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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67140632014-09-01T15:10:43.222+09:00ShisakuMarginalia on Japanese politics and societyMTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-26248375525154308452014-09-01T06:27:00.002+09:002014-09-01T06:48:39.790+09:00A Bogus Cabinet Reshuffle?

The big news this week is Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's planned reshuffle of his Cabinet on Wednesday. The cabinet lineup is looking rather long in the tooth; it is indeed the longest-lasting unreformed lineup in history (Link). It has had to weather some rather nasty fights -- the initiation of construction of the Futenma replacement facility at Henoko, the constant grind of bad news out of Fukushima Daiichi, the forcible passages of the Special Secrets Act and the Cabinet decision on collective self defense -- and looks a bit ragged for all its continuing popularity as measured against the support numbers of previous Cabinets. There is also a huge cohort of mid-career Liberal Democratic Party members who have never served in a cabinet post (not surprising: there was a change in government in 2009). Finally, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo feels compelled to matching his rhetoric on greater opportunities for women in public life with action, increasing the number of women in his cabinet from two to perhaps six (the pool of candidates is too small to go any higher).

Given the importance of the atmospherics, rather than the policy preferences of the various candidates for office, in the selection process, the buildup to this cabinet reshuffle has been inadroit. No, let us not be coy. It has been a farce...and it is not getting any better.

Abe mulling Obuchi as LDP's No. 2
Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering appointing junior lawmaker Yuko Obuchi as secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party as he is set to reshuffle his Cabinet and party executive lineup, party sources said.

The prime minister hopes to form an internal consensus about his idea of granting Obuchi, 40, a House of Representatives member, the second most important position in the LDP, by confirming the wishes of the leadership of the LDP's Nukaga faction to which she belongs, according to the sources.

[Snip]

Obuchi is the second daughter of the late former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. If her appointment is realized, she will be the youngest LDP member and first woman to take the post of party secretary general.

The sources said Abe aims to demonstrate his stance of proactively promoting women and create an image of the LDP renovating itself.

By gaining support from the public with these steps, Abe aims to overcome political battles over the security legislation and the next unified local elections...

(Link to article)
The last time I looked, and that was today, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party is a serious, serious job. It requires an intense understanding of policy, party financial and personnel matters. It is a lightning rod, having to deal with intra-party resentment, political feuds, local versus national politics and demands for funds. It is also a very public post, with the secretary-general frequently having to interact with the news media as the party's top representative.

A nightmare, in other words.

Into this spot Abe purportedly wants to slot a five-term (5 terms is the usual minimum number of elections for consideration for a first cabinet posting) House of Representatives member, a legacy member with but a single stint in a minor, invented cabinet post, as not just the first woman but the youngest person ever to serve as secretary-general of the only party in Japan which really matters.

Right.

I know that the Fukuda, now Machimura, Faction -- Prime Minister Abe's and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide's faction -- is fundamentally at odds with the Tanaka, now Nukaga, Faction. However, even as an act of exquisite historical spite, the appointment of Obuchi as the LDP's Secretary-General is beyond the pale. Everyone likes Obuchi-san; no one is frightened of her or feels intimidated by her. One does not have to read Machiavelli to realize how the drama will end.

Indeed, the entire process of selecting this new Cabinet and LDP party officer lineup has been surreal.

First, the process of sculpting a new administration and party leadership, which was supposed interspersed and intertwined with rounds of golf, was completely overwhelmed by the landslides of Hiroshima. Abe had to commute from his vacation home to the Kantei, where he could do exacly nothing about the number of those who died and the on-again, off-again rescue and recovery efforts.

Second, the seemingly all-important replacement of Ishiba Shigeru as Secretary-General spun out of Team Abe's control. Even a child could see there was zero chance that Ishiba would accept the thankless made-up job of minister of revising legislation to implement of the July 1 Cabinet Decision on collective self-defense. When economic developments and ugly, incoherent, lurching management of nuclear reactor restarts, the Special Secrets Act (due to go into effect in December) and collective self defense have darkened the outlook for Abe, the incentives for Ishiba all point to turning down the offer and preparing for a run at the LDP presidency next fall. That run to replace Abe as LDP leader is still alive and indeed chances for it are improved by Ishiba's supposed turnaround on Friday. At a highly anticipated "summit meeting" between Ishiba and Abe at the Prime Minister's Residence Ishiba agreed to consider accepting a cabinet position other than the military legislation one (Link). The breadth of the grin on Ishiba's face as he spoke to reporters at the Kantei showed it was the prime minister who was in the desperate, sweating wheeler-dealer role and Ishiba in the role of magnanimous and harmonious party magnate...

...all of which absolutely no sense because whoever is serving in the post of secretary-general will be responsible for success or failure of LDP candidates in three incredibly difficult and highly visible elections: the Fukushima gubernatorial contest, the Okinawa gubernatorial contest and the April 2015 unified local elections. The chances of the LDP's candidates prevailing in all three races are basically nil. The question facing the party's secretary-general is how to minimize the losses.

To whit: why forcibly replace Ishiba, when events are likely to usher in his disgrace and resignation?

UNLESS, of course (and I am indebted to my friend T.K. for this line of reasoning) the cabinet reshuffle is just a front, a slapping up of freshly painted, smiling faces for an abbreviated Diet session where the only work done is the decision to proceed with the rise of the consumption tax from the current 8% to 10%, followed by a Diet dissolution. The consequent House of Representatives election would then be billed as a virtual referendum on the tax decision and the first two years of Abe 2.0.

If that is the game afoot then a lot -- the muted Obuchi appointment, the desperate need to get Ishiba out of the way -- starts to make sense. The LDP is likely to get its butt handed to it in local elections over the next few months due situations (the continuing environmental disaster at Fukushima Daiichi; the presence of U.S. Forces on Okinawa; rural economic decay) beyond any immediate solution. So why let the calendar and chronic problems rule the party, when the prime minister/LDP president can just derail the train of events? Why not change the subject, in a big way? Why wait, when the opposition parties which have few institutional supporters and zero inspiring leaders, are unready to defend even the few seats they control in the House?

So what we are to see on September 3 is not perhaps not so much a bogus cabinet reshuffle as a mendacious one -- tactically mendacious, as I am fond of saying.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-50426882115657969192014-08-30T04:17:00.003+09:002014-08-30T04:22:51.382+09:00Choshu Rules, Again
The donjon of Hagi Castle, prior to its destruction in 1874

Kawamura Takeo is a seven-term House of Representatives member from Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture. If news reports are accurate, he is the number one candidate to replace Ishiba Shigeru as Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party. (Link - J)

If Kawamura is appointed Secretary-General, Yamaguchi Prefecture, with its 1.4 million inhabitants and 4 House of Representatives members, will be providing the nation with:

President of the LDP and Prime Minister: Abe Shinzo

Vice president of the LDP: Komura Masahiko
(also Japan's top China hand and leader of the government's side in the battle over the exercise of the right of collective self-defense)

Secretary-General of the LDP: Kawamura Takeo

The rest of Yamaguchi's Diet delegation does none too shabbily, posting-wise. The final member of the House of Representatives delegation, Kishi Nobuo, the prime minister's younger brother, is Parliamentary Senior Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. House of Councillors member Hayashi Yoshimasa competed with Abe for the post of party president in September 2012 and is the current Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

[So what is wrong with Eguchi Kiyoshi, the final member of Yamaguchi's Diet delegation? Nothing. He is just new on the job, having taken over remaining House of Councillors seat when Kishi Nobuo moved to the House of Representatives in 2012.]

For those keeping score, this means the han of Choshu (castle town: Hagi) which with the han of Satsuma (modern day Kagoshima Prefecture) and Tosa (Kochi Prefecture) overthrew the Tokugawa bakufu establishing a new political order that became so thoroughly monopolized by Satsuma and Choshu leaders the period is called "the era of Satcho dominance," is in pretty much in charge of Japan 146 years after the Meiji Restoration.

Bring's to mind William Faulkner's observation that the past's not only not dead, it's not even past.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-2428095601523154132014-08-22T15:52:00.001+09:002014-08-25T07:07:09.758+09:00A New Comfort Women Statement? Uh-oh
This is PARC chair Takaichi Sanae at her happiest. Really.

In the realm of bad ideas, the latest one to erupt out of the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council (PARC) is a doozy: a request to Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide that he provide a revision of the Kono Statement in light of the recent retractions of some articles on the comfort women by The Asahi Shimbun and in time for the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. (Link - J)

Press reports of the meeting of the Council yesterday read like a festival of provocation and point scoring. "We must summon those connected to The Asahi to testify in the Diet" and "We must disseminate with determination the results of the government's investigation into the composition of the Kono Statement" were among the demands from the floor. (http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20140821/k10013977241000.htmlLink J - video)

It is unsurprising that the moderately crazies in the LDP, particularly the hardliners in the freshmen classes of 2012 and 2013, would be clamoring for a party response to the Asahi admissions of error. The extreme revisionists contention has been that the comfort women are a fiction concocted by The Asahi Shimbun and anti-Japan non-government organizations in South Korea. The Asahi's long overdue retractions would, in their eyes, require a government response, as a remorseful Statement like Kono's may indeed no longer be necessary.

What is somewhat surprising is how quickly and avidly PARC Chair Takaichi Sanae has taken up the banner of a demand for a new Statement.

Takaichi is considered a shoo-in for a significant Cabinet post in the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle (Link). She has a long record of being a loyal retainer to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (she was the most junior minister of his first Cabinet in 2006-7; she sat next to him during the LDP party meeting where Abe was elected party president in 2012), is a True Conservative (she is always in front and center of the phalanxes of Diet members of the "Let's Visit Yasukuni Together" league on their shrine visits - see above) and a prominent female member of the LDP at a time the PM wants to make a show of appointing women to the Cabinet (Link). Securing a Cabinet post at this point would seemingly require her to sit tight, make no trouble and have the prize drop in her lap.

