liberal japonicus

by liberal japonicus Picking up an earlier thread, this article may be of interest https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/Decoupling-denied-Japan-Inc.-lays-its-bets-on-China Not sure if you read it on your phone, you bypass the paywall or I was within the maximum of free visits, but here are some grafs TOKYO — In 1978, when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited a factory belonging … Read more

by liberal japonicus The first of two, count ’em, two open threads. I have been following it thru the lens of the Guardian, whose interface I like https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/10/capitol-attack-videos-trump-impeachment Feel free to add your links and commentary.

by liberal japonicus A bit of a less serious post here. Perhaps all of you are familiar with this picture of samurai warriors visiting the Sphinx, but if not, enjoy! What prompted this was looking up the Bowery in Wikipedia and the note there that Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for 3 of Mozart’s most … Read more

by liberal japonicus A piece from Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall that is behind their paywall, but this paragraph gives a taste As the QAnon phenomenon becomes more central to critical political and public safety questions, I realize we need a new vocabulary to describe this and similar phenomena. Q is not a “conspiracy … Read more

by liberal japonicus Before I had some health problems that made travel difficult, I was in Myanmar doing some teacher workshops. I also had a very dear colleague, an economics professor from Myanmar, who also put me in touch with people. He passed away in January, and I believe it was from COVID as the … Read more

by liberal japonicus Not a lot of love for my link dump, but I’m sure this will produce some interesting observations Box seat: scientists solve the mystery of why wombats have cube-shaped poo Alternate titles to replace Box Seat: No cutting corners Are we square? Shit squared A square deal Feel free to add your … Read more

by liberal japonicus Sorry the links are just grabbing stuff, but the things I am thinking about now are -What does Gamestock mean? -how did we know about Greene’s FB videos before she got elected? And wtf does this say? –AstraZeneca and the EU –forced monkey labor -too many links to list, but conspiracy, conspiracy, … Read more

by liberal japonicus Since it seems that the Carter Page foolishness has been banished, at least for a short period of time, we might want a new post and perhaps this link with all the executive orders signed by Biden might do the trick. The CNN list explains if the order is a reversal or … Read more

by liberal japonicus A slender reed on which to balance an OP, but I’ve been seeing articles like this popping up. It seems logical, but I’m wondering if impeachment isn’t going to keep minds and anger focussed. I don’t know about you, but any task dealt with after Biden is inaugurated would be super charged … Read more

by liberal japonicus Given the median age around these parts, I post this article as a public service. Since Twitter and Facebook banned Donald Trump and began “purging” QAnon conspiracists, a segment of the chattering class has been making all sorts of wild proclamations about this “precedent-setting” event. As such, I thought I’d set the … Read more

by liberal japonicus Seems like a good time to toss out a fresh sheet of paper, even if it is the same topic. We’ve been running thru the questions in the category ‘Terrorism or not’, I know that labels can obstruct and enhance understanding and the reason those labels can do that is that they … Read more

by liberal japonicus Man, I thought that year was never going to leave! Locking the door so it doesn’t come back in. ‘oh, I forgot my phone’. Yeah, right… In Japan, the dream you have on the first night of the new year, if it has Mt. Fuji, a hawk and an eggplant, means you … Read more

by liberal japonicus This article about the challenges that Biden will face in rebuilding in intelligence community makes me realize that the 4 years of sore orange loser baby has set up a conflict, which is rebuilding all this is going to probably be a battleground. If Biden draws too heavily on the infrastructure which … Read more

by liberal japonicus This popped up, be sure to check out the youtube video in the article Bloody Sunday massacre at Croke Park still resonates in Irish sport 100 years later

by liberal japonicus This is prompted by wj’s query about what kind of racism I’ve seen in Japan. A caveat, I was finishing this up and I went back thru the comments and found I had skipped over a section, in particular, Donald and Russell’s comments to the comment that started this out. I thought … Read more

by liberal japonicus This Guardian article caught my eye Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci: German ‘dream team’ behind vaccine Those accents didn’t get there by themselves…

