The White Peril 白禍

There's this plan for three-pronged economic reform, the overall aim of which is to put more tax revenue directly in the hands of the local governments that ultimately use it. In the existing system, much of the money only gets back to them after going through federal ministries and their attendant agencies, public corporations, semi-public corporations, and various hangers-on. The reforms would change that by giving local governments the rights to collect more of the tax money and use it as they see fit.

This means a significant loss of control and influence for the federal-level ministries, so they've come up with their own three-pronged resistance.

Some are hoping that, if they loudly proclaim what a good idea they think the subsidy cuts are, no one will notice if they quietly work to keep a few key ones unchanged:

Only the Cabinet Office and the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry wholeheartedly supported the subsidy-cut plan put forward by the six organizations. But even within the Cabinet Office, rumblings were evident, with its demand that special consideration be given to the 33.9 billion yen in subsidies Okinawa Prefecture receives from the central government.

Others are brazenly refusing to play along--not out of self-interest, but rather because (never heard this one before, huh?) it would be irresponsible to the children:

The six organizations' proposal called for a cut in state subsidies for services provided by local governments under the compulsory education system by 1.13 trillion yen, but the education ministry flatly refused to play ball. "The subsidies are essential from the standpoint of preserving the equal opportunities for and standards of education, as guaranteed by the Constitution," the ministry said.

For anyone reading from the US, bear in mind that this is not quite as bad as hearing the same thing at home would be. The Japanese public education system has plenty of flaws, but it is working better overall than its American counterpart. Still, you have to wonder whether the Monbusho has been studying the NEA playbook.

Sadly, not all the other ministries have an obvious it's-for-the-children angle to work, so they're forced to get craftier. They'll agree to the cut subsidies, all right, but somehow the money thus "freed" will end up being even more firmly under their control. This, too, could have been modeled on some NEA or AFT proposal, whereby competency standards for schools somehow ultimately mean that we're paying the non-performers more in funding:

Although the construction ministry came up with a plan to reduce subsidies for repairing and improving rivers by 7.4 billion yen, and the agriculture ministry proposed slashing donations to agricultural committees by 2.8 billion yen, the savings will fall outside tax revenue to be transferred to local governments under the reform plan.

Instead, the two ministries want the bulk of the proposed savings to be transformed into grants that can be spent at their discretion for any purpose deemed suitable.

Don't you just love it?

2000 unique visitors this month, even if you account reasonably for those automatic-referrer site wangdoodles. That's very flattering. Thanks to everyone for stopping by.

Including those who may have come through one of the stranger search strings that dredged me up. Not many loopy ones this month, but two or three worth noting. Such as "japanese sexy nurses," which came up more than once. I'm assuming this was a search for Japanese sexy female nurses. The male nurse doesn't seem to benefit much from association with the men-in-uniform thing for some reason--maybe that nursing isn't seen as requiring the sort of gruff, assertive manfulness policework and firefighting does? Nurses have to heft patients and have good reflexes and interpret shouted input from a bunch of directions, so you'd assume most of them are pretty in-shape and responsive and have good powers of concentration. Those are pretty sexiness-enhancing attributes, though I suppose only the first is actually relevant if you're looking for a fantasy object.

Another inquiry addressed Mr. Google with flawless politeness: "where to find a chart that's against bush on gay issues and please make it not too complicated. thank you." Since attention to courtesy is not to be taken for granted among the anti-Bush, pro-gay contingent, I was sorry that neither my ideology nor the content of my posts provided an answer. I'm less certain about "eggplant poisoning." Is there such a thing? You hear diet busybodies complain that people fry eggplant in too much oil, but I'm pretty sure that if you could poison someone with eggplant, I'd have come across it in my years of Agatha Christie and Columbo fandom. Dying on the Vine, the story would have been called.

Speaking of Columbo, Atsushi and I are watching today's installment before going to the museum. I have to surrender him at the airport earlier than usual this week, but you take what you can get. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Most of you have probably seen this already, but Jane Galt has posted her presidential endorsement. It's very well worked-out, but of course I'm going to say that because I agree with her. It did remind me of something a friend asked me the other day, though--namely, what do foreigners think about the election, anyway? Megan framed the question sensibly:

Then there's the question of what message electing Kerry would send. Does it make the world love us, because we got rid of the president they hate, or does it make them despise us, because we've just held a referendum on the Iraq war, and Bush lost?

Obviously, I don't know a representative sample of the 5 billion-odd people who live outside America. My Japanese and foreign acquaintances here in Tokyo are a mixture of international business types and bumming-around-teaching-English types, mostly. And I get to see foreign publications and broadcasts more than a lot of Americans, though I don't know how I'd rate next to the newshounds of the blogosphere.

Be that as it may, I think the foreign media will use a victory for either side to do exactly what they've been doing for all of recent memory: pissing on American policy and business interests while making moist-eyed proclamations of love for the American people. For anyone who missed it, Bruce Bawer had a long but beautifully done piece on foreign views of America a while back that expands on that point quite a bit. The way foreign journalists talk about the Clinton administration as the halcyon days of yore now, you'd never know that, while it was going on, they were carping and caviling and mewling and bleating about everything America did just as much as they do now. Sure, they liked Clinton more than they liked his right-leaning opponents, and 9/11 and the WOT have provided things to fixate on that didn't exist then. But the essential song remains the same, in my view.

So the answer to "Does it make the world love us?" when the "it" refers to anything but letting ourselves be annexed by Canada, is no. The foreign press would warm to Kerry more than it has to Bush; it would like his wife, who with her high-strung multilingual social-democratic persona is similar to most foreign women journalists. If he continued the WOT essentially the way Bush has promised to, he would probably get a little more sympathy for the first few months, because they could spin it as cleaning up his predecessor's mess. If he deviated radically from the Bush doctrine, he might be ritually praised at first as more peacable. But we'd be back where we started in no time: America has arrogantly designated itself the world's police force! And why isn't it doing more to help other countries? And so on.

As to whether voting Bush out would provide an opportunity to cast Americans as wishy-washy and unable to commit to long-term projects instead of staying just long enough to secure our short-term interests--please! That goes without saying. No matter how the people and the electoral college vote, America will be depicted as full of well-meaning but self-centered folks who don't understand the realities of the world.

However, I think those who hope that a landslide for Bush will show our willingness to stick by the difficult decisions he's made as commander-in-chief are also naive. That's surely the line non-US reporters will take when they want to make America out to be full of dangerous, gun-brandishing nutcases. The rest of the time, they'll point to the offices that Democratic candidates actually won, declare that those wins show that Bush doesn't have a mandate because the American people are bitterly divided over the WOT and domestic policy, and go right back to saying what they always say.

Now that I've dug myself in several paragraphs deep, let me emphasize two points: I'm a pretty observant guy who happens to live abroad. I'm not a media expert, and I'm not a political scientist. What I've said here is based on my observation, and I'm aware how subjective it is. Normally when I post about things I'm not well versed in, I try to provide as many links as possible. In this case, I haven't because I'm referring to BBC and NHK and CNN international broadcasts as much as to print media here, and you can't really cite the tone someone took while tut-tutting over the invasion of Iraq. But I really do think that fair-minded people who immersed themselves in non-American news sources for a while would come up with pretty much the same impressions as I have.

