dg meets world

You may not be familiar with Volker Pispers, but I’d like to introduce him to you. He is a German “comedian”.

But the word “comedian” doesn’t really fit the description. What he does is political satire and comedy, often in a very sarcastic and ironic way. In German we have the word “Kabaret” or better “politisches Kabaret” for this (so he is called a “Kabarettist”), but in English the word cabaret has a very different notion.

The English (or French) connotation of the word “cabaret” is more like this:

But what I mean is this:

His program about the USA is quite old (like 2004 or 2005 or something), but nevertheless it is still pretty good. And here are the remaining 5 parts:

It seems there is a new alien registration system on it’s way.

The Metropolis Magazine reports:

The Diet is currently debating bills to replace gaikokujin torokusho with a new residency (zairyu) card, which would shift administration of alien registration from municipal offices to the Immigration Bureau.

So what are the government’s plans? And, more importantly, what are the implications for foreigners?

If enacted, the bills submitted by the Cabinet in March would revise three laws—the Basic Resident Registration Law, the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, and the Special Law on Immigration Control—with the government looking to pass them before the end of the current ordinary Diet session on June 3. Once passed, the revisions would become effective in less than three years.

(via)

Of course, the new system will not only have positive but negative points, too.

Positive

According to the immigration bureau, the government’s main aims are to simplify the administration of foreigners by having the bureau handle nearly all paperwork related to immigration and residency; reduce the burden on foreigners living legally in Japan by extending visa periods and relaxing re-entry rules; ensure all legal aliens join social insurance and state pension schemes; track the movement of foreigners more closely; and clampdown on illegal aliens such as visa overstayers by denying them the right to carry the new card.

Negative

However, opposition parties, legal organizations and migrant activists have slammed the revisions. They claim the changes could impose excessive fines for failure to carry the card, make notification of status changes less convenient, and lead to undue dissemination of personal information and excessive monitoring of foreigners.
[...]
The Juki-net cards distributed to Japanese do not have numbers printed on them, and the law strictly protects information on the IC chip imbedded in the cards. But as the revisions stand, numbers would be printed on foreigners’ cards, and a greater amount of data could be kept on the chip. While this would ostensibly enable smoother administration, critics have conjured up an image of a regulatory Big Brother tracking foreigners more rigorously than their Japanese neighbors.

They want to save a lot of personal data on the card (photograph; name; date of birth; sex; nationality; address; visa status, type and expiry date; card number, issue; date; expiration date; working restrictions; and other necessary information), and it’s planned to be used as identification card for banks or libraries.

But one constant factor seems to stay alive: the card will still be another symbol for racism in Japan:

Ichikawa also sees disparities between the treatment of foreigners and Japanese. “The law on resident registration for Japanese permits only the card number to be recorded on the IC chip—not the card—and does not make available information from private establishments such as banks. We want foreigners to be protected in the same way as Japanese.”

Oh, and of course you still have to carry it with you, all the time.

It would still be a crime, however, for foreigners to not always carry the new card. The current law, which the immigration bureau says would not change in the revisions, specifies that aliens must present certification (i.e. the gaijin card) to officials such as immigration inspectors and officers, police officers and maritime safety officers, but mentions nothing about having to show the card as identification to private organizations such as cellphone companies and banks.

About those cellphone companies and banks: I had to show them my gaikokujin torokusho when I wanted to buy a cellphone or open an account. So nothing new there. Is it even possible today to open an account or buy a cellphone w/ a contract w/o the card?

The maximum fine for failing to carry the new card would remain at ¥200,000.

Woah. Not nice…

Anyway, go ahead and read on for yourself, it’s an quite interesting article!

Just for your convience, here is the list of pros and cons for the new card system!

Pros
- Typical length of visa stay changed from three years to five years
- No need to obtain a re-entry permit when leaving the country for less than a year
- Assurance that all legal foreigners will be placed on social insurance and state pension schemes
- Administrative procedure simplified
- Possibility to notify authorities of certain changes of status by email or post

Cons
- Notification of most changes of status must be made at Immigration Bureau rather than at local municipal offices
- IC chip on the new card raises privacy concerns
- Asylum seekers and visa overstayers won’t be eligible to receive the cards, resulting in possible loss of basic health and education services
- Possibility of visa annulment if status notifications are not made within a 90-day period

I, for one, think that the new system doesn’t sound that bad. That is, if you really can notify authorities by email or good ol’ snail-mail.

Just ran across this enlightening article:

ENOUGH with the masks already! インフル予防効果のビミョーなマスク着用は不要 (by Adamu, May 15th, 2009).

DEAR JAPAN - YOU DO NOT NEED TO WEAR MASKS IF YOU ARE NOT SICK OR PARTICULARLY AT RISK FOR SWINE FLU!!
In Japanese for clarity:

日本の皆様へ：豚インフルエンザを予防するには、マスク着用の効果は低いのである。これはＷＨＯの発表でも明らかであり、日本の各メディアでマスクの推薦は、十分な裏づけがあるとは言えないだろう。

[...]

