Why only 20% of Japanese people vote in elections

1. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Masahiko Komura, on Japan’s renewed whaling effort after abandoning plans to hunt 50 humpback whales:

“Japan has its own culture as much as Australia does and since [whaling] involves public sentiment, it’s not an issue we can resolve by confusing each other using logic.”

2. Wow. Did the Japanese Foreign Minister just blame Japan’s whaling on the Japanese public?

3. I’ve lived in Japan for almost 2 years now, and I’ve met many many Japanese people, and I’ve asked many of them about how they feel about whaling and whale meat, and I’ve heard a fairly wide range of opinions on the matter — but I’ve never ever met a single Japanese person who feels that whaling is their divine right. In fact, most Japanese people that I’ve met don’t eat whale meat, doesn’t like the taste of whale meat, and quite frankly wouldn’t notice if whale meat just disappeared from menus and supermarket shelves. This, from another opinion piece in the Herald by Dr Kumi Kato of UoQ:

“The claim by the Japanese Government that whale meat is part of Japanese culture is true in that it existed in this small-scale, community-based coastal whaling similar to the hunts of indigenous groups such as the Makah and Inuit, but this is, in my opinion, clearly separate from the large-scale industrial whaling conducted on the high seas.

If the Government is seriously committed to the maintenance of cultural tradition, the priority would be on the sustainable livelihood practices of coastal community fisheries, which may include a very limited number of whale hunts. It is human arrogance to assume harvest of any natural resource as a right but, if an inherent cultural right is to be granted to anyone, it would be the coastal communities.”

4. I think it would be safe of me to say that the Japanese coastal communities never hunted in the Southern Ocean, since, you know, the Southern Ocean is a billion miles away.

5. On the other hand, every single Japanese person I’ve met hates their government, and hates their politicians. TV shows are created with the express purpose of inviting political representatives on so that powerful TV personalities and famous comedians can call them stupid. The rampant disregard of the political elite for the thoughts and welfare of their constituents is, well, feudal.

6. And when their own ministers show such incredible arrogance, who could blame them?

iHave Entitlement Issues

1. From CNET:

“Some commended Jobs and the company for what they considered a humble and fair response to the iPhone price flap. Others, however such as CNET News.com reader Jake Kushner, president of JK Media, said Apple’s response didn’t go far enough to satisfy those who bought a 4GB iPhone for $499, only to see the 8GB model become $100 cheaper. They should get a free upgrade to an 8GB model or a $200 rebate, he said.”

“I feel wronged and misled by Apple. Such a quick price reduction indicates that Apple premeditated this reduction before the initial release,” Kushner wrote, addressing Jobs. “I read your public response on Apple.com to this issue, but I still feel that the solution you are offering is not adequate.”

2. Pfffft. The only thing inadequate is your ability to control yourself… twice. Once for being a cheap bastard and buying a 4gb iPhone, and once for telling the world about it. Fake Steve has a tshirt for you, have you heard of him?

So what’s this about not flaunting your language skills?

1. From today’s Herald:

2. “Asked if he was impressed by Mr Rudd’s language skills, Mr Downer, a French speaker, said he was not one to flaunt his talent with foreign tongues.”

3. Oh, nice comeback. But then…:

4. “I did the French language course and Mr Rudd did the Chinese language course. I did mine in two months and he did his in two years, that could say something about him and me or something about the two languages. I think the former but that sounds a tad partisan.”

5. Well, it might be “a bit partisan”, but it didn’t stop you from saying it now, did it?

The only question now is…

1. …the 8gb iPod touch, or the 16gb?

2. I’ve been betting quietly that one of these would come out, and even without WIFI I would’ve bought one. Why? That kickarse interface. I’m an interface geek, a holdover from my design days, and that multi-touch interface is just mind-bogglingly awesome. I don’t really want an iPhone, ’cause while it might be thin, it’s not a small phone, and if I’m out on the piss the last thing I want is to break that screen by being drunkenly over-enthusiastic. Or by dropping it. And how can you have a smartphone where you can’t even cut-and-paste text? Here’s hoping for iPhone 2.0.