So why embrace a movement demanding a change in a fundamental building block of Japan's relationship with South Korea at a time when the prime minister and his advisors are trying to bridge the gap between the two countries? One that furthermore puts an onus on Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga to craft a new Statement when he has way too much on his plate already?

If one wanted to mess up a potential Cabinet appointment, making Suga Yoshihide's life difficult would seem a great way to do it.

One explanation for Takaichi's enthusiasm, and the reason I use the "somewhat" above, is that she is probably tone deaf when it comes to what she believes are matters of Japan's dignity. She has her own small group of lawmakers -- the Association of Creativity and Tradition -- that brings together lawmakers who style themselves innovative iconoclasts with a fantabulist, knee-jerk defensiveness about pre-1945 Japan. The cognitive dissonance of the ideals -- believing at once in the value of disruption and the beauty of traditional order, as is reflected in the group's name -- indicates that in matters pertaining to the constructed concept "Japan" Takaichi-san may not be prone to deep thought.

Another possibility for Takaichi's unshaded embrace may come from a gnawing sense of her having achieved very little in her present position. Despite Takaichi being one of the longest-serving PARC chairs, even close watchers of politics would be hard pressed to think of a single, significant initiative she led during her tenure. Policy making under Abe 2.0 has been almost entirely in the hands of the bewildering forest of commissions, councils and private advisors reporting directly to the prime minister. Movement of legislation through the PARC has been largely a pro forma affair. When political observers think of Takaichi at all, it is for her skirmishes with General Council chair Noda Seiko, diminishing the power and value of both of the institutions they have headed.

In forwarding the PARC's request for a new Chief Cabinet Secretary's Statement to Suga, Takaichi can claim at least one signatory achievement during her tenure, one endearing her to radical, unthinking revisionists -- her only constituency within the party.

Assuming that the PARC's request is forwarded to Suga early next week as scheduled, what happens? As a direct request from the party, Suga cannot reject the request as unhelpful, no matter that it is. He could shelve the request for a while but not indefinitely. The request is for a new Statement in time for the August 15, 2015 anniversary -- which means at some point Suga will have to come out with a clear position on the question of whether he will provide a new Statement or not. The most likely scenario is Suga turning down the request on the grounds that it would detract from the prime minister's new, "forward-looking" Statement on the end of the World War II which the PM hopes will replace the Murayama Statement as the definitive Japanese government view of the war.

Until Suga moves decisively against the PARC's request, his inaction will be read or portrayed by South Koreans as a prelude to a revision of the Kono Statement and thus one more reason to delay the reestablishment of more normal relations between the governments of Japan and the ROK.

Way to go, Takaichi-san.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-30151381361547266222014-08-21T05:49:00.000+09:002014-08-21T06:04:02.281+09:00Golf Is Just A Four Letter WordIt is 4:35 a.m. I am wondering whether the paper man has left my morning paper in the mailbox.

Yes, I still get news the old fashioned way. Though perhaps not for long, for as of August 1, the Tokyo Shimbun has electronic delivery.

If and when I do go downstairs, I will turn to the inner pages, ignoring the immense tragedy in my old hometown, the humble city of Hiroshima.

One of the ignored aspects of the rural-vs-urban struggle in Japan is the number of medium-sized cities like Hiroshima with insanely high quality of life. Hiroshima is a modern city, with a reasonable economic mix and a fairly stable outlook where hiking trails and verdant seclusion are a 30 minutes's walk from midtown. Unlike most of Tokyo and the central Kanto, the mid-sized cities have retained, like Kamakura and Zushi, the forested hills, sending green fingers deep into the residential and even business areas.

It was, of course, these hillsides that came crashing down on the valley floor housing in the downpour two days ago.

But I digress.

My purpose in going downstairs would be to open the paper to the inner folds, where, in a tiny feature, the full listing of the prime minister's day yesterday will be printed. The PM is on vacation right now, up at his villa in the lakes region of Yamanashi Prefecture. Vacation time means barbecue, hanging out with allies, working out the details of the September 3 Cabinet reshuffle and golf.

Lots of golf.

Damn near daily rounds of golf.

Monday was an exception. The PM and Akie-sama spent the morning at the villa, with probably a smattering of security officers and aides milling about. Just after lunch the PM went for a soak at the local hot springs, coming home just after 3 p.m.

Just before 5, the pace at the villa kicked up into another gear entirely. Tanaka Kazuho, the head of the Ministry of Finance's budget bureau, showed up in advance of what an early (5:36 - probably a barbecue) dinner of with Abe and his aides. The group was joined at 5:43 by Honda Etsuro, one of Abe's two main economics advisors and a fervent critic of Finance Ministry thinking fiscal consolidation. Discussion of next year's budget and the economic outlook, with probably a pretty intense debate over the advisability of a further rise of the consumption tax went on for hours afterward. Most of the guests left just after 10:30, with Honda the last to leave at 10:47.

Those of the "growth first/tax rise whenever" persuasion might want to take heart in Honda's having the last ten minutes of the prime minister's attention to himself and presumably the last word on the subject of the consumption tax rise.

However, Prime Minister Abe in his second run has been extremely savvy as regards the management of personnel. Giving special attention to an advisor is just as often an indicator that Abe will be ignoring that advisor's counsel as he will be taking special heed of it. Remember that in the midst of the initial staged "debate" on whether or not to go forward with the rise of the consumption tax, Abe made the time to have a private lunch with Honda and Hamada Ko'ichi, the PM's other big economics advisor who like Honda was against the 3% jump in the consumption tax scheduled for April this year. Abe gave the pair a big chunk of face time. In the end it seems it was only so the two would not feel humiliated by their inevitable defeat in the rigged contest of ideas.

Knowing how to let people down without alienating them: a really important skill for someone wishing to stay in power a long time.

Just to hammer home the point on collegiality and remaining friends, the next day the prime minister and Akie-sama brought Honda, Tanaka, and Hie Hisashi, the CEO of Fuji Television, together for a round of golf.

In the evening, the PM attended what one should call, I suppose, the gathering of the tribe at the villa of Sasakawa Yohei, the head of the Nippon Zaidan. Also at the dinner pow wow were:

Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro
METI Minister Motegi Toshimitsu
Senior Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kishi Nobuo (also the PM's brother)
Senior Vice Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi
Cabinet Parliamentary Secretary Kato Katsunobu
Representative Hagiuda Ko'ichi (the PM's August 15 offering carrier to Yasukuni, just like last year)
Representative Yamamoto Yuji

as well as Fuji TV's Hie-san.

The PM arrived back at the villa from the party just after 10 p.m.

Rounds of golf occupied most of the PM's waking hours on the weekend as well. On the first day of his vacation, Saturday the 16th, Abe was out on the golf course with his closest political aides. Why he should spend his first day off with all the same persons he spends his every working day with is beyond me (then again, much is beyond me).In the evening he had dinner with his mother and his wifein the restaurant of a members only resort hotel.

Considering the ludicrous packing of Abe schedule the day before, the end-of-war day (no, he did not have his hair done after the memorial service like last year) his kicking back and hanging out with his family and underlings on his first day of what is projected to be a near postwar record length prime ministerial summer vacation deserves an "OK, so he's kind of dull" shrug.

The next day, Sunday the 16th, was a full day of Abe 2.0 recreation strategy at its purest. In the morning the PM was on the golf course with:

Chairman of Nippon Keidanren, former chairman of Toray Industries Sakakibara Sadayuki

Former chairman of the Nippon Keidanren (Sakakibara's predecessor but one), chairman and CEO of Canon Mitarai Fujio

Honorary advisor and former CEO, JX Holdings Watari Fumiaki

Wait a minute, you might be saying, each of these hefty executives has made his name in the past few years using his position to preserve/resurrect the foreign investor-suspicious, government coddled and coddling Japan Inc. big business model. Does a foursome like this one not send a terrible message to the outside world what kind of economy Abe favors? Is not Abe also setting himself up for having a very skewed view of his country's path forward, too?

Yes and yes.

Dinner in the evening was a relatively restrained affair, with the PM and Akie-sama joining Hie-san and Kato-san for dinner at a French dining area of the Hotel Mount Fuji.

Wait a minute, longtime readers of this blog might be again saying, this is exactly the same group of cronies and power brokers Abe vacationed with last year. (Link)

Yep.

Indeed, in his first four days of vacation, Abe has spent quality time with virtually all of his tight circle of cronies and family member. And basically no one but his cronies and family members.

Which is why I am itching to go downstairs and fetch the paper, to find out the answer to my impertinent question:

"OK, but does the prime minister have any new friends?"

[Pause]

But upon picking my newspaper up, and checking the political news, I learn that yesterday for Abe, like for Mori before him, golf became a four letter word. (Link - J video)

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N.B. The title is an allusion to the Robert Allen Zimmerman song making an even more provocative assertion. (Link)MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-60371037691859243152014-08-19T11:52:00.001+09:002014-08-19T11:52:32.126+09:00A Morning Eye Glaring at me this morning.

Wing and abdomen of an Omizuao (Actias artemis) resting on my front door this morning. The full image is:

Image courtesies: MTC

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-77046667475154151532014-08-19T04:34:00.000+09:002014-08-19T04:47:10.484+09:00Very Kind Of Them #24On line radio program Asia Now had me on for a conversation about The Asahi Shimbun's retraction of some of its reporting on the comfort women (jugun ianfu) and role of the issue in the Japan-South Korean relationship.

http://asianewsweekly.net/2014/08/18/comfort-women/

One correction: at one point I say that Yoshida Seiji began telling his tale of rounding up women in Cheju-do in the "late 1980s." Yoshida published his memoir in 1983.