The second point is, I'm talking about foreign media--as opposed to people I talk to--because they are where ordinary citizens get their information about America. People aren't too dumb to realize that journalists bring their own biases to the stories they cover, of course; but inevitably, when reporting about the US is colored the same way over and over by everyone you're likely to read or watch, it has its effect. As Bawer notes, despite the general liberal bent of the US media, we Americans have access to a multiplicity of news sources and ideological slants that you really don't have even in other democracies, where the filtering is done for you by others who get to decide what's worthy and what's junk.

All of which is to say, we can't really do much about the way the election results will be interpreted for the world. We also can't do much about the way either man, if elected President, presents himself to the media. Faced with a choice between Bush, who has the demeanor of a lightweight but takes discernible policy positions, and Kerry, who has gravitas in his bearing but can't string two sentences together without contradicting himself, I still think Bush is the better option.

I'm glad Reuters is pointing this out: The deadline before Shosei Koda, the abducted Japanese citizen, was supposed to be murdered by his kidnappers has passed. The situation is agonizing, and I hope he's released safely. But not all the Japanese are directing all their outrage at the government:

The hostage crisis poses a challenge to Koizumi, who is a close ally of President Bush and sent troops to Iraq despite strong public opposition.

But with many Japanese blaming Koda for putting himself at risk, political fallout might be limited, analysts said.

Exhausted members of Koda's family begged for the life of a young man who they said had no ties to Japan's military, no political agenda and was not in search of personal gain.

"He is just a warm-hearted person who wanted to see what he could do for peace and help the people of Iraq," Koda's brother, Maki, told a news conference.

By all accounts, Koda was an easy-going, bum-around type--there are a lot of them who wander around Southeast Asia. I don't think it's heartlessly blaming the victim to point out that wandering into Iraq from Jordan as an unaffiliated civilian was an extremely bad idea. People seem to be forgoing the opportunity to vent their opposition to Koizumi's close ties to Bush, which is nice to see. (I'm not saying people who disagree with Japan's non-combat participation in the Iraq reconstruction should refrain from criticizing it, only that not acknowledging the degree to which Koda imperiled himself would be dishonest.)

Added at 11:15, 30 October: They think they've found Koda's body. No confirmation yet, though.

Added at 11:15, 31 October: NHK has just confirmed that Koda's body was found in Iraq, and I assume the story's already...yes, on Reuters. The fingerprints match.

Sometimes I think I should learn to spaz more. I seem to miss out on so much fulminating, which I'm given to understand is very cleansing and restorative. Evil Queen Rosemary, along with everyone else and his decorator, posted about Bush's apparent change of stance on gay unions:

You can call if a flip-flop if you wish but I prefer to think of it as evolution.

Now, he and Cheney are simpatico and I am much pleased. It's a baby step but it's an important baby step.

Well, okay, she's not fulminating--just take a look at those comments, though! Now, what I don't get is this. The FOXnews article quotes him as saying:

"I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so," Bush said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC. Bush acknowledged that his position put him at odds with the Republican platform, which opposes civil unions.

"I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights," said Bush, who has pressed for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (search). "States ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others."

Great! Fine by me. But is this new? If I recall correctly, he said something similar on Larry King in August (how long ago in the life cycle of campaign-related unpleasantness that seems now!):

"That's up to states," Bush told CNN's Larry King Thursday night. "If they want to provide legal protections for gays, that's great. That's fine. But I do not want to change the definition of marriage. I don't think our country should."

When asked about federal benefits for same-sex couples Bush pointed to inheritance taxes which are lower for people who are married Bush said gays should support Republican moves to get of inheritance taxes altogether.

The president told King that gay couples should work with Congress not depend on 'activist judges'.

See? We already spazzed about this. It's true that this ABC interview is just before the election and less likely to be forgotten, and that Bush's phrasing makes him sound a bit more personally supportive of civil unions, but the idea that it's something he's hauled out without warning...unless there's a significant dimension I'm missing here, it's not.

*******

BTW, what does it mean when someone tells you you "dress like a Republican"? Not a compliment, I don't think from context; but don't all those DNC-loyalist trial lawyers shop at Brooks Brothers, too?

*******

Atsushi's flying in for the three-day weekend tomorrow. No typhoon at either end this time. One hopes.

Added at 20:30: I wasn't the only one to remember--one of GayPatriot's readers did, too. This is very odd.

Added at 00:31, 30 October: As Atsushi reminded me when we spoke on the phone, this is not, actually, a three-day weekend. :( On the bright side, he is, in fact, coming, having dispatched his end-of-the-month crunch work.

Just finalized my flight reservation to go home for Thanksgiving--first time in a good seven years. I mean, it's not the first time I've been home, but it'll be the first time I can make both my father's side of the family's dinner on Sunday and the other side on Thursday. Now that the ticket is bought (I pushed the "MUG ME!" button after entering my card number, and the JAL confirmation screen said, "You will accumulate miles on this flight." I'd better!), I'm almost giddy with excitement at seeing fall in Pennsylvania for the first time in nearly a decade, even if I will be getting there after most of the prettiest leaves are gone.

Someone mentioned the Mercalli scale of earthquake intensity, so I looked it up. The source that gives the most fleshed-out description of each level was at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory site. The one that's decribed in a way that sounds as if it might be very close to the original (which I assume was translated directly from Italian in the 1930's) was at about.com:

I. Not felt except by a very few under especially favorable circumstances.

II. Felt only by a few persons at rest, especially on upper floors of buildings. Delicately suspended objects may swing.

III. Felt quite noticeably indoors, especially on upper floors of buildings, but many people do not recognize it as an earthquake. Standing motor cars may rock slightly. Vibration like passing truck. Duration estimated.

IV. During the day felt indoors by many, outdoors by few. At night some awakened. Dishes, windows, and doors disturbed; walls make creaking sound. Sensation like heavy truck striking building. Standing motorcars rock noticeably.

V. Felt by nearly everyone; many awakened. Some dishes, windows, etc., broken; a few instances of cracked plaster; unstable objects overturned. Disturbance of trees, poles, and other tall objects sometimes noticed. Pendulum clocks may stop.

VI. Felt by all; many frightened and run outdoors. Some heavy furniture moved; a few instances of fallen plaster or damaged chimneys. Damage slight.

VII. Everybody runs outdoors. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction slight to moderate in well built ordinary structures; considerable in poorly built or badly designed structures. Some chimneys broken. Noticed by persons driving motor cars.

VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable in ordinary substantial buildings, with partial collapse; great in poorly built structures. Panel walls thrown out of frame structures. Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls. Heavy furniture overturned. Sand and mud ejected in small amounts. Changes in well water. Persons driving motor cars disturbed.

IX. Damage considerable in specially designed structures; well-designed frame structures thrown out of plumb; great in substantial buildings, with partial collapse. Buildings shifted off foundations. Ground cracked conspicuously. Underground pipes broken.

X. Some well-built wooden structures destroyed; most masonry and frame structures destroyed with foundations; ground badly cracked. Rails bent. Landslides considerable from river banks and steep slopes. Shifted sand and mud. Water splashed over banks.

XI. Few, if any (masonry), structures remain standing. Bridges destroyed. Broad fissures in ground. Underground pipelines completely out of service. Earth slumps and land slips in soft ground. Rails bent greatly.

XII. Damage total. Waves seen on ground surfaces. Lines of sight and level distorted. Objects thrown upward into the air.

Level XII sounds like the apocalypse, with the Earth actually convulsing and objects tossed like confetti.