3. But this… all the best features of the iPhone, and I can still leave it home when I don’t need it. And, lets face it, it’s really an 8mm thick computer. You just know that this thing will get the crap hacked out of it, and by Christmas there’ll be a bunch of 3rd party apps available — who knows, even Apple might get in on the act, since the only excuse they gave for the lack of 3rd party app support in the iPhone was because of “stability issues”.

4. Now if you can plug in a foldable keyboard and run third party apps, I’ll never need a laptop, ever again.

5. (Anyone who whinges about the lack of storage should look at an Archos 605, equally drool-worthy, 160gb storage, and matches the iPod touch in pretty much every regard except OSX and thinness. So quit it with the damn whinging.)

Aspirational Nationalism

1. Does anyone know what this means?

2. I may be an immigrant, and English may be — technically — my second language, but I dare say I wield English far more deftly than any number of English-as-first-language speakers. But it’s been a week or so since I came across the term “Aspirational Nationalism“, and I still don’t quite understand what it means.

3. Could it refer to a country that is aspiring to become a nation? Or perhaps a nation’s people aspiring towards unity? Or, a nation of people aspiring to become wealthier, regardless of who they have to step on; thus united by their servitude to capitalist whoredom?

4. Not since Kim Beazley dropped “Boondoggle” from his impressively vast vernacular* (which, if I remember correctly, was to describe another Howard government pork barrel promise) has a phrase so confused the general public. Though “boondoggle” is at least a word — a proper, recognised word — and not some political-PR-department-constructed wet dream:

5. “But what they might mean bolted together in this way is a mystery, although there is a certain iron clang to the construction which suggests it might sound better in German.”

6. As always, well said Mr Carlton.

* - Pardon the pun.

The Cult of the Amateur

“One inviolable tenet of this twin-track libertarian ethos, according to Keen, is a misplaced faith in the integrity of the amateur - the citizen journalist, the self-published author, the mash-up musician - and a generic distrust of expertise.” SMH

1. I’ve never heard of Andrew Keen, nor do I know very much about him, but he has recently written a book called “The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy”. The above quote was from an SMH article discussing the various points and pitfalls of his argument. It’s a long article, but I think that quote sums up Keen’s main argument, and it’s one that I agree with, though probably not as much as he does. Some people seem to place an awful lot of trust in something that was written in an authoritative voice on a semi-popular blog, or on Wikipedia, which to me seems quite bizarre since you have no idea who that person really is. Anyway, read the article and make up your own mind.

Natural Disasters

1. Did anyone notice that Japan has been hit with not just a typhoon, but an earthquke as well this weekend? All we need now is a volcano warning and we’ll have the trifecta. Or we could go for the Superfecta with a North Korean missle launch, Russian territorial dispute and Chinese environmental disasters drifting across the seas.

2. I think I live in the most exciting part of the world.

Disgusting

1. From [WCCO](http://wcco.com/topstories/localstory064172908.html ):

An off-duty Northwest Airlines employee was arrested after a woman on a flight from Seattle complained that the man had ejaculated on her.

Another good reason not to fly with Adam Air

1. You may remember the Indonesian Adam Air flight that crashed between Surabuya and Manado on New Years Day this year. Well, Adam Air is at it again, this time one of their planes, upon landing, snapped in half. Really.


Photo from SMH

2. Bugger.

The Wired High-Def FAQK

What are the advantages of switching to high definition?

When watching actual high-definition shows, the main advantage is that you get to see more of the hallways. How many times have you been watching Grey’s Anatomy and thought, “I wonder what the sides of that hallway look like?” Well, thanks to the improved aspect ratio of HDTV, you can see exactly how spacious and open the hallways are! From the broad cornfields of Smallville to the ample starfields of Battlestar Galactica, your peripheral vision is in for a treat it won’t consciously register!

1. Awesome.