The Eternal Gaijin

I've never heard of this musician before. It's now my duty to seek him out. HT to Atheist Movies

Do you ever wonder why the copyright lobby is so able to get governments to support their overreach, or why goverments seem so eager to stomp freedoms? As a fairly staunch defender of rights, I do. Recently I've been thinking that I'm swimming against the stream. Might as well start campaigning against basic human rights and freedoms because that's where we're headed anyway. Go with the flow. So now, if I head back to Canada for to visit my folks or what not customs officials may start looking through every one of my iPod songs for copyrighted material. Canadian border guards to check iPods for infringment - Boing Boing The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws which could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices. The deal would create a international regulator that could turn border gua...

I'm all in favour of respectfully restoring important cultural and historical artifacts and monuments. As a native English speaker, Shakespeare's tomb seems to qualify for such treatment. However (emphasis mine): Experts to avoid Shakespeare's 'curse' in restoring tombstone William Shakespeare's tombstone is to have a makeover, but the renovators are under strict orders not to disturb the bard's bones. The late English poet-playwright's tombstone in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, in west central England, is beginning to disintegrate, the church announced on Wednesday. But the engraving on the stone, which lies within the church, threatens to "curse" anyone disturbing its occupant. Okay, I have a small dictionary definition to share with you with a little help from my friends at Sweariam-Webster: Curse : (n.); Prn: \ ˈ kərs\ def: see wizardry (cf) Wizardry : (n.) prn: \ ˈ wi-zə(r)-drē\; def: doesn't fucking exist, asshat. see al...

Japanese customs reunited with lost dope | The Register

People often ask me if people actually ask me questions. I usually say that it's all relative to the needs of the proletariat then hit them in the crotch with a seal flipper pie. Another question that comes up, I'd be willing to wager, is the best video game system. Now I'm a PS3 fan, especially with Metal Gear Solid 4 coming along next month, but I'd be willing to bet that the Wii has its value as well.

Law and Order Conservatives with a cabinet minister who leaves classified documents at his ex-biker girlfriend ex-girlfriend's flat and now this: myTELUS - News A provocative movie about the sex lives of young people is too hot for some Conservatives to handle - and a parliamentary staffer has been fired for ordering tickets to a special screening. Tory MPs are denying they ever planned to watch the film "Young People F**king" even though several of their names appeared on an RSVP list for an Ottawa viewing Thursday night. Bless you, Fark . Powered by ScribeFire .

Scott McClellan burns the Bush administration? - By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine Now he tells us. Scott McClellan's memoir offers more candor in a chapter than he let loose during his three years as the president's spokesman. Often kept in the dark by his boss and, at least in one case, deliberately sent out to mislead the public by his superiors, McClellan writes as if he went home after he left the White House in 2006 and purged. Crooks and Liars » Rove calls Scott McClellan a Left wing blogger. The attacks on him have started McClellan's Grave Charge| By Andrew Sullivan It's a nice distraction from the Maxine Bernier affair.

Today, the 29th of May, is the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. With this event the Roman Empire finally fell, just 40 years before Columbus sailed. Just something to ponder as you go about your day.

When you answered that you'd packed the suitcase yourself, you forgot to mention the people who may re-pack it after you hand it over. It came to light yesterday on page 3 of the International Hearld Tribune that a customs official at Narita Airport. Since then it looks like a lot of people have heard of this . Customs slip cannabis into passenger's bag - CNN.com A passenger who landed at Tokyo's Narita airport over the weekend has ended up with a surprise souvenir courtesy of customs officials -- a package of cannabis. The official was organizing a training session for drug dogs, broke regulations that clearly state only training suitcases may be used and stuck 10 Gs worth of marijuana into the suitcase of some random person coming back into the country. Then lost the bag. Really. First of all, is $10,000 worth of weed really a training amount? Second, what light do you think this throws on drug convictions through Narita? Third, I don't have a third point. By the way...