What I find interesting is the locution, "Everybody runs outdoors." That's the first thing you learn not to do when you live in earthquake country. (Yes, as those last two links indicate, Sunday isn't the first time I've thought about this. The NHK special I referred to was very engagingly put together, even if it inevitably started giving off a sort of "which way do you think you'll die?" vibe toward the end, after an hour of computer models of pancaking highways and dramatizations of fires. Hasn't stopped me from going to basement restaurants, or anything, though. Did I say something recently about avoiding parentheticals? Never mind. I'll work on that next week.)

Another Japanese citizen has been taken hostage in Iraq. The last pair were months ago; they were freed. But there's been quite a bit of beheading since then, and the threat, naturally, is that he will be murdered if Japan doesn't withdraw its non-combat SDF personnel within 48 hours. Koizumi, being Koizumi, says no.

Hope of finding survivors among the missing from the earthquakes this weekend is dwindling, but there was one touching rescue story today. There were a mother and her two children in one of the cars that were buried in landslides; the woman and her daughter (whose body hadn't been freed yet when the Nikkei story was posted) died, but her little two-year-old boy survived. Of course, it's late October; he was suffering from dehydration and hypothermia and headwounds, but he made it through. And he's conscious--the first thing he said when he recognized his father calling him was, "I want a drink of water." I'm sure the guy was never so happy to hear anything in his life. The number of confirmed dead is now 32. Tragic, each one, but way lower than it might have been, given the number of strong quakes.

There was apparently another aftershock this morning, in fact, which was perceptible in Tokyo. I didn't notice; I was in a car at the time. But of course, there are still plenty of problems to deal with, including stranded villagers and the stress put on many of the elderly survivors.

Andrew Sullivan has endorsed John Kerry, which may surprise you if you've just emerged from your cave to buy provisions for the first time in a few months. I think the questions he raises about Bush are good ones; they were going through my mind when I voted, believe me. The points he brings up in favor of Kerry, however, make me wonder which of us is living in an alternate universe. One of us must be:

Besides, Kerry has endorsed democracy as a goal in Iraq and Afghanistan; he has a better grasp of the dangers of nuclear proliferation than Bush; he is tougher on the Saudis; his very election would transform the international atmosphere. What Bush isn't good at is magnanimity. But a little magnanimity and even humility in global affairs right now wouldn't do the United States a huge amount of harm.

Uh, of course, Kerry has endorsed democracy as a goal in Iraq and Afghanistan. Was anyone expecting him to call for a Saudi-style blend of monarchy and thugocracy? The last two sentences ring true to me, though they'd need to be qualified. Bush has been great at getting some key heads of state on his side in the WOT, but his all-American, unassuming charm does not translate well abroad. And like it or not, that matters. It doesn't necessarily make him unfit for the presidency, but it needs to be considered.

What is just as important, though, is what we Americans think of our own president. Sullivan recognizes this, but I am at a loss to explain where this conclusion comes from:

He has exuded a calm and a steadiness that reassures. He is right about our need for more allies, more prudence, and more tactical discrimination in the war we are waging. I cannot say I have perfect confidence in him, or that I support him without reservations. But not to support anyone in this dangerous time is a cop-out. So give him a chance. In picking the lesser of two risks, we can also do something less dispiriting. We can decide to pick the greater of two hopes. And even in these dour days, it is only American to hope.

Kerry is the candidate of hope? Yeah, okay. There's just no response to that--you see what you want to see.

I'll gladly talk about my reservations about the Bush administration and the trajectory of the Republican Party. But the kind of hope that Kerry and the DNC represent seems to me to be more accurately characterized as wishful thinking. I hated having to vote for Bush the way I'd pick up a Swanson's TV dinner (iffy quality, but you know exactly what you're getting), but better that than voting for someone because he might not suck as much as he's likely to.

This is the sort of worrisome thing I mentioned the other day in relation to the Kobe earthquake and in possible relation to damage from the earthquakes in Niigata over the weekend:

Researchers said the destructive temblors that hit central Niigata Prefecture from early Saturday evening occurred in an area that has usually been considered safe from major seismic activity.

The buried fault lines along which the quakes seem to have occurred are not visible from the surface. That could spell bad news for other regions that have not been too worried about the possibility of a big quake because no fault lines are evident near the surface.

Yet the weekend quakes weren't the first for Niigata.

According to Tameshige Tsukuda, an associate professor at the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo, the area of the epicenters was also the site of the massive 1828 Sanjo Earthquake that killed about 1,400 people. The extent of that quake's damage led scientists to estimate it had likely registered about a magnitude 6.9 on the Richter scale.

The area from Niigata city through Ojiya and Nagaoka and along the Shinanogawa River toward Nagano city is known as the Shinanogawa River seismic zone because of its deep fault lines.

"There have been very few major earthquakes in recent years in the area from Niigata city to Nagaoka, and the region was considered free from earthquakes," Tsukuda said.

In fact, on Oct. 13, the governmental Earthquake Research Committee predicted a less than 2 percent chance that a major quake would strike the fault belt at the western end of the Nagaoka plain within the next 30 years.

Ah, yes, probability. There's no problem with using it to project where quakes are likely to happen, obviously--you have to start with something, or you can't prepare at all. But given how often seismologists have been reduced to saying things on the order of, "Kobe?! How very extraordinary!" (or, of the Sendai earthquake, "That wasn't the one we were expecting") lately, I wonder how well regions that are considered "safe zones" are being provided with just-in-case preparation. It certainly looks as if it could prove useful.

Oh, my. The world is such a disillusioning place. Ashlee Simpson apparently really isn't a teen combination of Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, and Johnette Napolitano, reborn for the 00's with a contemporary edge all her own!

But I mean, her's hair's black, so she's, like, all the opposite of her sister. Right?

I don't see why talentless but charismatic pop idols shouldn't do lipsynch acts for fans, sort of as a happy medium between a concert and a music video, as long as no one pretends they are what they aren't. Trying to hoodwink people with a prerecorded vocal that's the same as the radio edit is an insult.

The LDP's Research Commission on the Constitution has reached a conclusion about how to deal with the dubious constitutionality of using the SDF in international conflicts: change the constitution:

The members of the Liberal Democratic Party's Research Commission on the Constitution agreed Friday to propose revising the second paragraph of Article 9 of the Constitution to state that the nation possesses military forces.

During the discussion of an outline of the party's draft amendments to the Constitution, the commission, chaired by Okiharu Yasuoka, also agreed to expand the list of duties fulfilled by the Self-Defense Forces to include national defense and international cooperation.

The party is set to compile the outline by the end of the year.

During the discussion conducted at the party headquarters in Tokyo, most of the members insisted that the constitutionality of the SDF should be clarified by stipulating that the nation has military potential.

Most of the members said it was not necessary to stipulate in the Constitution the nation's right of collective self-defense, citing that few countries specify such a right in their constitutions. Under the right of collective self-defense, a nation may consider an attack against its allies as one against itself and may launch counterattacks against an aggressor that has attacked an ally.

I'm assuming that part about changing the wording of Article 9 means that there would be an amendment. I'm certainly no constitutional law scholar, but I don't think the Diet can just go in with a red pen and change phrases without leaving a record at the end of the document. Have to ask a lawyer friend.

Prime Minister Koizumi was apparently talking about possibly proceeding without a constitutional amendment (the Asahi article is very vaguely worded, and I never found the original Japanese versions). Naturally, the usual "51st state" fears have also been raised:

Pointing out that the United States has forces stationed worldwide, former Home Affairs Minister Takeshi Noda said Japan would be obliged to follow the United States anywhere in the world if some form of restriction [on the type of collective self-defense the SDF can participate in without being regarded as violating the non-aggression pledge in Article 9] was not stipulated.

