Trophy Video of Iraq "security" contractors Aegis shooting at civilians for sport

Unbelievable, disgusting video. Aegis is a British "Private military" similar to Blackwater, under contract by the US government for 293 million dollars. Here, you can see them shooting at civilian's cars, and having a laugh watching them wipe out.

I had trouble believing it when I first saw it, but Aegis has publicly acknowledged the tape's authenticity, haughtily claiming that "the images published were all taken out of context and were therefore highly misleading in what they represented". Right. I'm sure that there are all kinds of reasons why they would shoot at civilian cars without either provocation or retaliation from them, and then laugh about it as they crash to the side of the road.

In case you were wondering what came of this, the US concurred with Aegis's claims, and they got off scott-free.

The death of NOVA

Everytime I see Nova's rabbit mascot I just want to pummel it.


You know that friend of yours/cousin/friend of your brother's that went to Japan and taught English for a year or two? Odds are very good he worked for Nova, Japan's biggest English conversation school, with over 900 little school clustered around the nations train stations. Nova will soon close 200 of those schools, including the branch in Nishijin here in Fukuoka, and rumors abound that the entire chain could soon go out of business.

Nova is one of the few schools that takes on the expense of recruiting young foreigners fresh out of college with no teaching experience from overseas, and setting them up to come here. Most other schools basically hire off their backs- people start at Nova, get situated with visas, and then hop to other places. But as good as an option as it's been for people to get here, and as many foreigners as they've brought to Japan, I can't say I'll be sorry to see them go.

One reason is because NOVA is, by all accounts, the lousiest eikaiwa conversation school to be stuck working at in Japan. They cram you into a small apartment with two roomates, then charge you about double or triple the real rent, and pocket the difference themselves, essentially nabbing back a good chunk of their teacher's already low salaries. They are known as "NOVAcation" because of strict hours that have teachers coming in to work even on christmas day (And no, don't expect they close on Japanese holidays either). Full-time, teachers are expected to pack in 40 classes a week, a ridiculous amount for a serious teacher.

Beyond that, they give a bad name to education here, too. For the longest time, moldy old textbooks from the late 70's/early 80's were used, complete with corny hairstyles and disco clothing. Teachers were not paid to come in and prep for lessons, tacitly encouraging them to just wander in, open the book to the next page, and wing lessons. That's because NOVA was never really set up as a real school, at least as far as the foreigner staff went. They were basically hired as pieces of meat, foreigners on display to parade in front of the customers and give them a chance to practice their English on.

Back in the 80's when any dorky guy with blondish hair could be considered Brad Pitt, and going to Nova was the only way a Japanese girl could find a foreigner boyfriend, that system was a big hit, and no-one really cared that it was all for show. But people are more sophisticated these days, and the gimmick is wearing off. (In case you think I'm exaggerating, here's a TV commercial in which Nova basically admits that their foreign staff is a joke, and pathetically tries to have a laugh about it. The announcer is saying "Its not all about looks- we train 'em tough!" The teachers are being whipped as they chant ("Please turn the textbook page!" "Good Job!" and other dumb-ass platitudes)



The interesting thing about this is that with NOVA gone, foreigners in Japan will lose what is quite likely their single biggest employer, and as many as 9000 foreigners will be out on the street. (the other big employer, the public school JET program, is also cutting back drastically, and the program is being phased out of Fukuoka city entirely).

The most resourceful of those foreign teachers will pick up the scraps by signing on former students for privates, and smaller schools will have their pick of tons of resumes for a while. But after that, there'll probably be significantly fewer newbie foreigners around.

It's funny...when I was in Niigata, almost every foreigner around had come through JET or NOVA. But those options exist less and less now. In Fukuoka, most of the newer people I know came through foreign exchange student programs, and are generally much more fluent in Japanese than foreigners in the past. It seems like just getting here for a year-long stint, once something practically anybody with a college degree could do, is getting more competitive than it used to be.