by liberal japonicus Unfortunately, not good tidings of great joy, just some talk about the latest internecine struggle. Oh well… As promised, here’s a discussion of AOC’s interview, found here I should also note that this is an edited transcript and I wonder if any reordering took place. With that caveat in mind The interview … Read more

by liberal japonicus In Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the author (well, I think it is the author) muses on the fact that the structure of the printed text makes it so it is automatically an imperfect reflection of reality. You know that the story will end when you get to the end of the … Read more

by liberal japonicus Well, thru the magic of the timezone, I can tell you that the world didn’t end on Tuesday. That’s my Tuesday though. I imagine we need a clean thread to keep up with things. Have at it.

by liberal japonicus (to be sung to the last lines of the Beatles The End) Well, here’s something for you. (the original research is here if you want to check it out) The seeds for the Christian loss were sown in the early and middle Paleolithic, hundreds of thousands of years before the fateful battle … Read more

by liberal japonicus This article from the Asia-Pacific Journal is a nice look at subject that might give folks interesting perspectives on their local food scene. My takeaway is that it is a lot more complicated and we are going to be dealing with the fallout for a long time afterward.

by liberal japonicus While not a break, I thought I’d open a thread for covid speculation, though I imagine a lot of you are sick of it. But two things that caught my eye recently. Here in Japan, while Covid is still a problem, statistically, we have fewer deaths than would have been predicted in … Read more

by liberal japonicus A thread for your thoughts about what was essentially a second debate, separate by distance. Savannah Guthrie put paid to my notion that a woman would get overwelmed, though as moderator rather than debate opponent, she had some protection from Trump going all crazy uncle on her. The Guardian live blog was … Read more

by liberal japonicus Hope I’m not stepping on Ugh’s (greatly appreciated) thread (and that’s your place for your COVID bon mots), but I thought I would crack a thread open after a comment by novakant on my observation that a woman going up against Trump would have been the recipe for disaster. I was thinking … Read more

by liberal japonicus The other thread has turned to questions of accent (nothing wrong with that), but if you are like me, and can’t help turning that shitstorm around in your head, here’s another thread. Some observations. Biden was not on the top of my list, but it is hard to imaging a woman ‘winning’ … Read more

by liberal japonicus Here is the Guardian’s live blog about it, feel free to drop your own observations here.

by liberal japonicus There are people here who might have an informed opinion about what this means.

by liberal japonicus This seems a bit too detailed for a comment. I’ll start off with what a facebook friend wrote about RGB, which was observing something to the effect that RGB wasn’t perfect, she only had one black clerk her entire tenure on the court. I don’t know if this is true or not … Read more

by liberal japonicus My mother kept a diary when I was a baby. I’ve been trying to find it now, but if my memory is correct, it was all in the first person, i.e. my view of the world. However, the day that Robert Kennedy was assassinated, if I am remembering correctly, she changed and … Read more

by liberal japonicus I had a friend who was always collecting store names that were antiaptonyms. The print shop called Typos, the hair salon called Tangles, that sort of thing. Well, my google news feed pulled this up Short Seller Hindenburg Research Renews Attack On Nikola and I thought that Hindenberg Research might be a … Read more

by liberal japonicus For those of you who don’t want to talk about the election, compare this article https://medium.com/indica/the-overwhelming-racism-of-covid-coverage-78e37e4ce6e8 In the dirty south, we are constantly excluded from the world via euphemism. You talk about ‘developed’ world or the ‘industrialized’ world or ‘advanced’ nations. But what does that mean? How developed are you if you … Read more

by liberal japonicus Another open thread. What I’m wondering about is the juxtaposition of the current fire/weather crises in the western US and the upcoming election. This Guardian article argues that the Dems are still not sure it is a crisis. My assumption is that talking it up when it isn’t an issue in the … Read more

by liberal japonicus Maybe I should be more optimisitc, but the title is my thoughts after reading this paper.