liberal japonicus

by liberal japonicus I found the arrest of George Clooney and the Jason Russell 'meltdown' (the Guardian's headline, not mine, so I'm not sure if it's the best way to describe it, but I'm at a loss for any other term) an interesting juxtaposition. Jason Russell, in case you didn't know, was the head of the charity … Read more

by liberal japonicus A little early, but we have a school party, and I am thinking about this guy this morning: The Premier League was forced to distance itself from its own chairman after an embarrassing rant in which he accused Fifa and Uefa of "stealing" the game from Britain and told his Middle Eastern hosts … Read more

by liberal japonicus Lagniappe is a fun word from New Orleans, which originally meant something that the merchant would throw in as an extra. Mark Twain says in the New Orleans chapter of Life on the Mississippi that We picked up one excellent word — a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice … Read more

by liberal japonicus A start of the week open thread. If you aren't interested in cutting up nations into smaller geographic chunks, let's talk about carving up saints into smaller, more mobile bits. The Guardian opens up with this poetic line: Irish police are hunting for a thief who stole the heart of a saint. … Read more

by liberal japonicus A fun article here about the Solutrean hypothesis. I love that one of the weapons in this argument is the phrase 'Iberia, not Siberia!'. The rhyme sounds like destiny to me. Unfortunaely, with that age, it's not possible to adduce many affects in linguistic grouping, which is not the case for the Coastal … Read more

by liberal japonicus Sort of. Santorum's Catholicism (and his lack of catholicism) came up when we were talking about Romney and Mormon support of immigration, so I'm pleased to share this pic that I took yesterday in Fukuoka's Hakata center. This is wine that is supposed to be suited for particular bloodtypes. It's common in … Read more

by liberal japonicus This is really interesting to me. While stressing the Mormon faith's historic connection to converting immigrants, Latino Mormons point directly to immigration stories in the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' recent statements against policies targeting immigrants. They also view Romney's stance against proposals giving illegal immigrants a … Read more

by liberal japonicus This article, about the reinvention of malls, was moving past my eyes, when this paragraph appeared: A new enclosed mall has not opened in the United States since 2006, according to Professor Dunham-Jones, and many ambitious projects, like New Jersey’s Xanadu just west of Manhattan, have lain half-finished for years. (emphasis mine) … Read more

This letter (picked up from Yahoo news), from a former slave answering his master's request that he return is the topic of today's open thread.  Apart from the wonderful window it opens up on history (and the exquisitely modulated sarcasm, excerpting it here would not do the letter justice), it provides a jumping off point for whatever … Read more

by liberal japonicus This Guardian piece and the accompanying video is well worth your attention. Garzón was the judge who issued an international arrest warrant for Augusto Pinochet for his role in torturing and executing Spanish citizenship, followed by obtaining pursuing two Argentinian generals for the crime of genocide during the Argentinian dictatorship. No slap … Read more

by liberal japonicus This should have been your friday open thread, but the blog gods blinded me to it until just a little bit ago.  Eagle-eyed watchers spotted a marijuana leaf on Yu Darvish's t-shirt as he landed in Dallas today for his official introduction with the Texas Rangers.  The "explanation," at least in the … Read more

by liberal japonicus It's the time in the school year when I'm finished classes and trying to make sure that the students who have fallen behind catch up and start to think about what to do in my classes next year to avoid this predicament. (university education in Japan is akin to grape-nuts, in that … Read more

by liberal japonicus Dr. Science wrote earlier about Google maps and I've always loved maps. So I thought that this was pretty cool: American mapmaking’s most prestigious honor is the “Best of Show” award at the annual competition of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. The five most recent winners were all maps designed by large, well-known institutions: … Read more

by liberal japonicus While there is no intention to turn this into a legal blog, questions of law are particularly ripe fruit for blog discussion because of the way they both channel and expand the discussion. Channel by giving some definitive context and expand by letting folks point out how these things can impact a … Read more

by liberal japonicus For the new year, going to try for a midweek post about some recent news that I hope will give folks something to talk about. As with all new year resolutions, I don't hold out much hope, but here goes. The recent UK conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of … Read more

by liberal japonicus If I were an editorial cartoonist, I'd probably draw an end of year cartoon that had the current year being wheeled out on a gurney, with EMTs pounding on his chest and preparing the paddles, while the incoming baby new year watches him being wheeled out with a WTF look. But given … Read more

by liberal japonicus From the Guardian During the UK's 38-year membership of the European Community, and latterly Union, the true believers had, too often in their eyes, to make special exceptions for the "awkward Anglo-Saxons". The "Brits" wielded handbags and threatened vetoes, insisting all the time on remaining at the top table of discussions despite … Read more

by liberal japonicus Just recently, one of the keys to my morning net surfing has been to go to the Guardian's Leveson inquiry page and catch the live blog for the previous day's session. Because of the time difference, I'm getting it after it has finished, so I can read thru the whole thing. Just … Read more

by liberal japonicus On the 23rd here in Japan, we had Thanksgiving. However, the one here is called Labor Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝の日) The modern holiday was established after World War II in 1948 as a day to mark some of the changes of the postwar constitution of Japan, including fundamental human rights and the expansion … Read more

by liberal japonicus Some interesting things about the Oakland OWS protests and the events at UC-Davis that many of you may have already read. This article, about Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, via Erik Loomis at LGM, is quite interesting, and gives some other links (here, here and here) about the renaming of Frank Ogawa … Read more

by liberal japonicus It occurs to me that if we had robots handle our threads about abortion, it would give us quite a bit of time.  

by liberal japonicus My wife and I were marveling at this A Burmese python slithering through the Everglades proved that her eyes weren't bigger than her stomach, swallowing intact a 76-pound deer. At 15.65 feet, the python isn't the largest on record. But the size of her prey both impresses and concerns state and federal … Read more

by liberal japonicus Though I may be assuming that my foibles are shared by everyone my age, I think that American kids of a certain age, had a fascination with dinosaurs. So if that's the case, this, from the Guardian, discusses recent evidence for dinosaur migrations. What is the evidence? Fricke's team attempted to reconstruct … Read more

by liberal japonicus This is an open thread for what's happening in Libya and anything related to that. If anyone has good links, especially to explanations of factions, people who may emerge, stuff like that, I'll try and move them up here as they appear. I'm also wondering if the various gory pictures that I've … Read more