Sukiyaki Western Django: Movie Review (スキヤキ・ウエスタン ジャンゴ)

Sukiyaki Western Django is a (very liberal and interpretive) Japanese remake of the 1966 Italian spaghetti western "Django". It features an all-Japanese cast and Japanese sets...and yet the characters all wear cowboy hats, ride horses, blast 6-shooters, and most oddly of all, speak their lines in English (The movie is subtitled in Japanese).

Quentin Tarantino guest stars, and it's not hard to see why they were able to convince him to make an appearance. Sukiyaki Western is ostentiously a remake of Django, and the plot modifications are an obvious nod to Yojimbo, but in practice it's very much inspired by Tarntino's own movies, and as much a remake of them as as anything else. (In fact, the original, extremely violent Django is one of his major influences. The famous ear-ripping scene from Reservoir Dogs is lifted from it).

Sukiyaki Western is unendingly, irredeemably violent, and most of the movie is pure massacre. If you liked Kill Bill and Desperado and you're into this kind of thing, you should find the many fight scenes perfectly good gory action. But it has some problems that cripple it, and prevent it from rising past mere curiosity and becoming a particularly recommendable movie once the novelty wears off.

To American critics, I suspect that Sukiyaki Western will play as an intricate in-joke, a b-movie extraordinaire. That's what I took it for when I saw the trailer, and what made me go see it. The surprise is that this movie is far too well-executed to just be a joke for foreign critics. Sadly, for the core Japanese audience, the eccentricities of this movie -the English lines included- have as much to do with attempts at authenticity and coolness as they do with clever irony. The twist is that for all the camp and surrealism, Sukiyaki demands to be taken seriously. Its desire to function as a real movie casts a solemn tone over the production, tainting what little joke remains, and leaving you wishing they had succeeded at doing more.

The movie involves two warring clans in a rush town chasing after gold. An elaborate subplot is added where a guy and a girl from each clan marry a la Romeo and Juliet. This plotline fizzles out quickly, but not without muddling the story past comprehension. At times its unclear why people are doing what they're doing and what their goals are, let alone why they all want to kill each other. Basically, the story just serves as an excuse for shoot-out scenes. Few movies of this nature have very intricate plots, but at least you can usually figure out who is who, why they're fighting, and who is winning at any given time. None of these facts are forthcoming in Sukiyaki Western.

Another problem is the boundary Sukiyaki Western toes between serious action and camp. Similar films like Kill Bill are steeped in camp too, but Bill still had you at the edge of your seat during all the crucial fight scenes. Sukiyaki doesn't really pull off the same balance between laughs and thrills. Fitting Japanese actors in cowboy outfits is silly enough, but the incomprehensible plot and terrible English tip the movie too far in that direction- it prevents it from every getting beyond awkward comedy, even when it needs to. The tone is often dark and grim, but its hard to get lost in the movie when the actors clearly don't understand the meanings of their own lines. (If you're a foreigner watching this in Japan, this is a huge added drawback. Its often harder to make out the actor's English than it would be to just watch the movie in Japanese).

Of course, this movie is intended for Japanese audiences, and the English might sound cool to them even if they don't understand it. But I'd argue that despite the expert craftsmanship, it's actually that kind of aesthetic that ultimately makes Sukiyaki Western second rate.

Japan has a reputation for taking foreign innovations and reproducing them with efficiency and skill. But as well as that works for technology, when done in the arts it often falls flat. Japanese punk bands lovingly and painstakingly mimic their idols overseas, wearing the same clothes, carefully ripping their clothes in the right places and perfecting their yowls, making for flawless, yet oddly hollow, replications of the bands they were inspired by.

In much the same way, director Takashi Miike imitates Tarantino here shot-for shot. Dead bodies litter the ground. People get impaled by unlikely objects that stick through either ends of their chests. They even (somewhat nonsensically) throw in a tough chick killer and cut to anime for flashbacks, a la Kill Bill part 1. The envelope is pushed as far as it will go. And yet even by the low standards of a gory R-rated movie, it feels cold and soul-less. And so as slick as it is, and as well as the surreal backdrop serves as a novelty, once the laughs wear off, there's ultimately there's no reason why anyone would choose it over the films that it imitates.