Given that the SDF has been waddling, swimming, and quacking like a military for years now--and given that Japan has the DPRK and the PRC to worry about as much as or more than the US--officially acknowledging that it has a military seems to me to be the sensible thing to do. It would be sensible even if Japan weren't angling for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The world is both different (Japan is super-rich, no longer a devastated post-war mess) and the same (resentment over Japan's conduct during its occupation of Asia is kept raw by visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and the cagey wording of apologies on the part of Japanese politicians) compared to fifty years ago in ways that make the genteel fiction that the SDF is a glorified police force dangerous to maintain.

Sixteen people are confirmed dead in last night's earthquakes, and more damage has been reported: a collapsed tunnel, what sounds like an entire buried village. (In Japan, news footage of mudslides is relatively common, BTW.)

Added at 18:03: As you can imagine, NHK is all earthquake, all the time, today. A few things I should probably clarify: I've been saying this wasn't a "major" catastrophe. The terms in which I'm speaking are other quakes of 6.8-ish magnitude we might use as a point of reference: The Bam quake in Iran that flattened a city and killed 30000 last December, for example. You might count the Kobe quake (6.9 M_J) itself, for that matter. It killed 6500 people, caused upper floors of the city hall to pancake, and took out sections of the bullet train and expressway that link Tokyo with the south. By comparison, 21 dead, 1500 seeking treatment, and some buckled roads and crumbled concrete are tragic but manageable. (I'm not making light of the loss of houses and other property, but if you're going to suffer from an earthquake, it's better to have to rebuild your house than to die when it crashes on your head.) It's also fortunate that there weren't more fires; the first quake hit at 6 o'clock, when a lot of people probably had gas flames going preparing dinner.

The Mainichi is reporting that last night's quake actually had higher "acceleration" than the Kobe quake. This is apparently different from 震度 (shindo, the ground-level movement measured by the JMA scale) and magnitude (measured by the Richter scale). Something to do with how furious the vibrations are. Note that Niigata was still getting aftershocks into this afternoon. They may still be, though NHK hasn't said. Some of the aftershocks were weak 5's on the JMA scale, which was surely intense enough to scare the blazes out of people who'd just gone through three strong 6's in succession.

Susanna Cornett posted about Gay Patriot's allegation that the Log Cabin Republicans' political director, Chris Barron, may be a Democratic plant.* Well, that he was an Edwards supporter who may not have been working sincerely to further Republican goals for gays. Things are looking as if this story may check out, and if it does, bully for GayPatriot for pursuing it.
* I have to say that I don't entirely share Susanna's confidence that GayPatriot doesn't engage in unsubstantiated partisan attacks. He links to a faxed version of a web page and seems to assume his readers will just take it at face value, when any of the bloggers I'm used to reading and trusting would have looked for the Google cache, which isn't difficult to find (the page I found dates to February, not to August 9, but GayPatriot seems to be saying that the page he was faxed came up in an August 9 search--in any case, "Edwards for President" was a meaningless concept by then), and posted it. I also haven't seen any confirmation that the assumptions underlying his "Someone threw a bottle at my car--obviously a disgruntled Kerry campaign worker!" post were borne out--and how the hell does one manage to be "straight-acting" while driving, anyway? I don't have a problem with his running an anonymous website, but he doesn't seem to understand that that makes it more, not less, important for him to give as much objective evidence for his contentions as possible. (Well, unless he just wants to reach those who already agree with him, and it doesn't look that way.)

Something I don't think I've ever mentioned, but that many of you may have encountered in the course of reading about Japan, is that the Japanese don't use the Richter scale when describing the intensity of an earthquake. They do use it to measure it for geological purposes (as in, to record how much energy was released), but for the purposes of broadcasting how strong it was, they use a system developed by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The scale is interesting because it's calibrated by what most of us really want to know: How was it experienced by people?

7 - In most buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. In some cases, reinforced concrete-block walls collapse.

6 upper - In many buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. Most unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse. 315 -- 400 gal

6 lower - In some buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. 250 -- 315 gal

5 upper - In many cases, unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse and tombstones overturn. Many automobiles stop due to difficulty in driving. Occasionally, poorly installed vending machines fall. 140 -- 250 gal

5 lower - Most people try to escape from danger, some finding it difficult to move. 80 -- 140 gal

4 - Many people are frightened. Some people try to escape from danger. Most sleeping people awake. 25 -- 80 gal

3 - Felt by most people in the building. Some people are frightened. 8 -- 25 gal

2 - Felt by many people in the building. Some sleeping people awake. 2.5 -- 8 gal

1 - Felt by only some people in the building. 0.8 -- 2.5 gal

0 - Imperceptible to people. Less than 0.8 gal

They use a pendulum to measure how much the ground moves at locations around the country. (At least, they used to--it's entirely possible they have electronic sensors now.) As you can see, the quake in Niigata a few minutes ago, being a strong 6, may have caused considerable damage. NHK still, of course, doesn't have much word. I'm not sure whether building codes there are similar to those in Tokyo. One of the problems in Kobe during the Great Hanshin Earthquake ten years ago was that, in Japanese terms, that region is not a major earthquake zone, so most buildings weren't built quake-proof and older buildings were not retro-fitted. They're reporting an explosion at a gas station and 3 cars buried under a cliffslide (I'm only half-hearing--it doesn't sound as if anything major collapsed or anyone was killed).

Another shake at the NHK studio in Niigata. It started 30 seconds ago, and now we're feeling it. Big-time. Whew. This one's at least as big as the one a half-hour ago. The newscaster's telling people to open a door or window (that way if the frame's distorted you can still get out if there's a fire), so they may be expecting more aftershocks. Okay, it was a weak 6 in Niigata, and another 3 or 4 here. It's in rural areas that the biggest worry of falling roof tiles and collapsing wooden buildings exists; it's a good sign that they're not reporting much damage from areas outside Niigata cities, but it's too soon to say for sure.

18:45: And now they're correcting that one to another strong 6.

18:55: Or wait, they're saying it was a weak 5. That one was spooky for me because you could see the newsroom in Niigata start to shake, and then we felt it half a minute later. It's interesting to note that, while everyone's afraid of another big quake here in Tokyo, the major ones we've had over the last ten years have all been in other regions: Kobe, of course, but also Sendai and Hokkaido (always a hotspot, I think).

Looks as if there was a train derailment and there were a few people injured in falls, but fortunately nothing major. BTW, there was another one in the middle there at 18:15 that I didn't get around to mentioning. The Nikkei has its first report up and says that the magnitudes (this is different from the JMA scale--"magnitude" still isn't the Richter scale in Japan, but it's more comparable) were 6.8, 5.9, and 6.3.

23:09: Three deaths have been reported, and inevitably there were some houses that collapsed. Something else Reuters mentions, which I'd wondered about, is that in places where the ground is already soaked and destabilized from this year's barrage of typhoons, even low-intensity shaking could be enough to cause more mudslides. That doesn't apply to Niigata, I don't think. But since the center of the quake was pretty close to the geographical center of mainland Japan, it could apply to some of the prefectures in southern Honshu.