Rising Crime: Atheists, Liberals, or Just a Myth? | The Lay Scientist

Oh, yeah. I get Facebook posts. Like this one from a former co-worker. Think about what you are reading ok. because it's the truth. Why do we ((sleep)) in [[church]], But stay ((awake)) through a [[2 hour movie]]? Why is it so ((hard)) to talk about [[God]], but so ((easy)) to [[Gossip]]? Why are we so ((bored)) when we look at a [[Christian magazine]], but find it ((easy)) to read [[Playboy]]? Why is it so easy to ((ignore)) a [[Godly]] Facebook Wall Post, Yet we ((repost)) the [[nasty]] ones? Why are ((churches)) getting [[smaller]], But ((bars and clubs)) are [[growing]]? Think about it, are you going to repost this? Are you going to ignore it, cause you think you'll get laughed at? Would You Have Opened This if it Said.... Read This In Gods Name. 80 % of you wont repost this. Jesus Christ said: "If you deny me in front of your friends I will deny you in front of my father Um, yeah. Okay. You sent this to me. The guy who spent 2 hours last week de...

Yesterday was Towel Day. 'A Tribute to Douglas Adams: Towel Day May 25th' by Towel Day - RichardDawkins.net

Crime. Little gets people going more that talking about the state of our streets vis a vis the ability of little old ladies on zimmer frames to walk around drunk at 2 a.m. with hundred dollar bills sticking out of their pockets without getting mugged. That and the over-use of apostrophe's. My mum is forever crowing about how unsafe the streets of Ottawa have become over the last few years. Statistically violent crime is at its lowest point in my lifetime. That's 40 long, unproductive years folks. There's a crime wave going on in the UK. Everyone has a knife. Every minute of every day someone is attacked with a knife. Or so the Daily Mail and it's ilk will lead you to believe. Knife crime 'not increasing' | UK news | guardian.co.uk The fatal stabbing of a man yesterday in one of London's busiest shopping streets in broad daylight has again thrown up headlines about knife crime in Britain. ... Incidents such as these have fuelled the public perception that kni...

Friend DEG sent me this link. Apparently he's got his X-mas list started and finished already. Just Check It Out. -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Kobe, Japan "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

Let's start by talking about gay marriage for a sec. Does any one really, really give a fuck? Seriously. Oh, it's going to be mandatory. That's different. Oh, you were kidding; back to my original point. Kah-lee-fohnia had a State Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to fully equal rights for same-sex marriage. In my opinion ho-and-indeed-hum. I'm married and I don't think that the ruling would affect anyone in my potential dating pool anyway, so... The usual intellectual featherweights with pretensions of being lightweights have said the usual crap about overturning the will of the people or inventing rights out of whole cloth, or activist judges. The real issue is not adding a right to gay marriage; it's ending the restriction of the right of two consenting adults to form a legally recognized pair bond. Remember, this has no bearing on the religious institution of marriage - under freedom of religion provision in pretty much every western countr...

My only real interest in this is that I don't particularly have a deconversion story. In Japan previously I referred to myself as an evangelical atheist, a nice little irony that deeply appealled to me. When I started to put together this blog years later I found that title already taken. Gakkari shimashita. A while back I ran across two celebs talking about their experiences on leaving faith behind. Ricky Gervais discusses how he became an atheist here . Gervais is familiar to anyone who's watched the telly over the last few years. On the other hand, Bart Ehrman discusses the long road to becoming an agnostic (though he freely admits that he really doesn't believe in god anymore) here . It's a moving story of the process of losing faith. By the way, Ricky, babe. It's pronounced Jher-vay, not Jer-vayse. Just thought you should know that.