The Secret Life of Jodie Foster

Who knew Jodie Foster had been a lesbian all these years? Here's an interesting story about her personal life from 1998. It covers her whole upbringing, including her own mother's live-in female lover, who acted as a father figure to her. The speculation about Foster here has panned out- the woman pictured with her here, Cydney Bernard, has been her partner for 14 years, and they're raising two sperm-bank children together.

Book Review- The Rules: Time Tested Secrets for Catching the Heart of Mr.Right by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider

This book was big about ten years ago, and was hated by guys and feminists alike. When I first heard about it I thought the same things everyone else did- that it was stupid at best, and manipulative at worst. The most often-quoted rule "Don't return phone calls" didn't help matters much.

Finally, I decided to pick it up out of curiousity. I decided that if it was good in a manpulative way, I could at least get to "know my enemy" and spot out women that played games.

But to my surprise, the book was a lot more reasonable than I expected it to be. Aside from the first few rules about limiting calls, etc (which I still find petty), it actually gives some fairly decent advice on how to
make a man comfortable with a woman -Don't nag him incessantly or try to "change" him, buy him clothes, etc, don't cling to him emotionally within weeks of dating him and leave the ideas of marriage and future children hanging anxiously over the air of everything you do, etc.

People usually attack this book by discussing the importance of being oneself. As far as the fundamentals of who you really are go, I certainly agree. But the truth is, getting along with other people often takes work. Learning to not talk about yourself incessantly and asking others about their own lives in conversation might seem like "manipulative ploys" too, but lets face it- people that do these things are usually a lot easier to be around. By the same token, there really are some fundamental things men and women can learn to make each other comfortable while they're dating.

I suspect a lot of guys that give this book 1 star have had frustrations with manipulative and fickle women in their own lives, and assume that any book like this will just aid such women in becoming worse. But actually, this book is designed to help women find sincere men, and deflect guys that seem to have flair and charisma, but are hiding bad intentions (Dating married men or being the woman "on the side" are out, for example). I've seen a lot of otherwise good women fall into the trap of thinking that any man that treats them with respect and some reverence couldn't possibly be worth dating, and instead wind up with guys that seem more confident and dominant, but actually treat them poorly and don't really offer them anything. This book encourages women to get out of that trap of thinking, and that leaves more women for nice guys.

To sum it up, I'd like to quote one of the final and most important rules, which rarely seems to get any coverage in the media- "Love only those who love you". Who can argue with that?

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

So you might have heard that Britney Spears, who did a performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas the other night after years of tabloid antics and time in and out of rehab, completely bombed. She was out of shape and wearing a stripper bikini, shuffling through her dance routines lip-syncing with this dead expression on her face. The gossip columnists, who seem to like tearing stars down just as much as building them up, are still gloating about her spectacular, trashy downfall from Pop princessdom.

Anyway, here's a video of a fan passionately defending her. Really creepy, almost funny in a morbid way. I posted a video where a tabloid journalist stalks a convicted pedophile once...while the subject matter here is technically squeaky clean, for some reason this video gives me the same creepy feeling. Its a car wreck I can't look away from. A personal meltdown that makes Britney Spear's situation look pretty manageable.

Applying for University Jobs

Back home, applying for a job meant sending in a two page resume (which you wrote once and used over and over again), and a cover letter maybe slightly adjusted for that specific job. That was it. You didn't even have to mail it; most employers seemed to prefer emailed applications, because it made things easier for them, too. Sure, there was more to come, but only if they liked what they saw and asked you in to start the interview process.

Applying for a job at a University here in Japan is a different deal though. This is the application I sent in yesterday. It's by no means atypical-

-A one page essay on my teaching philosophy, written in Japanese.

-A special Japanese resume, written to their exact specifications (which means you have to re-write your CV from scratch, just for this one application). A photograph of yourself must be glued to the application at a precise spot. A picture printed directly from your computer would risk being seen as tacky.

-A special English resume, written to their exact specifications.

-A list of your professional and social achievements, in Japanese.