Later - If you have a comment, please submit it to the Asia Now website.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-18907959639226362472014-08-15T03:21:00.004+09:002014-08-15T19:11:14.834+09:00Who Is Up For A Yasukuni Visit Today?UPDATE1: as of 09:45 JST, cabinet ministers SHINDO Yoshitaka and FURUYA Keiji have both visited Yasukuni Shrine, with Furuya declaring he signed in as "Minister of State Furuya Keiji." HAGIUDA Ko'ichi has also paid a visit, delivering Prime Minister ABE Shinzo's donation.

UPDATE 2: Minister of Japan Cool And Much Else INADA Tomomi paid her respects in the afternoon in the company of the History and Creativity Association, her small group of Diet member fellow travelers (here is their post-Yasukuni group shot from last year Link)completing the list of the Terrible Trio. Policy Research Council chief TAKAICHI Sanae, as at seemingly every major shrine event, was front and center of the Association of Diet Members For Everyone Making Visits To Yasukuni Together multi-party mass visitation. (Link - J)

Credit Abe Shinzo for having some sense. He has told the press that he will avoid making, either immediately prior to or immediately after the national ceremony commemorating the end of World War II, a visit to Yasukuni Shrine today. With his relations with the leaders of China and South Korea still in the deep freeze (Link), Putin acting like a woman scorned (Link or Link), investors showing less and less confidence in his economic reform program (Link) and world in general in turmoil, he has decided to not set the region on fire with a gratuitous end-of-The-War day visit. (Link - J video)

Instead, Abe will reprise his restraint of last year by having an aide make a a cash donation in his name instead.

So who should we be on the lookout for today at Yasukuni's gates?

Hagiuda Ko'ichi - it has been a quiet couple of months for the man who last year seemed to be speaking directly from Abe Shinzo's limbic system. If the Big Boy from Hachioji (where the Imperial tombs are located, as he will happily tell you) is once again the bag man for Abe's donation to Yasukuni, he should once again be viewed as the wide back door into Abe's chamber of secrets.

The Terrible Trio - Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Shindo Yoshitaka, State Minister for Japan Cool And A Lot Of Other Stuff Inada Tomomi and Chairman of the National Safety Commission Furuya Keiji -- the Terrible Trio -- have said nothing about going but will be going. Shindo and Furuya will probably not survive the Cabinet reshuffle on September 3 (somebody has to lose his/her job to make space for cabinet hopefuls and it is easier for Abe to dump his male Best Friends) so have an incentive to go out in a blaze of glory, signing the registers as "Member of The Abe Cabinet." Inada, who is rumored to be taking over for Taka'ichi Sanae at the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council (and one cannot think of a better way of cementing the continued irrelevance of the PARC - Link) will visit but probably either early in the morning or in the late afternoon in a private capacity. Not that she has to, mind you: Takaichi herself will be once again the smug front and center of the phalanx of Diet members paying their respects in today's heat.

Shimomura Hakubun - The arch-conservative and token poor person in Abe Shinzo inner circle has had a very quiet one and a half years, indulging in his inner revisionist only once in a florrid and ultimately pointless bid to stop the tiny Okinawan town of Taketomi from using a social studies textbook of its own choosing (Link). Oddly, he has not been mentioned among the cabinet members who are going to be retained in the reshuffle, despite his incredible patience in not carrying out the wholesale smashing of the education system long promised by Abe Shinzo loyalists and allies. If Shimomura shows up at Yasukuni today he will be signaling that he knows he will not be leading the revolution after September.

Any Other Cabinet Minister - If any other of the Cabinet's members pay their respects, it will be pretty much a declaration of his/her being in the "Shatter and splatter/Pitcher and platter/What do we care?/We won't be there!" category of September non-survivors. Since having the image of being "better than Abe at least" in terms of sensitivity to Chinese and Korean sentiments is one of the few selling points a challenger can offer, one cannot expect any of the bigwigs or factions leaders (Tanigaki, Ishihara, for example) to show up.

Ishiba Shigeru - If LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru shows up today, it means he is most definitely trolling for a "even more patriotic than Abe" reputation. Ishiba is looking to challenge Abe for the LDP presidency in September next year if the LDP's performance in local elections over the next nine months is less than stellar -- which is looking pretty likely (the next two big tests, the Fukushima and Okinawa gubernatorial elections, look incredibly tough for the party). Ishiba has already planted his flag in more militant territory than Team Abe in the matter of a Diet examination of the recent recantations by The Asahi Shimbun of certain of their stories on the comfort women (Link). A Yasukuni visit today would indicate Ishiba is making a serious play for the affections of the radicals in the party.

Later -Yes, I too will be glad when this day is over, so I can stop talking about The War -- at least until December when Abe does make his annual pilgrimage to Yasukuni.

Image: Prime Minister Abe Shinzo laying a wreath at the atomic bombing memorial in Nagasaki on August 9, 2014.
Image courtesy: Abe Shinzo official Facebook page.MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-64674697134993783162014-08-12T15:41:00.001+09:002014-08-13T00:18:57.322+09:00How The Comfort Women Came Into Being: A Sketch Of A Racial/Legal Entity
Yes, they really called it that.

Imperialism and racial fears and sex and commerce and legalism mix badly, it turns out.

International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic (4 May 1910)

Article 1

Whoever, in order to gratify the passions of another person, has procured, enticed, or led away, even with her consent, a woman or girl under age, for immoral purposes, shall be punished, notwithstanding that the various acts constituting the offence may have been committed in different countries.

Article 2

Whoever, in order to gratify the passions of another person, has, by fraud, or by means of violence, threats, abuse of authority, or any other method of compulsion, procured, enticed, or led away a woman or girl over age, for immoral purposes, shall also be punished, notwithstanding that the various acts constituting the offence may have been committed in different countries.

(...)

(Link)

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International Convention for the Suppression of the Trafficking of Women and Children (30 September 1921)

Article 1.

The High Contracting Parties agree that, in the event of their not being already Parties to the Agreement of May 18, 1904, and the Convention of May 4, 1910, mentioned above, they will transmit, with the least possible delay, their ratifications of, or adhesions to, those instruments in the manner laid down therein.

Article 2.

The High Contracting Parties agree to take all measures to discover and prosecute persons who are engaged in the traffic in children of both sexes and who commit offences within the meaning of Article i of the Convention of May 4, 1910.

Article 3.

The High Contracting Parties agree to take the necessary steps to secure the punishment of attempts to commit, and, within legal limits, of acts preparatory to the commission of, the offences specified in Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention of May 4, 1910.

[Snip]

Article 14.

Any Member or State signing the present Convention may declare that the signature does not include any or all of its colonies, overseas possessions, protectorates or territories under its sovereignty or authority, and may subsequently adhere separately on behalf of any such colony, overseas possession, protectorate or territory so excluded in its declaration.

[Snip]

Japan: The undersigned delegate of Japan ... declares that his signature does not include Chosen, Taiwan and the leased territory of Kwantung.

HAYASHI

(Link)

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The government of Japan eventually acceded to the 1921 Convention in 1925. It expanded the original list of exempt territories to include Japan's South Pacific trust territories and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. (Link)

So, according to treaty, someone tricking a Japanese woman or woman residing in Japan into transport abroad to serve as a prostitute, or using force to do same, was illegal.

Tricking a Taiwanese or Korean woman or child, or even having a Taiwanese or Korean child go voluntarily, was not illegal.

If you were in the procurement business, let us say for a large institutional client who also was in charge of regulating said business, where and how would go about your business?

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The comfort women system was not sui generis, a product of diseased national mindset. It was in many ways an unintended consequence of international conventions put forth by Europeans attempting to prevent women of European extraction ending up in the brothels of brown-skinned peoples -- and Europeans not being confident they had the resources or legal precedent to extend the writ of those conventions to the many peoples and cultures residing in their colonies. Europeans, because they were racists, unthinkingly opened a huge hole in the first international trafficking agreements -- which Japanese and the Japanese military, because they were not racists, proceeded to exploit.

Imperialism and colonialism were the roots of the problem though. It was these fundamental insults to human dignity and human life that made the best intentions and noble sentiments go wildly astray.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-43166728054145014232014-08-07T11:08:00.001+09:002014-08-07T13:44:04.594+09:00After The Asahi Shimbun Retractions

"It's an old habit....I spent my whole life trying not to be careless....Women and children can afford to be careless but not men."

Vito Corleone, The Godfather (1972)
Now replace "men" with "liberals" and "women and children" with "conservatives and libertarians" and you have a pretty accurate picture of the world we live in.

After decades of resistance, The Asahi Shimbun three days ago began the painful process of retracting a series of articles it had published over the years containing the undocumentable and likely false statements of a former civilian labor recruiter. The late Yoshida Seiji had claimed he had organized a forcible round up of 200 women on the island of Cheju-do for service as prostitutes in "comfort stations" for the Imperial Japanese Army. Unfortunately for the Asahi and news organizations quoting the Asahi on the story, investigations into the accuracy of Yoshida's claims found no evidence of their being true.

Conservative publications and commentators have been going to town on The Asahi Shibun's about face (Link). The humiliation of the right's "Class A War Criminal" as regards the comfort women and the Kono Statement has stimulated some...oh let us say "opportunistic" leaders of certain parties...to demand Diet investigation of the Asahi's reversal. (Link and Link J video)

The overdue repudiation of Yoshida's claims has of course hurt the cause of those urging an East Asian entente on the comfort women issue. Yoshida's claims and their debunking have focused attention in Japan on the issue of whether the comfort women were recruited "forcibly in the narrow sense" --, i.e. kidnapped by government employees or their direct agents -- leaving underexamined the larger issue of the impossible-to-defend trafficking of women from colonized or occupied areas to provide sexual services to soldiers, sailors and officers at or near Imperial Army and Imperial Navy installations. It is an absurd assertion of Japanese revisionist circles that the only reason the comfort women issue has existed as an element of international relations has been The Asahi Shimbun's printing of articles on the subject. The idiotic domestic debate on "coercion in the narrow sense" has, of course, made the Japanese government and people look like a creepy bunch of sniveling, moon-eyed automatons obsessed with the avoidance of blame or the appearance of remorse.

