Redstate

Posted at 10:15pm on Apr. 11, 2008 The Japanese Popular Culture is Made of Awesome Weekend Open Thread.

What would we do without these guys?

By Moe Lane

Yeah: me, you, Allahpundit (H/T)... we'd all be there.

From my wife the roboticist:

"It looks amazingly like early robot soccer: let's all cluster around the ball and run into each other."

(pause to contemplate further)

"Amazingly like early robot soccer."

Open thread.

Posted in Japan | Just Because They Can | Miscellanea | That's Why — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:52am on Mar. 13, 2008 Japanese Democrats block new Bank of Japan head

By Neil Stevens

Japan is enduring a rare bout of "divided government", where the powerful lower house of the Diet is controlled by the usually-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (center-right defense hawks) in coalition with the New Komeito Party (liberal pacifists, and I mean liberal in the traditional sense, not the post-New Deal American sense), but the upper house is controlled by the Democratic Party of Japan (social democratic pacifists).

Having just taken a page from the Democratic Party of America playbook and boycotted for a week, the returning upper house has now rejected the LDP nominee for Governor of the Bank of Japan, despite the outgoing Governor's term ending on the 19th. The DPJ is risking the BOJ having no leadership (just as the Federal Reserve was without leadership in 1929) in order to get back at the LDP for taking advantage of little-used Constitutional provisions to ram through a tax and budget reform bill.

When I look at Japanese politics, with their teachers who sue over being forced to sing the national anthem, demanding secular Prime Ministers, and all that other lefty mischief of the kind we see here in America, I wonder if we made a mistake giving them the Constitution we gave them. I hope it's enough protection from the left.

Posted at 7:13pm on Mar. 7, 2008 Congestion Charge-Free Open Thread

By Neil Stevens

There's a neat little story in the Japan Times today about how various diplomats have stopped paying Red Ken's 'congestion' car taxes in London:

The biggest debtor is the United States, which owes over £2 million. Japan is currently in second place. More than £10 million is owed by 20 embassies, according to Transport for London.

The U.S. and German embassies stopped paying the charge in July 2005 and there are thought to be around 50 missions not paying now.

While opposing their actions, Mayor of London Ken Livingstone knows there is nothing he can do by law to prevent the diplomats' refusal to cough up.

What's especially funny about this is that Livingstone is beclowning himself so thoroughly by comparing this with the aggression of old militarist Japan:

He told a radio station: "I think there are several problems with Japan that we could go on about here. Admitting their guilt for all the war crimes would be one thing. So if they've not got round to doing that, I doubt they're too worried about the congestion charge."

How did this fool get elected? Open thread.

Posted in Diplomats | Japan | London | Miscellanea | Open Thread | Red Ken — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:26am on Nov. 21, 2007 What The Strong Yen Means

Currency Strength and Quasi-Depression, Japan-style

By blackhedd

As the US dollar weakens, other currencies necessarily increase. The euro is now trading above $1.48 to the dollar, a record high. And the Japanese yen is stronger than 109 to the dollar, a two-year high.

All currency movements proximately reflect differentials in short-term interest rates. The weakness in the dollar over the last two months was caused by the Federal Reserve's interest-rate cuts in September and October.

Underlying economic fundamentals in each respective currency zone also affect exchange rates, since they have an impact on market interest rates as well as policy interest rates. Speaking very broadly, a lower currency value can reflect concern about the business outlook for a particular country.

This analysis holds reasonably well for the dollar-euro rate. But what's the story with the Japanese yen?

More...

Posted in Dollar | Economy | Interest rates | Japan — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:29pm on Nov. 12, 2007 Afghanistan Showdown begins in Japan

By Neil Stevens

The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force has been aiding the coalition in Afghanistan by refueling ships in the Indian Ocean. However the Democratic Party of Japan has been pushing to pull out, with its leader in fact getting into an argument with Angela Merkel over it when she last visited Japan.

Japan's Prime Ministers have perservered through these objections, but now the authorization for that assistance is set to expire. Voting on a new bill will soon begin in the Diet, starting with the House of Representatives. A Liberal Democratic Party-lead coalition, which favors engagement in the War on Terror, controls the lower house, so the bill is likely to pass there. But they lost the House of Councillors in the last election in July to the DPJ, a month before the resignation of former Prime Minster Abe, so there could be problems getting the bill passed there.

Here's hoping Japan's left is as ineffective as ours on this.