The ongoing mad cow disease flap has meant that Japan is still not importing US beef. There's talk (again) of negotiations to end the ban, but Japan had been demanding until recently that every [Another quake! This one's milder, but I hope no one's getting it big-time somewhere else...Where's that remote?...Looks like there's no worry of tsunamis, but the one a few minutes ago was over 6 on the Japanese scale at its center in Niigata. We felt it at 3 or 4 in the Tokyo area, according to the NHK map.] head of cattle be tested. Having been persuaded that the risk can still be minimized with random testing of fewer than 100% (the article doesn't say how many fewer), Japan may be in more of a mood to negotiate.

Enough potassium cyanide to kill 1000 people has been stolen from a professor at Kyoto University:

Officials of the graduate school's pharmaceutical school said that one of its professors had found a 20-year-old bottle of potassium cyanide labeled KCN, the chemical symbol, while sifting through old chemicals on a shelf Wednesday night.

The professor kept the lethal chemical in a locked box to distinguish it from others he planned to dispose of.

On Thursday, the 62-year-old professor asked an assistant researcher to check the box that had been left in the corridor.

Not having taken chemistry for a good long time, I don't know whether potassium cyanide degrades after 20 years, but I'm assuming a university would know how to store it properly to preserve it--and in any case, the professor, who's in a position to know, sure seems worried. [Ooh, earthquake, one of those swaying ones...getting bigger...Whoa! Not intense, but not dissipating, either, and it's been 30 seconds or so.]

Someday, I will write an entire post that doesn't contain a single parenthetical.

You see if I don't.

Colin Powell is coming to Japan tomorrow to talk about the restructuring of US troop deployments in Japan. It looks as if the plan will be engineered through a three-step process of negotiating: First the US and Japan need to arrive at a level of "strategic mutual agreement*" to serve as a basis for furthering their shared security interests, then the concrete plan for reorganization needs to be hammered out between them. (Apparently, the order of these two steps was originally supposed to be reversed--that is, it would be decided how many soldiers would be retained in Japan, and then the two governments would talk about how best to allocate them to various needs.) And then...well, they'll actually implement it.

Of course, if it were that easy, diplomats and negotiators would not have a reputation for liking a drink or six, and in this case, probably the biggest potential sticking point is this:

The objective is to finalize a restructuring proposal, predicated on the willingness of local authorities in Japan, by the end of May 2005.

The US military is not popular in many base towns, especially those in Okinawa. This article covers the most recent arrest for sexual assault (this time by a civilian base worker who allegedly broke into the victim's house). There was a 12-year-old girl assaulted and murdered by three servicemen in 1995. These incidents have outraged Okinawans, who tend to feel--not without foundation--that mainland Japan has been only too happy to shove as much US miltary presence as possible off on its poor southern cousins. Unmentioned, oddly, was the relatively recent notorious 2002 conviction of a USAF staff sergeant for the rape of an Okinawan woman outside a nightclub in 2001. (The Time article was written before the conviction, but I linked it because its discussion of the tension between servicemen and locals was relatively well worked-out and even-handed.)

I'm not trying to slam the armed forces here. How to handle thousands of guys living pent up lives away from their wives and girlfriends was a problem for military leaders long before the US was a superpower. And there's probably no way to maintain the security of, say, a crashed military helicopter without miffing the local police who come to the scene.

At the same time, making an effort not to give locals the impression that they're being treated with curt, secretive occupying-army superiority is not just the nice and ethical thing to do, it becomes important when negotiations of the sort that are to surround the planned restructuring take place. It's unclear how much movement there will be of personnel to other parts of Japan from Okinawa--there's been talk for a while of closing certain intallations there, anyway--but it's likely that it will relieve many Okinawans and rattle many Japanese in the new location.
* I know "mutual agreement" is redundant. "Agreement" alone wouldn't have had the connotation of back-and-forth negotiation that's implied by the Nikkei article, so I decided to compromise. Translation, like mutual defense agreements, is full of compromises.

Okay, you know, I'm a big fan of rain, but enough is enough. This is number 23, for those who are keeping count. There are already 28 dead or missing; it's supposed to pass us here in Tokyo some time before sunrise. Here's hoping there are no further casualties.

Added at 23:54: And now that I pay attention, things are awfully quiet out there. Maybe the worst is past already? From what the news says, Utsunomiya is still getting rain. Doesn't even look all that windy, though.

Added on 21 October: This CNN article has the number of dead at 30 and the number of missing at 40; the Nikkei has the numbers at 46 and 42, respectively. As usual, most of the casualties were in Western Japan, where the jagged landscape makes landslides and the flooding of valleys an ever-present danger. And then there are the high waves and flying objects from the wind to factor in. Atsushi's fine; his city didn't get hit this time, but in addition to the 88 dead and missing, there were 300 injured, and no one's begun to count the property damage and agricultural losses. They're bound to be high, especially in places such as Ehime Prefecture, which has taken it on the chin more than once this season.

This typhoon and the one that came through Tokyo a few weeks ago have not only been unusually strong, they've also been lastingly unpleasant: Neither was followed by the usual clear weather you get after a typhoon. "Probably because there's another one in line," everyone jokes. But we can still joke because Tokyo hasn't had much damage or injury.

Added on 22 October: It feels a bit unseemly to keep posting updated casualty counts, as if one were keeping score at a baseball game, but since Simon World kindly linked this post, those who are interested in what we can only hope is the final word can go to the English Asahi: 65 dead and 21 missing. That's the worst for any single storm since 1979. And as the article points out, a lot of the soil was saturated practically to liquefaction by previous storms, so landslides were even worse this time than they have been before this year. It reminds you how fragile our infrastructure is when nature decides to play rough...though on the other hand, feats such as the rescue of a bunch of bus passengers, who sat on top of their vehicle as the water rose, remind you how fortunate we are to live in a world with such resilient systems to respond to disasters. The sun is out in Tokyo today, at least, so let's hope there will be some respite before anyone gets hammered again. It's not yet the end of typhoon season.

For anyone who's been sleeping too soundly, here are two reports from the Asahi that I didn't get around to mentioning. One relates that, while Japan is pouring money into its spy satellite network, it is still overwhelmingly dependent on information actually picked up by US satellites:

It was only after North Korea lobbed a Taepodong missile over the Japanese archipelago in August 1998 that the government decided to step up monitoring of the reclusive state via satellite.

Almost five years and billions of yen later, Japan launched its own reconnaissance satellites--one optical and one radar--in March 2003.

Two more were planned to go up last November but remain grounded after the H2A rocket No. 6, which was to carry the satellites, failed to launch.

In the past 18 months, a whopping 250 billion yen has been spent on the project. To top that off, annual running costs are in the range of 20 billion yen. In August, the government announced that another optical satellite will be launched next fiscal year. A second radar satellite is slated for fiscal 2006.

As always, my point is not that Japan's image as technologically advanced is a lie. It's that Japan, like every other country, is better at some things than at others. And at the moment, rockets are not its strong suit. (Last November is not the first time one has failed to launch or had to be shot down.) As someone who loves both America and Japan, I'm glad as always that we're helping each other out.

Of course, America is not the only country Japan trades with, and investigators are now trying figure out exactly how measuring instruments (which can be used to make aluminum tubes--we all remember from Colin Powell why those matter, right?) shipped to Malaysia ended up in a Libyan nuclear facility:

Seemingly innocuous but high-tech precision instruments that found their way to a nuclear facility in Libya were rerouted after being shipped directly from a manufacturer in Japan to a company in Malaysia, sources said.

The devices included precision instruments for three-dimensional measurements, which can be used to develop nuclear weapons.

...