When latest matsuri sawagi of hooting, hollering and "I told you so" dies down, of course, Japanese of all stripes will find that the Asahi's retractions matter not one jot in the way the world perceives the issue (Link). The world outside Japan's borders focuses, unsurprisingly, on coercion in the broader sense, which is:

Recruitment of non-national women or boys to provide sexual services for an occupying or colonial government's employees, whether through cash inducements, deceit or abduction, whether by government personnel or agents, in colonized or occupied territories, is a coerced act, no matter the legal status of prostitution in the occupying country.

That brutal reality, one of the many brutal, horrifying realities of the way the Japanese Imperial forces operated, has not changed in the aftermath of the Asahi's publication of retractions of some of its stories.

Later - Did not see this until now but it seems the good folks at JapanRealTime clicked in with a report yesterday. (Link)

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-77453326307808920602014-08-06T10:38:00.005+09:002014-08-07T12:03:35.121+09:00What I Wish I Had Told Al-JazeeraI appeared on Al-Jazeera yesterday, offering two minutes worth of thoughts, such as they may be, on the new Defense White Paper. (Link - and Link J)

What I managed to blurt out was, well, solid, moderate, perhaps even far-seeing -- but definitely not great television.

When asked out how the White Paper defines Chinese actions in the East China Sea, what I should have said was:

"This year's White Paper declares that certain Chinese actions, such as the unilateral declaration without consultation of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) to be 'profoundly dangerous acts.' Non-Japanese media organizations like the Financial Times have flagged the operative adjective here, calling it a condemnation. (Link)

All apologies to the editors of the Financial Times but calling what the Chinese government has been doing 'dangerous' is not a condemnation: it is a simple statement of fact. Indeed 'dangerous' all by its lonesome is an understatement. The authors of the report should have been more prolix, describing China's moves as 'profoundly dangerous, provocative acts, the kind of stupid crap that leads to the therts of wars and stuff' -- and even that would have only been a simple statement of fact."

Oh well, better luck next time...

Later - Writing in The Diplomat, Clint Richards sees the language of the Defense White Paper as unhelpfully incendiary (Link). Richards seems to be arguing that in order to secure of a face-to-face meeting between Abe Shinzo and Xi Jinping the Japanese government should suppress a public accounting of national policies and official interpretations of current events.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-52228811599666325662014-08-05T10:56:00.000+09:002014-08-05T11:00:50.324+09:00Prime Minister Abe Returns
"Mr. Prime Minister, given how well both your teams did in the just-concluded World Cup, is this shot not kind of, you know, weird -- not to mention, wide?"

Yesterday just before 10 a.m., Prime Minister Abe returned to Tokyo from his week-long trip to Latin America and the Caribbean. He had an audience with the Emperor informing his Majesty of his safe return (why does no one question the preservation of this Victorian relic, the requirement that every minister stop off at the Palace to tell the Emperor that he/she is leaving the country and, upon his/her return, go to the Palace to check in? How about just notifying His Majesty via Facebook?).

After the 15 minutes with His Majesty, Abe went to the Diet Member's Building #1 to the dentist's office therein to have some work done on his teeth.

What is unbelievable about this schedule?

That after the visit to the dentist's office, Prime Minister Abe and Mrs. Abe went home to their private home in Tomigaya AND THE PM TOOK THE AFTERNOON OFF.

For anyone who peruses the PM's hyperactive-to-the-point-of-almost-parody daily schedules, the news that he came back on a Monday and proceeded to do basically nothing both astounds and instill fear.

Is the PM OK? Could he not have convened a meeting of yet another important-sounding obscure economic reform panel? Receive a visit from the Chiba Kiwi Fruit Marketing Association Kiwi Festival queens? (Link)

Perhaps the otherwise unoccupied hours gave the PM time to reflect upon some eternal truths he has seemed to have been ignoring of late:

- if I ever listen to what my fellow Liberal Democratic Party members are telling me to do, my term in office will be abbreviated and the LDP will go down to ignominious electoral defeat only three years after winning an unassailable victory. To live long and prosper I must remember Koizumi Jun'ichiro's contempt for LDP conventional wisdom!

- if I reward my friends for their loyalty, they will repay me with either incompetence, larceny, treachery or all three combined. I have a terrible taste in friends.

- I have to tell domestic audiences that I am sincere when I

a) hand out Cabinet posts in September based on faction affiliation

b) ram through the Diet an emergency spending plan to boost rural development just in time for the mid-April local elections (Link)

c) say I learned the lesson of the Shiga gubernatorial election and will redouble my efforts to guarantee LDP candidates win the upcoming Fukushima and Okinawa gubernatorial contests

and signal to international audiences that I am doing all of these things for utterly insincere and cynical reasons and so please ignore them, they are not the real Abe Shinzo -- otherwise one side or the other will drop me like a piece of Shanghai-processed chicken.

-----------------------------------------------------

Photo image of Team Abe in Brazil courtesy: Abe Shinzo official Facebook page.

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-45275898721200207162014-08-04T04:30:00.000+09:002014-08-05T09:14:48.107+09:00Memory Whole: When The Aliens Landed In L.A. Thirty five years ago today.

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Good luck with your cancer treatment, Sakamoto-san (Link). Your country needs you, now more than ever.
Link: "Cosmic Surfin'" from the Yellow Magic Orchestra's August 4, 1979 performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, YMO's first North American concert appearance. MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-23955647052259661512014-08-03T08:33:00.002+09:002014-08-03T08:33:58.771+09:00Taking A Break

Lotus. Shinobazu Pond, Ueno Park. Taito City, Tokyo Metropolitan District on August 2, 2014.

Image credit: MTC

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-48572537704049597062014-08-01T05:10:00.003+09:002014-08-07T04:18:19.339+09:00Before We Get All Excited About The TEPCO Ruling
Recommendation for indictment from the #5 Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution and the three TEPCO suspects

Let us run through the Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution drill one more time, shall we?

STEP ONE: The public prosecutor's office investigates suspects, deciding whether or not to indict them on charges.

STEP TWO: The public prosecutor's office, after careful consideration of the evidence, decides it cannot secure a conviction of the suspects in question.

STEP THREE: A private individual or a group, ticked off at the decision of the prosecutors, files a motion with the Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution to reexamine the prosecutor's decision.

STEP FOUR: The Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution, whose sole reason for existence is to question the decisions of prosecutors to not prosecute, comes to the conclusion that the public prosecutor's office should reconsider its decision. (This is what happened yesterday as regards the three former executive of Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner and operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station - Link)

STEP FIVE - The public prosecutor's office, upon being told that its decision to not prosecute was wrong, replies, "No, we got it right the first time: there is no basis for a prosecution" and rejects the Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution's conclusion.

STEP SIX - The Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution, pissed off that the public prosecutors refused to take its conclusion seriously, says, "Oh yeah? Why did we even bother to ask you to reconsider anyway? We'll just appoint our own, private sector lawyers to indict and prosecute the defendants. So there!"

STEP SEVEN - The Committee for the Inquest of the Prosecution trudges over to the local bar association office to find three lawyers to serve as prosecutors. The local bar association tells the Committee to not expect much, as no competent lawyer with a thriving practice has the time to be a prosecutor. Furthermore, no lawyer concerned about his/her professional reputation would agree to step in after the public prosecutors have already twice determined there is no case. The Committee asks the bar association to try anyway.

STEP EIGHT - Three lawyers who are either incompetent, do not care about their reputations or have been browbeaten into accepting the role by colleagues saying, "Look, just accept the assignment, OK? Just go through the motions, fail and the Committee is off all our backs. We'll make it up to you later" agree to look at the evidence.

STEP NINE - Since the three lawyers were hired to file charges, they unsurprisingly find the evidence to prosecute compelling and indict the suspects.

STEP TEN - Either from a personal lack of smarts, zero cooperation from a resentful public prosecutor's office or the total absence of giving a damn, the three lawyers fail to convince a judge of the merits of the charges and the suspects are all found "Not Guilty."

And no, the above is not just a cynic's barking. This what happens when an interesting question -- "Is there not some way that average citizens, certain that the decisions of public prosecutors to not prosecute are the result of political interference or other nefarious forces, can demand that the prosecutors either do their jobs or stand aside?" is not followed up by the question "OK, what could go wrong?"

Later - The Asahi Shimbun sees the Committee's action in a less caustic light, giving extra credit for having at least the right intentions. (Link

Screen shot courtesy: NHK News
MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-16812823556327558352014-07-31T05:45:00.001+09:002014-08-02T03:01:19.387+09:00By The Way, Okada Katsuya Is Still Dull
"I see you have brought a card with you, Mr. Okada. Please tell us about your card."

The Democratic Party of Japan, the once and possibly future alternative to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will today be having a joint meeting of its members of both Houses of the Diet.

The party has some big issues to face - existential ones. (Link)

Though the agenda may have other items on it, there is really only one major topic of discussion: should the current party leader Kaieda Banri be forced to hold an early leadership election? A year ago, after the party's defeat in the House of Councillors election giving Abe Shinzo and his party control of both Houses, Kaieda asked to be given a year to turn party fortunes around. By any measure, he has failed to make even minor progress in that direction. The DPJ is the main opposition party again but only because its potential rivals - the Japan Restoration Party of Hashimoto Toru and Ishihara Shintaro and the Your Party of Watanabe Yoshimi -- have fissioned into ever more strangely-named pieces. Kaieda gained a slight boost from the victory of the anti-Liberal Democratic Party, former DPJ MP candidate Mikatsuki Taizo in the Shiga governor's race two weeks ago. However, in order to win that race Mikatsuki and his many DPJ helpmates pointedly avoiding mentioning the candidate's DPJ ties, worrying that association with the DPJ would torpedo his chances.