English translation:

People of Japan: Sanitary masks have little effect in preventing swine flu. This is clear from WHO reports and indicates that the Japanese media’s recommendations to wear masks do not have sufficient basis in fact. [...]

Like I said many times before: stop overreacting! It’s not helping the issue!

You are just being used!

Worst of all is the uncritical recommendation of masks by the Japanese media (as can be currently seen on the Asahi.com front page), flying in the face of WHO recommendations. Considering that the pharmaceutical companies (who make the masks) are ubiquitous advertisers in the media conglomerates (this blogger caught a documentary with one drug company executive laughing his ass off at how easy it is to sell masks), it is probably difficult to push back if it’s suggested that masks are the answer.

And here is another thing.

My girlfriend just wrote me about another stupid thing. Apparently the university where she is working just canceled their participation in the annual NAFSA (homepage) which is held in the USA. Of course, swine flu is the reason behind this idiotic decision.

I bet my life that right now, if they could, they would reestablish 鎖国 (sakoku, lit. locked country, or chained country), ie lock up the country, so no one can get in or out. And all those who trespass regardless will be shot. There, problem solved.

BTW: Here is a nice little list of things the Japanese paranoids have done so far. And it provides the prove that one can catch the flu even without going abroad.

Those unlucky enough to enter the country on a plane containing a flu carrying passenger will be forced to undergo 7 days of quarantine if they happen to be seated within a risky distance of the flu carrier.

Oh, and we have racism, too!

Josai International University had to cancel an academic conference because it was feared that its international guests would cause flu infections.

And I just have to comment on this one!

A panel of experts believes the virus may already be spreading throughout Japan. Those who may already be infected may not show symptoms for several days, and when they do, they will have likely spread it to other unsuspecting victims.

TOLD YOU!

But, the most perverted thing is that they started “to kill” everybody who does not follow mass hysteria!

Three high school students and a teacher from Osaka who were the first people in Japan confirmed to have the new flu have become the target of malicious phone calls and e-mails, local board of education and municipal officials said Friday.

[...]

“A few people called us to express their sympathy for the students, but the majority of the calls were spiteful,” said a spokesman in the city’s crisis-management division, adding that many were critical of the patients for not wearing protective masks during their stay in Canada.

[...]

“One of the schools has been receiving 20 to 30 calls of complaint a day,” the spokesman said, noting some of the comments were too horrible to repeat.

“Many people (who called the schools) criticized the students and teacher without really understanding their situation,” he said.

(via Japan Times)

QED: People are stupid.

PS: Here are some German information about the whole flu mess.

Update: A shopping area was not very crowded, and many of the people shopping were wearing masks.

the universitykindergarten:

Aoyama Gakuin University is phasing out traditional methods of taking attendance at its School of Social Informatics, in favor of free GPS-enabled iPhones.

The faculty began providing Apple iPhone 3Gs to all 550 staff and students Friday, using the GPS function to determine whether they are in school or not. The university will initiate full operation of the system in the autumn. The school also has plans to expand their use to setting simple tests and questionnaires, submitting homework and reviewing class video materials.

(Mainichi Japan, via)

And that’s why I’ll never attend a Japanese university. Again. I was at one for a 1-year exchange program, but I’ll never enlist in one to get a full degree. It’s just too damn ridiculous, I mean, they treat you like little children, they have those stupid rules no grown up can take seriously.

It’s like a kindergarten for grown ups there, and most of the students aren’t studying at all, because they are too busy with either アルバイト (part-time job), 部活動 (or サークル動: club activities) or 就職活動 (job search: they start with it in the 3rd year and are at it till the end). And even when they manage to show up in classes the level of their studies is really, really low. Espescially in human science studies or (western) language (especially En

A fellow student just showed me that I can play sudoku with my Casio EX-Word Dataplus 4 XD-GP7150 and my guess is, that this works with other Caiso EX-Word models, too.

So, here is how you start the game:

• go to the main menu. (via “メニュー” key)
• go to the right until you reach “脳鍛アプリ”
• select “脳鍛アプリ　数字パズル” and press 決定 (the “Return” button)
• select “数字パズル　スタンダード編” and press 決定
• select your skill level (like beginner, normal, hardcore) or if you want to continue an previously paused game and press 決定
• read the instructions (to lazy to translate, you’ll figure it out on your own) and press 決定 to start
• have fun

Here is how you end or leave the game:

• press 決定 or 戻る to bring up the game menu
• select the 2nd entry if you want to leave the game with saving
• select the 3rd entry if you want to leave the game without saving

Here is another tip: if you look for example sentences from German->Japanese direction (独和大 button) with the 文例検索 (3rd line) and you already know 2 or more words that have to be in that example sentence you just can join them togehter with the ampersand (&). Example “geld&macht” (w/o the quotationmarks). That will give you 4 example sentence instead of over 500 for “geld” alone.

Hope this helps you. Have some fun.

PS: If you know some more nice tricks or program options, please leave a comment! Thank you!