Asked for comment, a senior official with the Kanagawa company said it ``was beyond imagination'' that the equipment ended up in Libya.

A spokesman for the Scomi group, parent company of SCOPE, said it had no idea how the instruments were resold for onward export. It strenuously denied having links to the nuclear black market.

There doesn't seem to be any indication that the Japanese company knew its instruments were going to be routed illegally to Libya, which is good, of course.

Just mailed in my absentee ballot. Nobody here but us chickens.

Added on 18 October: Per Janis Gore's instructions, I decided to celebrate my ballot-casting by being an unpredictably shameless vodka martini-drinking homosexual Democrat.

Well, okay. Those weren't her instructions, exactly. I improvised. But I'm happy (if not entirely a Democrat). About the vote and the martinis.

And BTW, I'm not the first gay guy named Sean Ki--- to vote by absentee ballot. The "secret ballot" thing worries me a bit, though. I mean, the instructions from the Lehigh County Board of Elections did say you couldn't talk to anyone about the process, but people don't get in trouble for participating in exit polls, do they? I haven't been particularly secretive about whom I was likely to vote for, at least in the presidential and senate races. I'm willing to start cultivating an air of teasing mystery around the whole thing if necessary, though.

Japan will be ensconced as a non-permanent member of the UNSC for another two-year term (the last one was five years ago). This should help with its bid for permanent membership, especially since Kofi Annan is supposedly kicking around ideas for major reform in 2005. My favorite part of the article was the end:

There is a view in the government that Japan's nonpermanent membership of the Security Council will make it easier for the country to gather intelligence.

On the other hand, Japan's status as a nonpermanent member means the country will come under pressure to make difficult decisions on a range of issues.

Damn and blast those difficult decisions on a range of issues! They'll be the death of us all yet. In case you're wondering whether the Yomiuri is referring to, you know, anything in particular, the Taipei Times is a little less vague. On the other side of the Formosa Strait, The People's Daily slyly but pointedly compares Japan's and Germany's respective willingness to reckon with their WWII behavior. Guess--just guess--who comes out looking better.

The issues surrounding Japan's bid for permanent membership haven't really shifted much in the last several months, from what I can tell. Japan, China, and the Koreas are still dancing around each other, and the interpretation of Article 9 of the constitution is still subject to debate, though we're not hearing much about it at the moment. Two years is a long time in diplomatic terms, though; there's plenty of time for Japan, China, the Koreas, and the US to nettle each other in unpredictable ways. Fun for the whole North Pacific family!

Oh, and this isn't exactly the same topic, but it's related: Nathan posted again the other day about what he sees as distortions in Americans' views of the PRC. I'm not convinced by everything he says, but I am convinced by his overall point that it's as bad to treat China as if it were still under Mao as it is to figure its economic liberalization has made its past sins all better.

I'm kind of finding it easier to enjoy the Kerry family's quirks now that I've made up my mind about how I'm going to vote. Ann Althouse and Chris G (both Midwesterners in law at big-guns state universities, randomly enough) posted interestingly about John and Teresa Heinz Kerry, respectively. I remain unconvinced that they should be living in the White House, but I'm starting to believe they might liven up, say, the talk show industry. (I'm a pop-culture baby, so that's not to be taken as a slur.)

Was it Andrew Sullivan who said that he'd like to have dinner with Teresa Heinz Kerry? That strikes me as about right. The interview Law Dork cites is full of fawning questions. (To be fair, I suspect an interview of President Bush on the subject of his religious faith by a Christian writer would be, too, but that's not the topic here.) I don't agree with everything she says about sexuality, but her appreciation of the variety of people there are in the world feels genuine and unforced.

(Q) I notice you told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this year of your critics: "They've got to kill something that's strong. What can I do? Nothing. I know who I am. My friends know who I am." That's an attitude that really resonates with the LGBT community, which has had to face down scurrilous attacks for years.

(THK) I used the word "kill?"

Yes.

Wow. What I mean is that if you are not part of their way, they don't want you to be strong. If you are strong, it will weather. And they don't want you to weather.

Amazing. She really, seriously doesn't pay attention to what she says to reporters, apparently. Which I find irresistibly charming--what fun would our media-saturated culture be without mouthy, solipsistic rich people to entertain us with mouthy, solipsistic pronouncements?--but is not a quality I want in the woman who helps represent America to foreign heads of state.

And it's unfortunate, because I think she probably loves America as sincerely as any of us do. This interview seems to indicate what she's been trying, in her own non-linear way, to get across through some of her more famous head-scratchers, like addressing the DNC in multiple languages. She likes variety in people, she appreciates the ability to live in ways others don't like, and being censured just makes her assert herself more. Those are all fabulous things to think.

But like a lot of other Democrats, she doesn't seem so clear on when they need to be tempered. It's understandable why someone with her personality would balk at helping her husband campaign for the Presidency. But since she decided to do it anyway, it would be nice if she recognized that she's no longer just speaking for herself.

Her husband has the opposite problem, as Althouse notes:

But I don't care that he's really got an upper class accent. I've heard it in full force in the old tapes of his appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show" back in the early 70s, and I find it quite charming. It's who he authentically is, but he's got to mask that noblesse oblige stuff to run for President. But then he lets it slip and says "EYE-ther." If he would just be his authentic self, an upper class guy, trying to serve, being thoughtful and adult, I would probably love him. But he's been twisted and wrung out by the process. If he does win in the end, I hope he recovers that authentic self and governs well. But he shows us every day that he doesn't believe we want that man. It's really quite sad!

I agree. Kerry seems to believe that if he's going to beat George Bush, he has to do the common-man thing the way Bush does. It's astounding that he's never looked at a tape of himself and realized that it doesn't work (and it rings even more false since, with his dramatic height, he looks like Count Dracula when he puts on a dark suit and burgundy tie). Madonna and Kylie Minogue can get away with this stuff because they're pop stars. Madonna's self-reinvention as an eccentric Englishwoman into Near Eastern mysticism may be implausible, but its worst effect is that her music gets lame. The stakes are different for someone who wants to set policy.

Nichi Nichi reminded me about last week's group suicides in Saitama and Yokosuka. The one in Saitama was the largest single group suicide in Japan ever. I hadn't seen the Japan Times article, which centers on whether the Internet is to be blamed for helping to raise the suicide rate significantly. Agenda Bender actually asked me about it passing earlier in the week:

Stay away from those online suicide cults.

What's the deal with the charcoal grills IN THE CARS, btw? They don't sell rubber hose in Japan? Or is charcoal that much cheaper than gas?

I'd kind of wondered that myself. Surely, if you can find the duct tape aisle, you can find the spools-of-tubing aisle. I don't know what the unit price of charcoal is here, but it's impossible to believe it's not less than that of gas. On the other hand, the you-can't-take-it-with you principle would seem to indicate that splurging on one final topping of the tank is within reason.

I suspect one of two things. Either there's some manga series in which the grill-fumes method was used and people are copying it (likely) or the police have started looking for suspicious ductwork connected to the exhaust pipe of parked vans in outlying areas (I can't assess the likelihood of this, but given the notice that these suicides are getting, it strikes me as possible) and the suicide sites have begun to warn readers to avoid detection by not rigging things up that way.

I am SERIOUSLY GOING TO LOSE MY MIND.

I was just thinking, if I have to read another word about the mentions of Mary Cheney's lesbianism in the Cheney-Edwards and Bush-Kerry debates, I will go bananas. Then I spun through the channels to CNN. What's American Morning talking about? You guessed it.

