September 2006 Archives

Chris Wallace regrets baiting Clinton on Fox News.

I agree with the poster on Metafilter that this was "deeply satisfying."

CLINTON: All I’m saying is, you falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaida existed then. And…

WALLACE: But did they know in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998…

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: … when he bombed the two embassies?

CLINTON: And who talked about…

WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.

Now, I’ve never criticized President Bush, and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.

And you ask me about terror and Al Qaida with that sort of dismissive thing? When all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.

And you’ve got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.

The entire military was against sending Special Forces in to Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we could do it otherwise, because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaida was responsible while I was president.

And so, I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time. They had three times as much time to deal with it, and nobody ever asks them about it. I think that’s strange.

Think Progress � VIDEO: Clinton Sets The Record Straight On Terrorism, Smacks Down Fox News

I'll be at Motegi for the Japan MotoGP qualifiers on Saturday.

Sunday, I'll be at the "Is Open Source Art Possible?" symposium, which is being sponsored by Mozilla Japan. It's free so hope to see you there!

Found on dice's Vox.

Remember all of Microsoft's problems with the XBOX launch in Japan?

Then remember how they replicated their problems again with the XBOX360?

More than half of initial shipment remained on shelves after two days, fewer than one game sold per console.
Xbox 360: Japanese launch sales figures

Xbox 360: not big in Japan

Microsoft wants to be a major player in the Japanese gaming industry but they consistently make it impossible to be competitive in that market. There will be no one to blame, again, but Microsoft when the Xbox 360 does not sell in Japan.
Japanese Xbox 360 Launch Gets Worse

Don’t blame the Japanese people for not buying a product that was not designed for them. It would be stupid of them to buy something that offers nothing they are interested in just for the sake of helping an American company. Give the Japanese gamers a product that meets their needs and wants and you will have another iPod on you hands.

As it stands, there are some very promising games coming up for the 360 by Japanese developers. But it might be too late, the Japanese already see the system as a failure. They should have delayed the launch until they had a strong launch lineup rather than have an early but weak launch.
The Xbox 360 And Japanese Nationalism

Redmond, too little, too late.

Microsoft XBOX360 media briefing in Tokyo, pre-TGS 2006

But the problem is in the long-term support for the system, which is still widely considered Western-centric thanks to the extreme lack of Japan-specific games for the first Xbox.

It was interesting to note that Sensui and Moore were a study in contrasts - Sensui was guardedly optimistic, and prone to modest statements trumpeting the inception of "a circle of users that can be referred to as a community" on Xbox 360, but Moore was plain bombastic, starting with the bombshell: "I've never been so excited by the opportunities that the industry has domestically."
...
But it looks increasingly to me, from seeing the shelves in Tokyo game stores filled with Western-created games for the first Xbox, that the company's Xbox 360 efforts are being undone by what has gone before. Moore notes that Japan is "one of the most critical regions for our business" - well, the next few months will be a final chance to get the console off life support.

Call a cab, this game's already over before it even started.

Gamasutra - Opinion: Microsoft's High Hopes In Japan

LOL!

With YouTube, I get to watch only the good stuff. :)

Stewart & Colbert at the Emmys, 2006.

The American media finds it's spine?

Matt Lauer: And yet you admitted that there were these CIA secret facilities. OK?

President Bush: So what? Why is that not within the law?

Matt Lauer: The head of Amnesty International says secret sites are against international law.

President Bush: Well, we just disagree with him. Plus, my job is to protect you. And most American people, if I said [to them] that we had who we think is the mastermind of the 9/11, they would say, “Why don’t you see if you can’t get information without torturing him,” which is what we did.

Matt Lauer: I don’t want to let this “within the law issue” slip though. I mean, if, in fact, there was water boarding used with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and for the viewers, that’s basically when you strap someone to a board and you make them feel as if they’re going to drown by putting them underwater, if that was legal and within the law, why couldn’t you do it at Guantanamo? Why did you have to go to a secret location around the world?

President Bush: I’m not going to talk about techniques. And, I’m not going explain to the enemy what we’re doing. All I’m telling you is that you’ve asked me whether or not we’re doing things to protect the American people, and I want the American people to know we are doing so.

Matt Lauer goes after Bush over secret prisons and torture [crooksandliars.com]

Secret prisons for 9/11 suspects ‘within the law’ [msnbc.com]

I do not wish to remember, and yet I do not wish to forget.

GeoEye Gallery: September 11: One Year Viewed from Space

Andrew Vestal of Yukihime.com, who has lived in Japan for many years working in the gaming industry, but is now based in the US, flew back to Japan to go to 2 Cocco concerts in 3 days.

So, yeah. The trip was more than two great concerts; it was, frankly, life-affirming. I almost didn’t go at all: the trip was short, expensive, and foolish, and I had neither the time nor the money. But I learned that if your dreams aren’t ridiculous, then they aren’t dreams at all; they’re just expectations, filled automatically by life’s gears turning. Other people might think that going to Japan for two concerts in three days is ridiculous, but other people can go to Hell. Your dreams are yours and you must protect them, because no one else will do it for you.

A wise man. I hope not to forget this lesson.

yukihime.com - about: concert

ITpro is quite quick!

Yes, Window Snyder is joining Mozilla! We're very excited :)

元Microsoftセキュリティ担当者のWindow Snyder氏がMozillaに

schrep's blog: Welcome to Window Snyder!

It's difficult for me to describe how disappointed I am with the American people who voted Bush into office twice (well, once, and the Supreme Court put him in once. Our "ally" in the war against terror has decided to let the Taliban live freely in Waziristan because the Pakistani Army can't/won't deal with the unpopularity of the army being in that area.

Bin Laden has free reign in Waziristan.

Pakistan, pro-Taliban militants cut deal

In Pakistan, signs of al Qaeda all around

Truces fueling resurgence of Taliban, critics say

ABC World News Tonight "Pakistan says Bin Laden free to live there in peace" (youtube)

Haven For Peace: Pakistan just loves the Taliban

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

President Bush, whatever happened to,"Second, we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you're an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account."

The Peak, originally uploaded by yongfook.

Yongfook's HDR photos of Hong Kong are insane!

You'll be amazed.

We're creating a mascot for Mozilla Japan.

We're asking everyone to help us name our new mascot.

The contest runs from 9/1 to 9/14.

If you can't read Japanese, please put your suggested name in the upper box and your email address in the lower box, and then push the big orange button.

Firefox に日本発のマスコット登場！ だれか僕の名付け親になってください!!

Just a small data point. Fenrir, the company that makes the "sleipnir" browser that is popular with some Japanese Internet uses (and like Maxthon, allows the user to switch between the IE/Trident rendering engine as well as the Firefox/Gecko engine) has switched their default search from Excite Japan to Google.

Fenrir & Co.　米Googleとの業務提携を発表 Google検索エンジンを Sleipnir のデフォルトWeb検索に採用