The head of Heathrow (yea, delays! Can't get enough of them) is going to be replaced by the head of the London Underground (Trains? I'm sure I've got one around here somewhere? Were you expecting one?). Suddenly I don't know whether to quote the Dilbert Principle or the Peter Principle. Or Sod's Law. Heathrow airport boss quits | Business | guardian.co.uk The managing director of Heathrow airport is stepping down in the wake of the Terminal 5 fiasco, BAA announced today, as Britain's largest airport unveiled its third boss in a year. Mark Bullock resigned with immediate effect and will be replaced by the managing director of London Underground, Mike Brown, at the end of the summer.

Rather than give half a thought to a post today, I'm going to do that old standby and see what my iPod can regurgitate for me The International Language of Screaming   Super Furry Animals Dead Man James Centre for Holy Wars The New Pornographers Knuckle Too Far James Love is the Drug Roxy Music Tears of Rage The Band Urban Aire Afro Celt Sound System Every Time I See Your Picture Luba Penpals Sloan I Could Be Happy Here Big Country As a note, if you don't know Super Furry Animals, James, or the New Pornographers get off your butt and seek them out. Super Furries and James have had a varied career and covered a variety of sounds; there's no way to really make a comparison because each album is a re-invention. The New Pornographers are one of the great, great lights of the indie scene in Canada and you just need to hear them. They've got a great video out somewhere covering Toronto's Your Daddy Don't Know . -- From: The ...

This has been sitting in my drafts folder for a hell of a time. It's basically the Bigger Goat Theory of God at heart, isn't it? From Bay of Fundie

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What? Brits with hangovers? Not a shock. Making it to work? That's a shock. Having worked for a year in the UK there's no surprise here. I've seen a lot of it. Having worked in Japan I can't imagine what the stats would be like for Tokyo. 8/10 or so is my guess. If not higher. In Tokyo, I was that guy. A lot. BBC NEWS | Health | Third admit to hangover at desk One in three employees admits they have been to work with a hangover and more than one in 10 has been drunk at their desk, a study suggests. Staff said they made mistakes, struggled to concentrate and had to go home early as a result of drinking. Four out of five employers say alcohol is the biggest threat to the well-being of their staff, according to a survey for Norwich Union Healthcare. And the round up of the top offenders. Worst culprits Some occupations are worse than others with regard to drinking and the workplace. Forty-one per cent of people working in media and creative jobs said they had been to wor...

Ah, the irony. CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police | UK news | The Guardian Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe The question will always be this: did they think they could pay someone fifteen thousand pounds a year to simultaneously watch 8 of the least interesting reality TV shows in the universe? Did they think that would work?

There is NO such thing as wizardry. I know, I know. Bold move starting a post with a firm declarative of the blindingly obvious. But I found this in the the JREF forums: Fla. Teacher Accused Of Wizardry - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando Teacher Jim Piculas does a magic trick where a toothpick disappears and then reappears. Okay, so he's a teacher who does slightly twee entertainment in class before covering the French Revolution. Big deal. Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he'd been accused of wizardry. "I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue, you can't take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'" he said. Piculas said he did not know of any other accusations that would have led to the action. The teacher said he is concerned that the incident may prevent him from getting future jobs. Okay, folks. Can I call you folks? C...

Yesterday, though still today for our 1.3 North American readers, was the 71st anniversary of the Hindenberg disaster. So I have mercilessly scraped this pic from the Bay of Fundie . Powered by ScribeFire .

Again with the onsen in Kyushu. The wife truly loves this sort of thing. Sometime last year one of Mrs Gaijin's friends realized that she turns 40 in June. The sort of thing that one can forget if one is a Brit in a pub. Still, I can attest that 40 sneaks up on you. So, anyway, we'll be in Las Vegas next month at the same time as The Amazing Meeting. It looks like I can spare the Friday, so I should be there wandering around for the first full day of TAM, as will friend DEG. This could be a very storied trip.