The hilarious part was the letter (it was one of Jack Whosis's Viewer Responses to Thought-Provoking Questions segments, in this case, Do you think the mention of Mary Cheney's sexuality during the debates was justified?) from some idiot who seems to need irony supplements. He wrote something on the order of, well, Dick Cheney thanked John Edwards for his kind remarks about his family, so obivously, you know, it was no real problem, and the Republicans are just blowing a gasket to make the Democrats look bad.

This is one of the valuable things that the Japanese remember but many Americans have unfortunately forgotten, despite our genuine goodwill in most instances. People here still understand the concept of saying, "So very kind of you to say so," when they mean, "Mind your own [bleep]ing business, you crass little twit!" but want to keep the atmosphere of goodwill intact for everyone else's benefit.

Isn't it November yet?

*******

And then there are people who make up their own language to express indignation. Well, okay, these ninnies are British Commonwealth, not American, but they make the point:

In the morning, the flight crew woke up everyone to prepare for landing at Heathrow Airport. Potgieter said that he and his partner kissed each other good morning and hugged each other as any couple would do when they wake up.

Two flight attendants approached the pair and requested that they do "not to kiss each other as doing so was offensive to the other passengers on the flight."

A little later a senior flight attendant came up to their seats and told them not to kiss again.

Potgieter said he was shocked. In his court documents he says that he experienced extreme humiliation by the conduct of the flight attendants and that he became traumatized and angry.

As the flight touched down the men were so angry they refused to follow the flight crew's instructions to fasten their seat belts. The crew alerted authorities that they had two unruly passengers on board.

On landing, both men were arrested and Potgieter was held for three days awaiting an appearance before a judge. He was fined for not wearing the seatbelt, but says he suffered economic losses as a result of the detention.

I think I understand the concept of the cause-effect relationship, but I don't get that "the men were so angry they refused to follow the flight crew's instructions to fasten their seat belts" construction. I mean, way to make those killjoy flight attendants wither with remorse, huh?

And what is that "he and his partner kissed each other good morning and hugged each other as any couple would do when they wake up" supposed to mean? It is perfectly possible that the BA attendants were acting on excessive preemptive squeamishness based on seeing a locking of molten eyes, a squeezing of shoulders, and a quick peck. But it also wouldn't surprise me if these characters looked as if they were going to start seriously making out and needed to be reminded that they were on a passenger jet and not at a play party. After all, one of the reasons people feel free to hug and kiss when they wake up in the morning is that they're, like, alone in their bedroom.

And can we please stop using the word traumatizing to refer to what even-tempered people are still content to call upsetting or (in pompous moods) distressing? A car accident that kills your parents and leaves you needing physical therapy before you can walk again is traumatizing. Finding out that the love of your life is slowly poisoning you and conspiring to run off with your best friend and your life insurance money is traumatizing. Being gay in a country in which homosexuality is punishable by death or torture (or maybe even just frequent police raids) is traumatizing. Being asked in rapid succession to stop kissing and put on your seatbelt is not traumatizing, even if you think it was discriminatory. Flibbertigibbets.

Oh, no. Looks like I won't be able to vote for Bush after all. The cool kids don't want me to:

If global opinion polls counted, U.S. President George W. Bush would be voted out of office.

Democratic contender John Kerry was the preferred winner in the U.S. presidential election Nov. 2 by the majority of people in eight of 10 nations, according to a survey sponsored by influential newspapers in each of those countries. The poll was taken in September and earlier this month.

Most people polled in Japan, Britain, South Korea, Spain, Mexico, Australia, France and Canada would like to see Republican incumbent Bush get the boot.

Only in Israel and Russia did a majority welcome another four years of Bush.

...

In Canada, Spain and Mexico, 55 to 60 percent were pro-Kerry, while in Australia, Japan and Britain, a little over 50 percent were pro-Kerry.

Among nations where more pollees wanted Kerry to win than Bush, 30 percent in Japan still said they wanted Bush.

In Japan, about 900 randomly chosen people gave valid responses on Oct. 2 and 3.

In Japan the proportion was 50 for Kerry to 30 for Bush--less of a difference than I might have thought, actually. It seems reasonable to figure that in the other countries in which Kerry got around 50% support, Bush also got around 30%. I say it seems reasonable because that's my sense from talking to people. My methods are admittedly not scientific, but I meet quite a few people from other countries who, while skeptical of many things about the way the WOT is actually being carried out, believe that America needs to defend itself and its interests and would be pretty wussy if it failed to do so. Some even acknowledge the part the American military does in general to make their own countries or shipping lanes safer. There aren't as many of them as there are of lockstep leftists, but they're there, all right.

It's also interesting that the two countries in which Bush got more support were those in which the populace has daily experience with trying to protect itself from murderous thugs, many of the Islamofascist persuasion.* You think...?

No, no, of course not. Why pull for the guy who promises the crush the bad guys that want to off you right after the Americans, when you can pull for the guy who'll make nice with your own head of state?

One last thing:

The poll also showed that 60 to 80 percent in most nations have a favorable opinion of Americans.

Thanks, everyone. But I'm still voting for Bush. Just as Koizumi would.
* I haven't forgotten that Spain has the Basques and that trains were blown up in Madrid a few months ago. But it seems that, like the IRA in Britain, terrorist groups in Spain have only been very sporadically active for the last few years; I'll welcome correction if I'm wrong.

Oh, for the love of--I wasn't going to say anything about this, but obviously it's going to be big news for a while. Not that it shouldn't be...only, given all the attention we've been paying to reform of the postal service lately, you'd think the last thing we'd need is a less sexy scandal. We've got one, though: Secret donations to a former Prime Minister by...the Japan Dental Association. At least it wasn't the podiatrists.

For those new to this particular item, here's where it stood a month ago. Note the blasé presentation of this as merely an inflated version of business as usual:

The JDA provides a typical example of "triangular collusion" among the LDP [This is not because the LDP is an especially venal party; it's just that it's the one that has power to peddle.--SRK], bureaucracy and industry. Its former chairman is charged with bribing members of a government panel on medical insurance in an attempt to increase payments for dental services. In April, five men were arrested on bribery charges.

Hospitals and clinics receive payments at given rates under the medical insurance system, and revising these rates is almost always a politically charged issue. The Japan Dentists Federation, the political arm of the JDA and a major fundraiser for the LDP, contributed about 1.5 billion yen to the party's campaign-financing organization for three years from 2000. Hashimoto, who formerly served as health and welfare minister, was the boss of LDP legislators who had close ties to the ministry.

According to investigators, the 100-million yen check was given to Hashimoto at a private meeting with senior JDA officials. At that time, the JDA was fielding a candidate for the 2001 Upper House election. It is reported that the meeting was attended by Hiromu Nonaka, former LDP secretary general and Mikio Aoki, chairman of the LDP's Upper House caucus, and that both confirmed the check. Hashimoto has said he "does not remember" receiving the money, and both Nonaka and Aoki have denied attending the meeting.

How can someone not remember a 100-million yen transaction? Prosecutors must meet public expectations by unraveling the whole truth. Failure to do so will seriously damage their reputation. The purpose of the Political Funds Control Law is to "ensure fairness of political activity through public disclosure of incoming and outgoing political funds and thereby contribute to the development of democratic politics."

I may add to this later, but for now it seems to me to be pretty much its own commentary. (And that doesn't even consider the fact that Japanese dental care is about as good as British dental care.)