Sincere and learned, Kaieda has failed to inspire as a party leader. He has little aptitude in playing to the public's or the news media's expectations and foibles. He has also failed to chart the party a new ideological course, choosing instead to peddle the traditional DPJ solutions to Japan's problems -- as though the Global Financial Crisis and Abenomics had not reshuffled the world's and Japan's decks.

The problem with replacing Kaieda with someone else is...who is going to be that someone else? If the party is going to press him to go, it has to make a clear, clean break -- or else the exercise will look like what it is, a desperate attempt to generate interest in the party through a coup. Kaieda comes from the DPJ's liberal wing, so reasonably the pendulum must now swing the other way, with a new leader selected from out of the party's conservative wing.

Unfortunately, none of the handful of top conservative candidates for the party leadership -- Noda Yoshihiko, Maehara Seiji, Edano Yukio, Gemba Ko'ichiro, Azumi Jun and Okada Katsuya: a collectivity the Yomiuri Shimbun refers to "The Gang of Six" -- has significantly greater electoral appeal, intellectual flexibility or party support than Kaieda. Former prime minister Noda has the gravitas. He has not, however, shed the status of "Class A War Criminal" he earned throught his inexplicable calling of the House of Representatives election of December 2012. Maehara is derided as an LDP clone and is always reminded, when he makes noises about challenging the leadership, of a little incident involving a fake email. The younger or at least younger-seeming trio of Edano, Gemba and Azumi have failed, over Kaieda's year of trial, to create the impression they are more than just former ministers and power brokers of the DPJ's fat years.

This leaves Okada, the stolid and fabulously wealthy (Link) veteran who led the party to ignominious and overwhelming defeat in the 2005 summer snap House of Representatives. To be fair, Okada had the misfortune of being asked to outsmart and outmaneuver the greatest political wizard of the age, Koizumi Jun'ichiro. This Okada failed to do -- even though Koizumi, by expelling the postal reform rebels from the LDP and running candidates against them, was fighting the election on two fronts. Like a white Toyota Corolla, Okada was sensible and dependable and safety conscious and simply got blown off the road by the red Ferrari that is Koizumi.

Okada has been feisty and crisp, however, in recent appearances. He forcefully pinned down the prime minister, for example, in the debate over collective self defense (Link). He has for the past few weeks been making a lot of reasonable-sounding noises about the necessity for a change in the party leadership, creating the impression he has decided he should be Kaieda's replacement.

In something of a dress rehearsal for a leadership challenge, Okada appeared this last Saturday on Tahara So'ichiro BS (not what you think) program to debate the Cabinet Decision on collective self defense. His debate opponent was Watanabe Tsuneo -- not the all powerful Abe-supporting media emperor Watanabe Tsuneo, the Japan Foundation's quiet researcher Watanabe Tsuneo -- who is also the son of DPJ elder statesman and legendary quote machine Watanabe Kozo.

The bad news from Saturday's debate? Even against a friendly or at least neutral opponent (Watanabe has no political ambitions -- he refused to take over his father's seat in the Diet after his father retired) Okada could not debate the issues effectively. Time after time Okada would toss up a point only to sit morosely and watch Watanabe swat it back.

Losing a debate on a minor cable channel against a researcher would not be such a big deal. However, Okada's talking points were for the most part spot on correct. Watanabe's were, by contrast, largely non-sequiturs. If one cannot smash an avuncular BS (what you are thinking) spewing individual who feels no particular emnity toward you, then you are not ready for prime time.

Okada has got to be hoping his friends and allies were not watching on Saturday. From the Twitter feeds of DPJ types and unfortunately for Okada, it seems that they were.

So don't be surprised if the big development at the DPJ headquarters today is Kaieda surviving what should be a lethal general meeting. Kaieda is terrible...but his potential replacements are not much better. Instead of Kaieda offering himself up for the good of the party, it is party secretary-general Obata Akihiro who offing himself (Link - J) ostensibly to try to make amends for what a lousy leader Kaieda has been.

Okada Katsuya's being still dull opens the door a bit wider, however, for an eventual run for the top post by Hosono "Get Lucky" Goshi -- whom we know is anything but boring. (Link)

Later - The editors of the Mainichi Shimbun largely concur. (Link)

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-51410733473721083262014-07-30T14:02:00.001+09:002014-07-30T18:57:41.791+09:00Live Blogging The Masuzoe Yo'ichi Press Conference

Preliminaries - smart move by Masuzoe - having his top assistant collecting name cards for a contact database. After the recent, almost searing contempt for the foreign journalist community by members of the Abe Cabinet, an endearing gesture of wanting to establish a continuing, fruitful partnership

14:00 Reading from a script in English - not bad for a Francophile and Francophone Japanese.

14:05 Extemporaneous joke on what used to be called MacArthur Street, now Shintora (from Shinbashi to Toranomon) -- since tora is "tiger" he wonders whether it makes Osaka's Hanshin Tigers fans happy. He asks journalists to please call the road Olympic Road or Paralympic Road. Unless one appreciates the level of envy Osaka feels for Tokyo and contempt Tokyo feels for Osaka, probably not very funny or even comprehensible.

14:10 Special programs for working women amidst the list of infrastructure projects - seems a zeitgeist box every politician has to tick off nowadays. For some reason I believe Masuzoe more than the PM on this subject, despite the efforts of the scandal media organizations to convince me that Masuzoe still holds on to odd ideas about women.

14:15 Uh-oh, talking about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles - seduction by technologies the central government and Toyota are pushing hard.

14:17 Strengthen WiFi networks - his visit to Seoul was highly instructive. Given how geolocation and enhanced reality are developing on smart phones, a foreign language information infrastructure will make Tokyo a more tourist friendly city.
(Clearly Masuzoe is up on existing infotech infrastructure and software).

14:21 Disaster preparedness - perhaps not sexy for the foreign media set, but a huge subject after the Kobe Earthquake, the March 2011 Triple Disaster and recent super storms.

14:24 Social welfare capital - like Tokyo is not such a place already. He talks about his experience from being Minister of Health, his commuting between Tokyo and Kyushu to oversee the care for his mother during her long fight with Alzheimer's and his raising children. (The mention of the last led some of my tablemates to roll their eyes).

Yes, Mr. Governor - but how to pay for more social welfare? This city is ageing fast too.

14:27 Defense of why he is doing diplomacy and the establishment on July 16 of a special office in the Tocho for advisors seconded from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Notes that it has been 18 years since a Tokyo governor visited Seoul - "Can you believe this? This is really abnormal."

He has visited Beijing and Seoul since he won election to his new job -- more than the nominally peripatetic Abe Shinzo has been able to do.

(DATA CRASH)

14:45 Does Tokyo have what it takes to be an Asian Financial Center? Especially since English language skills are a general requirement? Oooooh, that is a mean question. Masuzoe skirts the human resources implications of question by talking about how business forms can be submitted in English.

14:50 "I am checking the budget for the Olympics. A compact Olympics means in terms of budget too, not just the artificial 8 km radius for venues."

14:55 "I have no interest in being the mediator in between the national governments of East Asia."

"City to city talks are my interest. As regards difficult Japan history issues, academics should be separated from politics."

Later - The basic impressions one come away with are:

1) Experience and Erudition - Masuzoe can make cogent comparisons with other locales and offer the background to a decision

2) Aware of Priorities - when a Hokkaido Shimbun journalist tried to draw him into discussing the unification of the ownership of Tokyo's two metro systems, Masuzoe told the questioner that he Masuzoe had far too many more important things to do than tackle that thorny but basically irrelevant issue

One comes away with the sense one can trust what Masuzoe says. Well, except when he starts talking about improving social welfare services (shakai fukushi) without talking about costs.

Then again, every Japanese politician has to lie about social welfare services provision.

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-17263835770610188592014-07-29T06:37:00.000+09:002014-07-29T06:46:35.318+09:00That Real Wages Falling Means Abenomics Is Failing ThingTwo days ago the Financial Times published an exegesis upon the most recent Nihon Keizai Shimbun's public opinion poll -- the one that everyone is talking about (Link). Entitled "Shinzo Abe faces rising disenchantment in Japan" the Jonathan Soble article features the following graph:

Source: Financial Times

Now if I were an Abe government flack, rather than trying to ignore this graph or, when confronted with it, try to explain the fall in real wages away ("There will of course be a period of adjustment...but after a while we will see real wages rise again...") I would put the graph on the first page of every presentation on the future course of Japan's economic reforms. "Look," I would tell everyone, "the currency devaluation of Abenomics and consumption tax increase of Nodanomics, implemented in April --- see where the real wage curve suddenly falls like a stone off a cliff? --are doing exactly what they were expected to do. This is not a picture of Abenomics failing; this is picture of Abenomics and Nodanomics WORKING!"

"Now the executives of Japan's multinationals can bank their currency devaluation boosted profits, leading to consumption to fall off a cliff too -- or they can buckle down and start raising national incomes by either paying more to existing workers, hiring more workers, engage in some capital expenditure or distribute the profits among shareholders. So I say to you top executives of Japan's largest companines, I know that a lot of you top executives are timid, self-pitying and avaricious tyrants -- not all of you, mind you, but a lot of you -- who will do what is right for the company books but is wrong for the nation and its people. Hear me, your country needs you NOW!"

Abe Shinzo has indeed been engaging in this kind of "moral suasion" as the IMF put it in April (Link). He just needs to do it more, twisting the arms of his best corporate buddies until they scream out serious, inflation-indexed or more raises in wages. Would it not be impressive if, let us say, Akimoto Yasushi, one of Abe's closest advisors on "Cool Japan" promotion strategy (Link) were to announce a 3.6% raise in the wages of every member of the AKB48 empire? Because, let us face it, the Akimoto stable's corporate image is in need of a buffing right about now (Link). Or how about a similar increase in the wages of JR Central employees before Abe Best Friend Forever Kasai Yoshiyuki wipes out every bit of corporate wealth those employees have created in a farcical, sure-to-have-to-be-bailed-out bid to build an electricity-snarfling hyperspeed subway (86% below ground) from Tokyo to Nagoya? (Link)

Oh, yes. Prime Minister Abe could also push up the real wages curve by using his big ruling party majorities in both Houses of the Diet to pass legislation further increasing the wages paid to bureaucrats and other government employees, reversing decades of wage and benefit cuts. Poaching a few corporate hotshots and putting them to work on the nation's problems would further foster the impression that in this blessed land there is a competition for talent, one for which Japan corporate heads will have to start loosening the purse strings or face being blindsided by defection.

