick to easily penetrate deep into a rock-hard block of ice.

Like the ice pick that figures so prominently in its pages, Ryu Murakami's Piercing focuses the life stories of a pair of complex characters into single harrowing encounter that transfixes the reader from the arresting opening scene.

To say Murakami's work is often dark would be an understatement.

In his best-known novel, Coin Locker Babies (1980), one of the main characters drops nerve gas on Tokyo. In the Miso Soup (1997) is about a psychopath carving a bloody trail through the capital's red-light district. While the body count in this newly translated 1994 novel is considerably lower, for sheer creepiness, Piercing puts both of the aforementioned books in the shade.

Ralph McCarthy, having previously translated In the Miso Soup and the considerably lighter 69 by the same author, seems well versed in the intricacies of bringing Murakami's subtleties into English with a sparse, matter-of-fact prose style that adds further impact to the stark brutality of the violence.

Piercing begins with Masayuki Kawashima, a successful graphic designer for an advertising agency, married to a kind and loving wife. His life seems the paragon of domestic bliss, but for the last 10 nights he has spent hours after his bread-baking wife has gone to sleep standing over his baby daughter's crib with an ice pick, trying to convince himself he won't stab her.

Kawashima decides that the only way to overcome his obsession with using the ice pick, and the fear that he will harm his daughter, is to stab someone else instead. He puts a few days into planning the perfect crime and under the pretext of taking a business research trip, checks into a top-end Tokyo hotel intending to use it as a base of operations to murder a prostitute. Further meticulous preparation ensues, during which the reader gets glimpses of Kawashima's nightmarish childhood and the brutal beatings his mother routinely inflicted on him before he was taken away to live in an institution for abused children.

Murakami then switches point of view to Kawashima's intended victim, Chiaki, a call girl who specializes in S&M games and who is also a survivor of childhood abuse. Chiaki's mental health is as dubious as Kawashima's and the roles of predator and prey become confused as the novel teeters between psycho-thriller and black farce as Murakami switches points of view, often revisiting scenes to give contrasting perspectives. Such a he-said/she-said approach would be doomed if not for Murakami's use of third person narration.

On the surface, Piercing is a chilling horror novel in the vein of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter books, but on a deeper level it is about the vulnerability of children and the lasting damage that results from abuse. Both Kawashima's and Chiaki's deranged behavior stems from the coping mechanisms they have developed to survive their respective childhood ordeals. In the widening gyre of their adult lives, things fall apart and the coping mechanisms become psychoses that fill them with passionate intensity of the worst sort.

(May. 26, 2007)

Not to sound like a paranoid conspiracy nut, but...
It is strictly speculation, but could philanthropist Glen Davis have been murdered because of his support of the conservation movement? He gave millions a year to the World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club and that may not have sat well with some of the more extreme "traitorous liberals should all die" types out there. He survived a vicious beating two years ago that was never explained and his attackers were never caught.
I'm not saying he was killed because of his involvement with the environmental movement - I don't know enough about the other aspects of his life to say that there wasn't some other motive for the murder. But when I see the kind of overblown rhetoric that gets thrown around on the right side of the blogosphere about how this person or that person should die in some horrible way because they don't have the same beliefs as the poster, I always wonder how long it's going to be before some nut job take the idea to heart. Certainly, this has happened in the abortion debate. Call those doctors providing abortions baby-killers enough times and viola, some fetus fetishist dingbat decides to be judge, jury and executioner and plant a "pro-life" bomb at a clinic or shoot a physician in front of his family.
I don't know whether Davis was assassinated for giving millions to the World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club, but sadly it isn't beyond the realm of possibility

Speaking of nutjobs with bombs - While I'm sure sensible people everywhere would feel bad if there had been violence at Jerry Falwell's funeral, apparently it was his own guys that were ready to start throwing firebombs. Wasn't Fred Phelps and his addled band of cultists supposed to be picketing there?

The devil made him do it

A male comedian dressed up like a woman saying "the devil made me do it" in a comedy routine is funny.

A fundamentalist Christian teenage mother using it to defend her teenage would-be preacher's attempt to roast their toddler alive-- ehhh, not so much.

More progressive parenting in Jebusland:

Woman blames devil, not husband for burning daughter in microwave
May 20, 2007, 12:45PM

© 2007 The Associated Press

GALVESTON, Texas — A woman blames the devil and not her husband for severely burning their infant daughter after the 2-month-old was put in a microwave, a Houston television station reported.

Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.

"Satan saw my husband as a threat. Satan attacked him because he saw (Joshua) as a threat," Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.

A Galveston County grand jury indicted Joshua Mauldin last week on child injury charges after hearing evidence that he placed his daughter in a motel microwave for 10 to 20 seconds.
The infant, Ana Marie, remains hospitalized. She suffered burns on the left side of her face and to her left hand, police said.

Eva Marie Mauldin, the girl's 20-year-old mother, told the television station that her husband is "not the monster people are making him out to be."

Another weekend, another barbecue
Took the curvaceous and emminently capable Ms. Rev. Paperboy and the youngin' up into the mountains of Yamanashi Prefecture this weekend to camp out on a mountain top at The Northlands with 50 of our closest friends from my old watering hole in Kawasaki, Moby Dick, (named for the drum solo, not the whale) the friendliest bar in Japan, if not the world.

We took the train up early Saturday morning and my big little brother Take-chan picked us up at the station and whisked up up the mountain for a day of eating, drinking, loafing in the sun, barbecuing, drinking, playing music, and more drinking. The next day we got up to bright, bright (I have never wanted sunglasses so much as I did when I stepped out of the cabin - did I mention I'd been drinking the night before?) sunny weather, let the kids feed the horses at the riding stable (priceless). After checking out of the campground we took a short, scenic, vomit-filled (Anyone know what the Japanese for "Gravol" is? Dramamine doesn't seem to work on my kids, in fact, I suspect it is making them sick) drive through the mountains we stopped for soba and then took the train home.

Special thanks to Kaki-san, Takarada-san, the G-Tribe Motorcycle Club, Linn-chan and Ayu-chan for drumming and babysitting above and beyond the call; wheel man and soup chef Take-sama and of course our gracious host The Chief.

To paraphrase the master (and this is the real list): "We had 5 cases of Heineken, 2 bottles of Captain Morgan's dark rum, 2 bottles of Blanton's Single Barrel bourbon, a bottle of Black Bush, 2 bottles of Beefeater, 2 bottles of Jose Cuervo Gold, a bottle of Bacardi white rum, 5 litres of red wine, 5 litres of white wine, a bottle of Glenlivet, a bottle of Kalua, a bottle of Amaretto, a bottle of cassis, ten litres of assorted sake, a half dozen different kinds of sho-chu, 5 kilos of Rev. Paperboy's homemade spicy Italian sausage, 3 kilos of chicken, 4 kilos of assorted beef, 2 tuna heads, a dozen baguettes, a broad assortment of salads, pickles, olives, cheeses, chocolates, 'smores and 6 litres of Take's fabulous vegetable chicken-sausage soup.
The only thing that worried me was the tuna heads. There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man drunk on sake in the depths of a tuna binge."





I'm not claiming we drank all the aforementioned booze - though I think I had the last beer the next morning - but we certainly put a dent in it. I know we went through about half of the Irish whisky just er...toasting my sausage -- which isn't nearly as dirty as it sounds.