Two troubling incidents from yesterday indicate why Japan's new initiative to adapt security strategies from Israel to local conditions is coming none too soon. A man sprayed some unknown chemical in a train at a major transfer point and then melted away before being caught, and a woman decided to take slices with a knife at three people going through another big transfer station.

Japan's rail system is very efficient; everyone knows that. Everyone also knows about the inhuman crowding you get during morning rush hour and on the last trains at night. For the last five years, I lived right in Shibuya, within walking distance of my office. When I moved to Atsushi's place, I was back on the Toyoko Line, commuting into Shibuya on one of the most crowded commuter lines in Tokyo (and therefore the world). Thankfully, my workday is cockeyed so I don't have to go in between 8 and 9 a.m., and we're just a few express stops out. But it's hard to cram yourself onto a train with...jeez, how many people is it when I'm going in for an early meeting? Close to 75 in a car, I'd imagine...it's hard to pack onto a train like that, in this day and age, without thinking how vulnerable everyone would be to another sarin attack or to some nutcase with a knife.

Any city or country has special points of vulnerability created by local conditions, of course. And perfect security is impossible. I'm sure everyone who's lived in Tokyo has had the experience of waiting for someone just outside the turnstiles of one of the train lines and suddenly realizing how many people are actually pouring out as every train arrives. You can't really let yourself keep thinking about it or you'd go insane and start rampaging yourself (or maybe that's just me; I'm an introvert in a big way).

But it does underscore the impossibility of preventing all possible attacks, and the resultant need for train companies and users to know what to do when one hits. Fortunately, Japan is generally an orderly society, and Tokyo commuters specifically are well-accustomed to moving quickly away from the train in hordes without trampling each other.

The biggest worry I can see would be an attack on one of the last trains of the night, especially on a Thursday or Friday. Those who know Tokyo will understand exactly what I'm talking about, but for those who don't: A good number, perhaps even a majority, of commuters on those trains are solidly sloshed, and a significant proportion of those people are close to falling-down drunk. Some fast-acting poison that required quick reflexes in getting the hell out of the train and off the platform could be really deadly, especially if its absortion were accelerated by alcohol. Here's hoping we never have to worry about it.

The Yomiuri reports that prefectural governments will be responsible for drawing up new local security procedures to deal with potential attacks, particularly by missile or terrorism. For its part, the federal government is revising its own outdated Cold War-era rulebook, with a choice of model that I find nothing short of thrilling:

The government is following Israel's example in compiling manuals stipulating these measures and distributing them to the public.

Israel was hit by about 40 missiles from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. At that time, Israeli authorities distributed manuals that included such measures as having people seal windows and avoid the outer walls when inside a house or building.

It was reported that only two people were killed by the missile attacks as a result of such measures.

The government believes that the public distribution of such manuals will be effective in fully informing people of evacuation and other safety measures, according to the sources.

When the Japanese tendency toward decentralization hits the post-War Japanese tendency toward rigid procedure-worship, the results are often very poor. But there's an equally strong tradition of initiative at the village level--you can still see it in the organization of parades on festival days, which a fascinating article I read long ago posited was the origin of the Japan, Inc. corporate structure--that at its best combines group loyalty with idiosyncratic local knowledge. The new security plans are still in process, but if they really do succeed in allowing the federal government to expose the nation to the wisdom of Israel's experience while allowing local authorities to devise the actual protocols that work best for them...well, I'll be happy as a pig in sh*t.

CNN has an interview with John Howard posted. It's pretty much a quickie, but if you follow Asia-Pacific diplomatic jockeying, it's worth a skim. Howard doesn't think his close ties to the Bush administration have made it more difficult for Australia to do business with China, Indonesia, and other hotspots in these parts. The article said something else that I'd pretty much expected, but something about it caught my eye nonetheless:

The Howard government received domestic and international criticism for its steadfast support of the Bush administration's foreign policy, including sending troops and equipment to the invasion of Iraq.

But the issue did not play a major role in national elections held last Saturday, with Australians convincingly renewing Howard's mandate for a fourth consecutive term of government. (Full story)

The linked article is from Monday, when I was busy with non-news life, so I hadn't read it when it was posted. But given the context of the link, something jumps out very clearly when you read it:

That caution clearly outweighed some of Howard's less popular decisions, such as committing Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq.

...

The Howard triumph may give some comfort to fellow "coalition of the willing" allies, George W. Bush and Britain's Tony Blair, both facing imminent election -- Bush on November 2 and Blair possibly in May next year.

In Australia, Iraq has by no means been a key election issue -- despite a major clash of policies on the issue.

Howard has been a steadfast supporter of the U.S. action Iraq and committed 2,000 troops to the invasion.

Latham had been opposed to Australia's involvement in Iraq and had vowed to bring the remaining 900 troops base in Iraq home by the end of the year if he won government.

But this election has not been fought on the Iraq issue, mainly because Australia's commitment has been largely symbolic and no casualties have been recorded.

I follow what's going on in Australia pretty loosely, but I'd have no trouble believing that analysis--that is, that most voters were thinking about the economy and about the comparative experience of the two candidates rather than the WOT when voting. I'm moved to wonder, though, just how many times in an 800-word article it's necessary to mention that Howard's reelection MUST NOT be viewed as signaling approval for his WOT policies before we're supposed to have gotten the point. Odd that the reporters don't cite any polls about the Australian electorate's position on Iraq, since I'm pretty sure I've seen some.

I watched the debate with Atsushi yesterday (our time) while making lasagnes for today's dinner party. That means I was able to stay calm because (1) the presence of my beloved has a mellowing effect and (2) I had a ready excuse to keep opening the sherry bottle. As I expected, I'm not persuaded that I should change my mind about voting for Bush.

May I just say, though, to everyone who talks as if any of the debates so far has had a "clear winner": Give it a rest. Unless one of the candidates actually freaks out and starts waving a switchblade on-stage, that sort of conclusion is absolute nonsense. If you need the psychological boost of thinking your man is on a tear, okay. If you need the different psychological boost of feeling secure in your convictions but acknowledging that the opposition is capable of scoring points, that's also okay.

But jeez. The same arch of eyebrow and rasp of voice can be interpreted as signaling "defensiveness" or "battle weariness overridden by rock-solid conviction," depending on who you are and whether your stomach's acting up. And the "coherence" of someone's content, while it sounds like a more objective yardstick, really isn't when the audience represents so many levels of familiarity with the party platforms. What does matter mightily is which clips the media will choose to play over and over on the news and yak shows between now and the election, and whether commentators will pre-label them examples of "defensiveness," "combativeness," or "coherence" for the viewers, but you can't tell that from the original broadcasts themselves.

People keep complaining that the debates are superficial--and they are--but to my mind, that's only approaching the problem from one end. The candidates have truckloads of opportunities to deliver long, detailed explications of their policy proposals and to pick over those of the opposition. The debates involve narrating them, with posturing and gesturing and a Phil Donahue audience.

One hesitates to say anything that might be construed, in the current cultural climate, as calling for more public vulgarity, but the problem with the existing debate format is that it's too genteel. As Camille Paglia said about Bill Clinton's first campaign, there are two television tests a US President has to pass to be effective: prepared ceremonial speeches, and off-the-cuff remarks to left-field questions from reporters. The debates are nearly useless because they're carefully pitched to land in the prim nowheresville between the two.

We've had plenty of chances to see and read planned statements of position. But I think the television media could have done a real service by showing viewers a compilation