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-4324526487656540552014-07-29T03:30:00.000+09:002014-07-29T03:30:00.069+09:00When At Length A Reader WritesI would be in remiss not to post the result.

Reader Troy Yuen, via email, in response to my post Urban Harvest Tokyo of July 17:

In my neighborhood and surrounding area (Meguro--Shirokane) while there is a lack of FREE public green space, there is a lot of private greenery available. For example, 八芳園, 雅叙園, 自然教育園 (which is HUGE). But other areas seem to have minimal amounts greenery, public or private. Shibuya, Ebisu (I'm still wondering where is the "garden" in Ebisu Garden Place).

Fortunately, in the last 10 years there seems to be some attempt to increase the amount of green space in central Tokyo. Midtown built a big garden/park/pond in the back. I noticed that some of the buildings in Otemachi have built gardens on their roofs. Next to the new Otemori building there is a mini-forest including trees and a small stream.

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Flowers in Jindaiji Botanical Garden, Chofu City, Tokyo Metropolitan District on July 20, 2014. Photo courtesy: MTC.

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While sound in theory, the idea always rankled。Only one who does not live in the TMD would ever think of the micro-farms as wasted land. Without the farms, life in the great concrete metropolis would be far less livable. The central wards are woeful in the paucity of their area devoted to parks. Such public parks as exist are uninviting due to bad design, regulations and a love of bare dirt.

-----------------------------------

There is so little greenery in central Tokyo that some of the best hanami parties I've been to have been at cemeteries (青山墓地 and 染井墓地)!!

Not sure that the "love of bare dirt" is entirely accurate. There are many parks that have nothing but dirt and there seems to be no attempt to grow grass, but I think that a possible reason for that is the few public parks that exist are overused to the point where they've given up trying to grow grass.

There is a park in Shirokanedai with a fountain, minimal exercise equipment, no playground, just a few benches and open space. They are always trying to grow grass by making some areas of the park off limits to give the grass a chance to grow. But once the off limits area is reopened for public use it turns into dirt pretty quickly because of overuse. They've recently tried a new strategy by laying a green protective plastic net over most of the park to prevent the grass from being trampled to death while still allowing sunlight and water to pass through. It seems to work pretty well as the grass is thriving and growing through the net.

One complaint about Tokyo greenery that I do have that you didn't mention is that there are very few public places in Tokyo where BBQs are allowed (none inside the Yamanote as far as I know). Even where they are allowed, for example Futakotamagawa, there are rules regarding noise, start/end times, etc.
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Thank you Mr. Yuen, for your readership and your missive.

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-65591366768436298652014-07-28T12:22:00.002+09:002014-07-30T06:15:50.252+09:00Prime Minister Abe Tries It Latin Style

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has arrived in Trinidad and Tobago (Link - J) for a two day visit (Link), a part of his 11 day summer smash tour of five Latin American and Caribbean countries (Link). Tomorrow, he will be meeting with 14 heads of state attending the CARICOM conference, adding a big chunk to his already impressive list of meetings with heads of states. He then heads on to stops in Colombia, Chile and Brazil.

While the first visit of a prime minister of Japan to Latin America in a decade -- yes, the last Japanese premier to survive in office long enough to make such a trip was Koizumi Jun'ichiro -- should be significant in its own right, the leisurely (for Abe Shinzo) jaunt is being treated as an echo of Xi Jinping's July 15-22 visit to the region. (Link).

To be brutal but fair, the Abe visit does pale beside the Xi tour. Xi came to the region as a collaborator in the establishment of a new world order (the BRICS summit in Brazil - Link), as a big time customer of a national champions (Link), as a banking hyperpower (Link) and as a potential savior of limping, pariah economies ( Link and Link). Abe comes as a supplicant (groveling for votes for a UN Security Council non-permanent seat, which permanent member China never has to do - Link), as a top salesman of Japanese goods and services (with 70 Japanese corporate executives in tow, including the head of the Nippon Keidanren Link - J), as a celebrant of his blood ties to better, bolder times in Japan's diplomatic history (Link - J) and as a guarantor that Japan is not dilly-dallying on the Trans Pacific Partnership. (Link)

Not an impressive comparison. Just in terms of striking business deals, a customer is usually far more welcome than a salesman.

However, Abe will come away from his long summer trip with his reputation for incessant activity intact. He has in 18 months in office made 23 trips abroad. Admittedly, 10 of those trips abroad were for international conferences. Still, he has touched down in at least 3 countries on a single trip 11 different times since he became premier in December 2012. By September he will set a new record for all postwar prime ministers in terms of number of foreign countries visited -- and this only from his current term, not counting the countries he visited his first 2006-07 term. (Link - J)

Maybe he should take on "The Blur" as a nickname...

Later - Clint Richards of The Diplomat delivers a more positive review of Abe's Latin Swing. (Link)

Later still - Peter Ford of The Christian Science Monitor talks to Japan-based experts regarding the Xi vs. Abe comparison, among them the prime minister's most important message sculptor. (Link)

As for the psychological underpinnings of the trip, The Japan Times offers a compilation article with yes, more Taniguchi. (Link)

Original image courtesy: Abe Shinzo official Facebook page.MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-89823046946836230442014-07-26T06:15:00.000+09:002014-07-26T06:52:30.638+09:00Dancing Toward A Better Japan-South Korea RelationshipOn the occasion of Tokyo Governor Masuzoe Yo'ichi's 40 minute summit meeting with President Park Ge-Hyun (keep in mind that until the Abe-Kuroda devaluation, Tokyo's economy was assessed to be bigger than Indonesia's - Link) a gratuitous embed of World Order's "Permanent Revolution" - where Sudo Genki and the boys posit their Japanese Ultra Everymen as the agents of an East Asian concord in such sharp contrast with the current, discouraging discord.

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(In HD - so do click on the Full Screen button)

It has been a lousy several weeks and months for the human species - where we seem hellbent on spinning out ever farther from Sudo's definitely quirky (and deeply skeptical of the role and motives of the United States) appeal for hitotsu no sekai e.

Later - The concantenation of ironies of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's having to rely on freshly minted Governor Masuzoe, who had been Abe's nemesis during Abe's annus horribilis of 2007, in order to get the president of South Korea, a fellow U.S. ally, to talk to him, is not lost upon me.

Later still -For those who catch it -- in the scene shot in front of Seven & I Holdings's world headquarters, Sudo demonstrates he has issues with the Masons too.

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-57462615858469738912014-07-25T15:20:00.000+09:002014-07-26T05:54:18.545+09:00From The Folks Who Gave You A World Cup In Qatar

I'm the Burning Bush
I'm the Burning Fire
I'm the Bleeding Volcano!

- Jagger & Richards, "She's So Cold" (1980)

Today is six years to the day of the proposed start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The shade temperature at the site of the new main Olympic Stadium is at this hour a balmy 36ºC (97ºF for you of the U.S.A. persuasion). The temperature in the waterfront areas, where many of the Olympic venues are to be concentrated, is a brisk 35ºC (95ºF).

I put to you the proposition that the date of the opening of the 2020 Olympics may need to be pushed into October -- as it was in 1964.

Later - More on the heat from the good folks at JapanRealTime. (Link)

Image courtesy: NHK NewsMTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-75967673088279922652014-07-25T06:45:00.000+09:002014-07-25T06:51:02.581+09:00Grim Exposition Of Fundamental Flaws in Abe's Abenomics

Loose monetary policy goes a long way toward liberating a country from economic torpor. However, monetary policy alone is insufficient for the whole journey. I have for a long while been railing that the Abe Cabinet has to get down to brass tacks and figure out ways to punish companies for hoarding their profits rather redistributing them to shareholders, converting them into higher pay for employees or deploying them in investments. (Link)

In a video that everyone should watch, Charles Dumas, the chief economist for Lombard Street Research, agrees. (Link - video)

That exports continued to underperform last month despite the effective devaluation of the yen (Link) only makes the Dumas presentation all the more damning.

Given that Abe 2.0: The Return of the Princeling was orchestrated by a select group of (often China hating) empire builders of the zaikai who crowd around Abe on the weekends, not letting others with their pesky opinions near their superannuated golden boy, the chances that the PM will be made aware of the changes necessary to save Abenomics, much less implement those changes, are very, very low.

Image: Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy meeting of 22 July 2014
Image courtesy: The Prime Minister's ResidenceMTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-5057214148579738132014-07-23T19:45:00.000+09:002014-07-24T06:31:44.726+09:00From The Places They Have Seen We Might Know Who They Are

This morning Prime Minister Abe Shinzo paid a visit to the Tomioka Silk Works, Japan's first Western-style silk production facility, recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He paid tribute to the citizens' groups which had cared for the site through its many decades of sleepy neglect and who spearheaded the drive to have the site designated a part of the world's heritage (Link). The prime minister also showed his appreciation for the women whose labors inside Tomioka and Japan's other giant silk mills produced the export yen that helped pay for the national strengthening policies of the Meiji Era.

Local community efforts, women working with the nation reaping benefits, international recognition - all great political messages to latch onto and integrate in the prime minister's Abenomics master narrative.(Link - J video)

However, in the "recognition for the previously under-recognized" travel league, the prime minister got trounced this week by their Imperial Majesties.