-Breakdowns of 2 of your major academic publications, in Japanese.

-Copies of those 2 publications.

-A doctor's certificate certifying you're in good health (you go for a full check-up, pee in a cup, etc. Costs about $30.)

-Letters of reference.

My application totaled 12 pages, 30 including copies of my papers. Emailing it all would be absolutely unacceptable. Mailed by priority post. Total cost, not including translations- about $45. And keep in mind, all this by no means guarantees an interview.

Japan's Economy May Soon Surpass the USA's. Here's Why.

My favorite fact here- Japanese families have an average of $117,000 socked away. American families are on average $85,000 in debt. Who thinks this situation can keep up indefinitely?

By Thomas Heffner from EconomyinCrisis.org...

Contrasting the American economy with Japans clearly shows that there is much room for improvement in our economic system. Unless policy makers make major changes quickly, Japan’s economy will soon surpass America’s. To put this in perspective, this is how America compares with a country as small as Japan:

• Land: Japan is a country with only 4% of our land mass (smaller than California) and is 90% mountainous and infertile.
  
  
• Resources: Japan has minimal natural resources - no oil, no coal, and no iron ore, no timber, just fish!
  
  
• Manufacturing: To manufacture a product, Japan must import all of its required resources. Even after this expense, they have an $88 billion per year balance of trade surplus with America alone (their exports versus imports with America) (2006, US Census Bureau) and also accumulate one-third of the world's savings (US News & World Report, March 19, 2001).
  
  
• Wages: Few Americans realize that Japanese hourly compensation costs in US dollars were nearly identical to that of US hourly compensation in 2005 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  
  
• Savings and Debt: The average Japanese family has a savings equivalent to $117,000 US Dollars (US News & World Report, March 19, 2001). American families average $85,000 in debt (USA Today, October 4, 2004).
  
  
• Income Through Trade: Japan had the world’s second highest current account surplus (net trade plus interest and other income) next to China in 2006 of $170 billion while the US current account deficit including goods, services, income, transfers was a staggering $857 billion loss, the world’s largest, according to the US Department of Commerce and the International Monetary Fund.
  
  
• Investment Income: Japan earned $118 billion on its foreign investments in 2006 and the US actually lost $7 billion according to the International Monetary Fund.
  
  

Japan must be doing something right! Better planning, direction, and a more responsive government are keys to their success. They have learned much from us and have improved on it. Perhaps it would be wise for us to study their improvements for our own benefit.

• Interest Expense: The US public debt is almost 50% financed by other countries whereas Japan’s public debt is nearly 100% financed by its own citizens. Japan’s government borrows money at rates as low as 0.6% percent (sixth tenths of one percent) whereas the US government short-term rate is almost 8 times higher. What does that say about lenders confidence in these countries and comparative strength of the two economies? To put this in perspective, the US government paid out over $405 billion to pay interest alone in 2006 (over $1 billion per day) on the nearly $9 trillion of government debt.
  
  
• Foreign Reserves: Japan has foreign currency reserves (redeemable for foreign assets, corporations, resources, etc. on demand) of $909 billion. These are economic bullets poised to take out any American company, most of which are for sale on the open stock market. The US has foreign currency reserves of merely $66 billion.
  
  

America is a large country (2 1/2 times Japan's population and 2.3 times the labor force, plus much land and natural resources), but we are producing less, importing more, and borrowing more than ever before as well as selling our irreplaceable assets to pay for imports and debt. We have sold over 14,000 of our best companies to foreign interests since 1978(It’s unheard of to see any major Japanese company ever sold to foreign interests. Their companies are considered their wealth producing national treasures).

• Production: Japan was the largest producer of steel in 2005 behind only China. Japan outproduced the US by 22 million tons. Furthermore, at least 20% of the domestic US steel industry is foreign owned according to the IRS and we import nearly 30% of the steel that we consume. Nearly none of Japan’s key industries are foreign owned.
  