Now here's the kind of silly bit of trivia that you only find out about when the law is lifted. Islanders pop tabs as P.E.I.'s 'can ban' ends A new era begins on Prince Edward Island Saturday as retailers can once again legally sell canned carbonated beverages for the first time in almost a quarter-century. Selling pop in cans has been banned in PEI for about 25 years?!? (Where's the interrobang on this keyboard, anyway?) The ban was put in place in 1984 to protect jobs at the local Pepsi bottling plant and to protect the environment. The province also banned pop from being sold in plastic bottles. It's the way a whole generation of Prince Edward Islanders quenched their thirst, unless they brought back canned pop from the mainland, which Islanders did by the trunkful. For a kid, a can of pop in a lunch box was a status symbol. It was pressure from Islanders themselves that convinced the new government to end the can ban, which became a campaign issue in the p...

Gee, that was clear and sensible. Gas tax follies - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog Why doesn't cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It's Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers. Is the supply of gasoline really fixed? For this coming summer, it is. Refineries normally run flat out in the summer, the season of peak driving. Any elasticity in the supply comes earlier in the year, when refiners decide how much to put in inventories. The McCain/Clinton gas tax proposal comes too late for that. So it's Econ 101: the tax cut really goes to the oil companies. Powered by ScribeFire .

Larry Moran put up a challenge a while back to get better arguments for (a) god(s) and has gotten a response: Sandwalk: Sophisticated Religion From the "The god you don't believe in isn't my god either" school comes Alvin Plantinga. Alvin Plantinga - Audio Lecture Notes [The Academy of Christian Apologetics] Interesting. Sophisticated religion. Now if you want to see how religion, the kind of religion that is so part of this US election cycle, is actually done read this: Jesus Made Me Puke : Rolling Stone My work is done. Powered by ScribeFire .

It's a year old, but none of these goofballs and shipdits have gotten any better at their job. You Are Dumb: Numismatists on the Block

Heathrow 'a bit of a dump', says American Airlines exec | Business | guardian.co.uk The world's largest airline has slammed Heathrow airport as the worst in Europe, labelling the British flight hub as "a bit of a dump". Don Langford, head of customer services Europe for American Airlines, the world's biggest carrier by passenger numbers, said the overcrowded airport was no longer bursting at the seams because "the seams have burst"

Homoeopathy is bogus. It doesn't even hold up to the stink test. (I mean 30c, are you joking?) This connects to yesterday's post about sinking vaccination levels in the US. As the anti-vax whack-a-doodles gain more traction, the alt-med crowd also benefits. (I recall James Randi quipping that the alternative to medicine is ill health) In the UK there is nary a homoeopath who won't break with regs and offer you a sugar pills as the prophylactic against malaria if you're going to Africa or South-East Asia. So, to disabuse you of any notion that people who think about it take it seriously, here are two vids about homoeopathy. From a BBC documentary. I know it starts supportive, but that's the rope-a-dope. Give it 3 minutes. Homeopathy - The Test On the other hand, James Randi gives you the short version. James Randi explains homeopathy He's a charming old curmudgeon, innit? Oh, and it looks like Mrs Gaijin and I will be at The Amazing Meeting 6 for the ...

Just a quick plug for a TV pilot that we want to see on the air. It looks like Bullshit! with less swearing and everybody talks. Email your support in to the production company. The Skeptologists Powered by ScribeFire .

Memo to Americans. Get your fucking kids vaccinated? Unless you have a really good reason, go to the doctor and keep the schedule. And by good reason, I don't mean this recent diabetic coma but we're Christian scientists so we'll just pray for a new pancreas or what ever the fuck was going through their heads bullshit. Quarter of kids don't meet vaccine schedule | Reuters More than a quarter of American children are not meeting the U.S. government's recommendations for childhood vaccinations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said on Tuesday. So what's up with this? "For the vast majority of parents, they're bringing their children to get vaccinated. The schedule is very complex and it requires a lot of visits to vaccination providers at specific times. And for parents who are busy, that can be really logistically difficult," Luman said in a telephone interview. Okay, parenting is tough. So what? If you don't think you...