Yesterday the Emperor and the Empress finished a forty six year long project of national contrition and inclusiveness. They visited the Tohoku Shinseien, a former leprosarium, fulfilling a promise made in 1968 to visit all the former incarceration sites for sufferers of Hansen's Disease. (Link - J video)

Japan's leprosariums, where education and care was minimal, stayed in operation decades after other countries had ceased to isolate their Hansen's disease sufferers. It was not until 1996 that the draconian Leprosy Control Act was repealed. It took a 2001 unconstitutionality ruling by the Supreme Court (a rarity) to open the door for the Koizumi Cabinet to apologize for successive Japanese governments's violations of the patients's civil and human rights. (Link)

Their Highnesses's travel itineraries do not shirk revisiting the dark sides of the country's history. In May they visited the areas affected by Ashio Copper Poisoning Disaster, indicating that his Highness was not entirely displeased by House of Councillors member Yamamoto Taro's clumsy reinactment of the Tanaka Shozo Appeal last year -- and that their Highnesses are keeping their eyes on the government's fumbling at Fukushima Daiichi. In June their Highnesses paid their respects at the location of the wreck of the wartime evacuation ship Tsushima Maru, sunk by a U.S. submarine in August 1944 with loss of 1418 persons, most of them children. (Link - J)

It is hard not to love the Emperor and Empress for their efforts, at their advanced ages, to promote a full and complete reckoning of the nation's history.

Which suggests an intriguing idea. If Abe Shinzo's views of history make him unsuitable to meet or invite to China or South Korea, how about inviting their Imperial Majesties instead? By inviting them one proves that one's problems are with the policies of the Japanese government, not the Japanese people. One also gives oneself a wonderful chance to get off the merry-go-round of hatred and suspicion the region finds itself on.

Images courtesies: NHK NewsMTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-11534403294399376932014-07-22T17:07:00.000+09:002014-07-22T17:25:36.984+09:00The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sees The Signs Too

I do not read the Nihon Keizai Shimbun's editorials as often as I should. I am glad though, that I read the editorial the paper published on July 15 on the results of the gubernatorial election for Shiga Prefecture. I am clearly not alone in seeing an emerging recidivism in Abe's and the Liberal Democratic Party's rhetoric-- like the plan to revive the economies of declining prefectures by making it easier for for small- and medium-sized businesses to win government procurement orders (I am not making this up - Link).

Abe Shinzo's party seems to be veering from its professed course of revolutionary rectitude to instead head down LDP Memory Lane -- the bramble-covered track of scrounging for rural votes and wasting everyone's time on head-in-the-sand pet security projects. You know, the things that used to make everyone to hate the Liberal Democratic Party and Abe Shinzo, only probably more so this second time around:

衆参ねじれ国会が終わってちょうど1年。古い自民党に戻りつつあるとみられがちな時期に起きたわかりやすい失態だった。野党当時の必死さを思い出すべきだ。

It has been exactly one year since the end of the so-called "Twisted Diet" of two opposing parties, one controlling the House of Representatives and the other the House of Councillors. What has come about was an easy-to-understand failure coming at a time when the gradual trend seems to be the reappearance of the LDP of old. It would be good [for the party members] to remember their zeal during their time in opposition.

The paper goes on to warn that if the Abe Cabinet, after Abe names his new State Minister for Rural Revitalization in the presumed September cabinet reshuffle, goes on to promote shallow reforms with a target of capturing local votes, then it should not expect its weakened support ratings (Link) to start climbing any time soon.

A warning worth listening to, when it comes from the editors of Japan's top business news daily, the voice, they say, of the Establishment.

Image: "The Prime Minister Receives a Courtesy Call from Members of a PR Campaign for Yamanashi Fruits"
Image courtesy: The Prime Minister's Residence

MTChttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714063.post-63409294735310848062014-07-20T08:17:00.002+09:002014-07-21T06:09:00.275+09:00Positive Lessons For The Opposition From The Shiga Governor's Race
"Wanna race?"

Over at Izakaya Politics, Stephen Stapczynski has published a credible analysis of the outcome of the Shiga gubernatorial election. (Link)

I cannot disagree with Stapczynski's broad point that whatever the nation's dailies and talking heads are saying, there is little reason to believe the Abe government's recent decision to reinterpret the Constitution so as to allow the exercise of the right of collective self-defense (CSD) strongly impacted the outcome in Shiga. While there is evidence the CSD decision affected the outcome by somewhat suppressing the New Komeito vote for the ruling alliance candidate (Link), talking about the possible effect of CSD detracts attention from the real valence issue in Shiga: nuclear power plant restarts -- from which Shiga Prefecture would enjoy relatively few benefits and accrue a significant amount of risk. Indeed, it is telling that Abe Shinzo and other LDP bigwigs, who have reason to blow smoke in people's eyes, have been among the most prominent purveyors of the narrative that the CSD decision affected the Shiga outcome. (Link - J)

Stapczynski's conclusion is not unreasonable:

"Abe's shift in security policy will have a broader (yet minimal) impact on his national approval rating, but nuclear energy was the key issue in the Shiga gubernatorial elections, not CSD. The LDP is still the king of the land, and I suspect that future local elections will go in their favor. And with no organized or popular opposition party in sight (Mikazuki ran as an independent), Abe really doesn't have anything to worry about."
Nevertheless, there are aspects of the Shiga election Stapczynski does not mention which do have significant implications for revival of the fortunes of Japan's political opposition.

1) You Can Do This

After getting trounced by the LDP-New Komeito alliance in election after election since the ill-designed House of Representatives contest of December 2012, Japan's riberaru ("liberal" very much in the American sense of the word) politicians managed in Shiga to hang on in one of their strongholds. That they were able to do so at a time when the national polls show the liberal parties in total winning the loyalties of only 10% of the voters -- the LDP alone has the allegiance of 40% -- just hanging on is a major achievement.

2) The Communists Don't Enter Into It

All during the post-war era, the Japan Communist Party has served as a facilitator of LDP dominance. By insisting on running candidates in almost every race, the JCP has traditionally drained off around 10-15% of anti-LDP votes, making it difficult for moderate anti-LDP candidates to compete.

The big question for many has been whether moderate opposition is so down at present it has no choice but to forge an electoral alliance with the Communists, fielding joint candidates in order to capture that otherwise lost 10%-15%.

The Shiga result indicates that the answer to the question is "No, the opposition does not need to accommodate the Communists, a move that could destroy it, in order to beat the LDP" -- though the nuclear restart issue clouds the conclusion.

3) Make Them Happy To Vote Again

This is the big one.

Turnout for the Shiga election was 50.15%. This seems a dramatic decline from the number in 2010, when 61.56% of the voters showed up. However, the 2010 contest was held in concert with a House of Councillors election, artificially goosing the numbers in the gubernatorial race.

The true comparative is the 2006 election, when Kada Yukiko won her first term in office. The figure then was 44.94%, 5.21 percentage points fewer than in last Sunday's contest.

So what?

Here's what: the margin of victory for the former DPJ MP Mikazuki was just 13,076 votes, less than 2.4% of the total votes cast. Exit polls indicate that some of that margin of difference came from disaffected New Komeito voters, a surprising 24% of whom disobeyed the party directive to vote for the LDP's Koyari.

The vast majority of votes that made a difference, however, came from the ranks of the non-aligned vote, which according to recent polls, is 42.5% of the electorate (Link - J). Non-aligned voters broke for the anti-nuclear Mikazuki two-to-one, overwhelming the machine LDP vote (73% of self-proclaimed LDP voters chose Koyari).

The exit polls indeed indicated that while the nuclear restarts issue was crucial on the margin, it was not fundamental to the voting patterns of the voters. Only 10.3% of the voters called nuclear power the most important issue at hand. Far more named economic growth and employment (28.4%) and social welfare (19.3%) the key issues of the election. For those thinking the economy and employment the key issues, 63.1% voted for the LDP's Koyari.

So the takeaway from the election results for the opposition, particularly the moribund DPJ, are:

- keep the nuclear power phaseout plans worked out under the Kan Naoto and Noda Yoshihiko administrations - it helps at the margin

- ditch the constrictive Koizumi/DPJ economic policies of a decade ago. They made some sense in the fat times of the early part of the Zero Years. After the Global Recession of 2008-Present, they make zero sense. Be big time Abenomics boosters instead, but offer an alternative "Abenomics with a brain attached"

- snipe at Abe Shinzo and the LDP higher ups for their omniscient, dictatorial attitudes, even as newspaper editorialists tell you not to -- because doing so keeps the New Komeito leadership nervous about appearing to be the pushovers they are

- finally, GET PEOPLE HAPPY ABOUT VOTING AGAIN

The Second Abe Era began with 10 million voters not showing up at the polls in December 2012, turning a DPJ defeat into a runaway LDP victory -- in an election where there was were non-DPJ, anti-LDP alternatives for whom moderates could vote (and vote they did, for the Japan Restoration Party, which captured 12 million votes to the DPJ's 8 million). The message out of Shiga to the opposition is "Get the disaffected voters interested in voting -- not necessarily voting for you, specifically, just voting at all -- and the LDP can lose, just like it did before 2012."

Voter turnout. Voter turnout. Voter turnout.

Get it up and you are in this game again.

Later - The Economist has published a solid presentation of the more standard view, with the graph everyone has to keep in mind when thinking about Abe Shinzo -- and the advance warning the Fukushima and Okinawa gubernatorial elections are not likely to polish the image of Abe as LDP leader. As noted above, that members of Team Abe use the Cabinet Decision on CSD as an explanation for the Shiga results invites caution. (Link)

Image courtesy: Abe Shinzo official Facebook page.

MTChttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
What Houzzers are commenting on:
Vir Stil by Laura Kirar for KALLISTA
In Vir Stil, designer Laura Kirar juxtaposes several key design influences, from Danish modern to Bauhaus, ultimately creating something that is thoroughly unique, thoroughly beautiful. The Vir Stil collection uses the palette of its wood and metal materials and simple geometry to create gracious, modern forms.
Vir Stil on KALLISTA.com | http://bit.ly/NULrsn
Vir Stil on KALLISTA.com | http://bit.ly/NULrsn
Product Specifications
- Sold By
- Kallista Plumbing
- Category
- Towel Bars And Hooks
- Style
- Modern

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Intel Brings Affordable Solid-State Computing to Netbooks and Desktop PCs
40GB SSD Offers Consumers Affordable Price Point for Solid-State PerformanceNEWS HIGHLIGHTS
- Intel introduces X25-V Value SATA Solid-State Drive (SSD) at $125 entry price point.
- Perfect for value netbooks or as boot drive for dual-drive SSD/HDD desktops, X25-V delivers SSD performance at an affordable price.
- Desktop PCs can now combine an SSD with HDD to boost overall system performance and speed system boot up and opening of applications
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 15, 2010 – Intel Corporation announced today a new addition to its award-winning lineup of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs): the Intel® X25-V Value SATA SSD. Priced at $125, the 40 gigabyte (GB) drive is aimed at value segment netbooks and dual-drive/boot drive desktop set-ups to offer users the performance and reliability advantages of solid-state computing at an affordable, entry-level price.
SSDs can replace or coexist with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). With no movable parts or spinning platters, SSDs are more reliable and higher performing than HDDs. This makes users more productive as they experience faster overall system responsiveness. With the affordable price point, consumers can now enjoy the benefits of an SSD by adding an SSD option to their current desktop PC in a dual-drive or "boot drive" set up. In a dual-drive configuration, the Intel X25-V SSD is added to a desktop with an existing HDD. The SSD is loaded with the operating system and favorite applications to take advantage of the speedy performance which is nearly 4x faster than a 7200RPM HDD.** Users keep their existing HDD as a means of higher capacity data storage. This capability is commonly referred to as a "boot" drive since the SSD accelerates boot or start up time.
For example, with 40GB of boot drive capacity, a user could load the SSD with the Microsoft* Windows* 7 operating system, Microsoft Office applications and their favorite gaming application, such as Dragon Age: Origins*, and experience up to 43 percent faster overall system performance or 86 percent improvement in their gaming experience.** The SSD also speeds operations such as system start up, the opening of applications and files or resuming from standby. "The Intel solid-state drive is our top-selling SSD," said Stephen Yang, product manager for solid-state drives at e-tailer Newegg.com. "This new value entry from Intel means more customers will have the chance to experience the benefits of SSDs, not just in notebooks or high-end PCs, but in mainstream desktops as a boot drive. This is the right price point to help convert more users to SSD computing."
The Intel X25-V features 40GB of 34nm NAND flash memory. This non-volatile memory retains data, even when the power is turned off, and is used in applications such as smartphones, personal music players, memory cards or SSDs for fast and reliable storage of data. SSD benefits over a traditional HDD include higher performance, battery saving and ruggedness. "Adding the Intel X25-V to our existing family of high-performance SSDs gives our resellers a full range of high-performing, quality SSDs for notebook upgrades, dual-drive desktop set ups or embedded applications," said Pete Hazen, director of marketing for the Intel NAND Solutions Group. "SSD adoption continues to be one of the more exciting trends in personal computing, and this entry-level product enables users to enjoy the productivity and performance benefits of Intel SSDs at a new price point."
The 40GB Intel X25-V complements Intel's higher performance Intel® X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD product line that offers 80GB and 160GB capacities. All Intel SSDs are designed and manufactured by Intel using its own NAND flash memory from IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) and include a proprietary controller and updatable firmware. The X25-V is priced at $125 for 1,000-unit quantities and is currently stocked and available in worldwide distribution.
In addition, the X25-V supports the Microsoft Windows 7 Trim function via the Intel® SSD Optimizer. Also included is the Intel® SSD Toolbox, a set of utility tools developed by Intel to help better manage and retain the out-of-box performance of Intel SSDs. Windows* XP and Vista* users can also use these enhancements which can be downloaded at: www.intel.com/go/ssdtoolbox.
To review the specifications of the Intel X25-V please visit www.intel.com/go/ssd.
Via: Intel | News Archive | Tags: Intel, SSD, Storage, Solid State Drive
Wonderful! Let the prices fall like dominoes! Though 40 GB is kinda small for a notebook drive, I'm waiting for a 80GB option under $150. Looks like we're not too far away from one!
Weird. The 40GB X25-V has been out for 2 months at least. You can see reviews on newegg.com going back to early January. I bought one a month ago for about $120.
You're right, should have checked that myself. These have been available around the $120 for a while now, and they do have Trim support.
Yay it's price war time. I agree gibbersome 40GB is to small, the OCZ is 60 GB, although from what jwilliams4200 say's it has been available. That is kind of strange, but maybe it is just that now Intel is publicizing it because they are taking a hit in the consumer market. Which means the same thing, price war time, so I think it is a positive.
Yeah it seems these aren't exactly new? Also 170MBs - 35MB/s isn't exactly mind-blowing. For twice the price you get twice the capacity at higher speeds (the 25M ainstream)
I don't know how well this thing will perform compared to other Intel SSDs though. Seems like they went with half the channels (5 instead of 10). I already have a pair of high performance drives, but if they start dropping in price that will be good for my next build out when SATA 6G becomes the standard.
Agree with the price drops, it would be soon that most people can afford one with a good amount of space!
Keep dropping them Prices! I have a OCZ for my music drive and I love it!
Would this be faster then my 300gb veliocoraptor drive or wouldI i be better off waiting?
There is one area where the velociraptor will be much faster than the SSD -- large sequential writes. The VR will have no trouble writing out large files at over 100 MB/s. The X25-V will not break 40 MB/s.
But if, like most people, you spend most of your time waiting for your drive to read, particularly reading lots of smaller files, then yes, the X25-V will be faster than the VR.
@Cheezit-- It's a safe bet that any SSD is going to be faster than a mechanical HD, especially for random reads and writes. The thing is, how much faster? And how much do you want that spped in order to pay the price?
Take this with a grain of salt because I can't remember the site, but a test was done with just the HD you mentioned against an array of SSDs. While the Velociraptor performed extemely well, it was beaten by mid-range SSDs... and this is far beyond those. (it isn't up to Intel's Enterprise-class SSDs, but those are still in the troposphere of prices.)
I went for a SSD for my boot/some apps drive and have been satisfied with, though not blown away by, its performance. However, I was coming from a 5400 RPM PATA drive, so pretty much anything would have been an improvement. If the WD drive suits you, my advice is don't buy a new one. But if you're bugged by slow loading speeds, by all means leapfrog the mechanical HDs entirely and go for a SSD, at least for the OS.
All I can say is that it's about time. Now that it has begun, let it roll and never stop.
I wonder what their board meetings are like. Do they discuss how long they can keep on pricing a product 'nosebleed high' before they relent and go for volume sales to the masses? Volume sales usually beat the heck out of high priced niche market profits, so why the wait?
I've been dying to put a pair of these in a RAID configuration in both of my gaming computers. A pair of them in RAID because of their relatively small size,...but I would rather wait until they sell larger SSD's for a decent price, and run one of them in each box.
Do you suppose airplane manufacturers sit around discussing how much longer they can keep airplanes from the masses by pricing them so high?
Well, this is similar. It costs a lot of money to develop and run the fabs that make NAND flash memory. Of course they try to do it as inexpensively as possible, but it does have high costs. If it could be done for one third the cost, you can bet there would be a competitor doing it and selling a ton of SSDs. The problem is, no one can do it for one third the cost now. These things take time. Years.
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text:
A Snyder businessman and a San Angelo woman are dead after a small plane crash near Ruidoso.
Jerry Don Greene, 49, of Harmleigh and Tracy Martinez, 30, of San Angelo were discovered dead in the wreckage Wednesday morning.
The National Transportation and Safety Board is investigating how the aircraft went down.
Investigators say Greene left Snyder in his small Cessna plane on Saturday for Ruidoso, New Mexico.
Martinez was also on board.
Scurry County Airport Manager Rodger Sullenger says the search started after a phone call from Greene's father in Ruidoso.
"His dad said he was supposed to come out there and he never arrived," Sullenger said.
The Federal Aviation Administration says Greene never filed a flight plan; common for non-controlled airports.
Since no plan existed only family knew he'd gone missing.
"I understand he talked to the Unicom in Ruidoso and said that he was in bad weather and he was going to turn around and return to Snyder and he never arrived," Sullenger said.
A border control plane spotted the wreckage in a remote mountainous area of the Mescalero-Apache Indian reservation.
The area is about 40 miles from Greene's destination.
Sullenger says Greene is well thought of amongst the pilots that use his airport.
"I've known Jerry Don for 2 or 3 years. I know him being an excellent pilot, he's not one to take chances; he's very careful," Sullenger told KCBD NewsChannel 11.
When news of Greene's death broke Wednesday, it shook the town of Snyder where he owned a service rental company.
Family, friends, and co-workers paid their respects by lowering the flag at his business to half-staff.
A black bow was on the front door.
"Everybody is upset, everybody knows him," said Sullenger.
We spoke to Greene's family, who had just heard the news.
His son said flying was one of his father's hobbies.
Investigators say a dog was also killed in the accident.
Outside of Greene's hangar in Snyder, we found paw prints imprinted in the cement.
Sullenger says Greene's 4-legged friend accompanied him on lots of his trips.
He says both will be missed at the airport.
"Everybody liked him all the pilots around here, they thought well of him," Sullenger continued. "We've never had anything here at this airport that's happened like this."
The NTSB typically takes up to 6 months to report the findings of their preliminary accident investigation.
Stay with KCBD.com for the latest on funeral arrangements.
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text:
Badde Manors
The feeling's eclectically Old World, but Badde Manors is a New Age kinda joint. It can get hectic here, but service remains cool and composed – no sign of the alleged bad manners. Dogs sleep blissfully outside, dreaming of the Portuguese custard tarts and rhubarb crumble behind the glass.