  
• Unemployment: Japan also had the lowest unemployment rate of all countries surveyed in 2006 by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  
  

America's wealth was accumulated by previous generations, as we had world-beating manufacturing capabilities. America is presently relinquishing much of its manufacturing to outsourcing (giving away our technology and jobs to foreign companies and have them produce for us in their country thus totally dismantling our industrial base) and insourcing (subsidizing foreign companies to manufacturer in America to produce for their benefit and their profit, which quickly displaces many American-owned factories and entire industries).

We are becoming vulnerably dependant on foreign companies for jobs, products and loans.

American owned manufacturing is becoming obsolete and second rate. We are no longer competitive with Japan, China and others. We can’t compete with China’s wage rates, and Japan’s technology in manufacturing, we have become unquestionably second rate (auto industry is a prime example). Ask yourself in what areas does the U.S. lead the world?

America is the only major industrialized country which depends on foreign suppliers for large amounts of steel. It also depends on foreigners for critical inputs needed by strategic industries.

When you compare our strengths and weaknesses with Japan it’s so easy to see (but many do not want to believe it) that the U.S. is developing an economic profile of a 3rd world country masquerading as a superpower. How can we now afford to fight three wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, and the War on Terror) when we can’t even support ourselves?

Our present leaders are not coping with our problems or properly managing for our future. Where are we headed? Can't America do better?

The United States will Attack Iran Soon

Been theorizing about it for months, and hearing about it in more concrete terms for weeks. Just wanted to say it.

Read this chilling account of a marine stationed near Iran, detailing all the preparations the military is making. She knows leaking the information is treasonous, but she feels this is extremely wrong, and so do most of the marines their. People are speaking in hushed tones, and no-one can figure out what this is accomplishing. "We are going to hit Iran. Big Time."

That's the word from the front lines. Here are the rumors from sources in Washington-

They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

Not official enough? Check out the Sunday Times-

The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

And just in case this fact gets buried in all the fuss and hype... Remember when Weapons Inspectors in Iraq weren't sure, and wanted more time? The inspectors in Iran are sure...that there's no threat. They are now convinced that Iran really is just trying to build a nuclear power plant, and is not really trying to make a bomb as the US claims.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirms the "peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activities"


To top it all off, there's evidence that insiders are betting billions of dollars that there will be a big stock market crash in September The tone in that post is shrill and hardly authoritive, but the facts about the billion-dollar puts wagering on a huge crash is fact.

My own theory, that I've had for close to 6 months now? Soon there will be a terrorist attack in the US. With the population in fear, Bush will seize the opportunity to blame Iran and bomb them all to hell.

You might even see another terrorist attack before the general election next year...and see that election be postponed. The Bush Administration has learned that fear is a powerful weapon.




Do I sound like a left-wing nut job right now? I'm sure I do. I've been living in a news-bubble, ignoring the mainstream media and reading unofficial sources and blogs. But that's what I really think is going to happen, and I want to go down on the record as having said it. If in October-December everything is still fine, I'll read my own words and know that I over-reacted. I'll apologize, and take my own theories with a grain of salt in the future, and admit that the Mainstream media has a point when they call blogs like DailyKos shrill and unreliable, etc. That would be a relief.

But if things are messed up, I'll know I'm not paranoid, and that as nutty as I look now, I really did know what I was talking about. And if that's the case I'll trust the blogosphere's -and my own- judgment a lot more.

My first Fukuoka Now article

Here's my first article in Fukuoka Now, the English language magazine here in the city. You can click on it to enlarge the picture and read it.

The publisher Nick Szaz stumbled across this blog randomly, left a message in the comment section, and interviewed me for a job there. I'm too busy, but I said I'd put things together when I could. This is the first result of that.

I had actually wanted to do something for them for a while though...when I was first researching Fukuoka before I came to Kyushu, a web version of one of their Street Talk articles was one of the first things I came across, and it gave me the impression Fukuoka must have a pretty fun foreigner community. So it was cool doing one myself.

Nick has told me that the response on it has been good, and I got listed as an editor under the masthead. Cool! Now I just have to convince them to make me a movie reviewer, and give me free passes ; )