ooooooooooooooooo

At the recommendation of my friend Tony I upgraded to the Blogger Beta. It reset some of the sidebar formatting, so I'm working my way back through it. I'll also be adding labels to the archives over the next few days, to add new search-a-funka-bility.

It's pretty good all in all. Way to go Gooooooooooooogle.

I also had to change the pic of Harper in the last post. I don't remember where I was linking it from, but it fell off the internet.

A Yen for more Sidebar

I've made some more changes to the sidebar. A sizeable handful of my fellow exchange students have blogs of their own, so I've added in a second round of their various blogspots and LJs. They're listed under the new category フレンド which is jangrish for friend, except that I've never actually seen it used. The political blogs are exclusively in the ブログ category, and we have a new addition - China Confidential.

That's all folks. Happy Remembrance Day.

And if you understand the title of this post you know way to much about the English language. Nerd.

Miscellania

A few things to quickly mention, loose ends to wrap up, and news to dish out.

Yesterday was an important milestone. As of today, I have been in Japan for one month and one day.

That article that I talked about ages ago is up on the Ubyssey's website: Recycled pen trend comes to campus. (sounds juicy, no?)

Speaking of the Ubyssey, my favourite campus newspaper has been added to the sidebar. Check out the sexy new website. The other new side dishes are blogs from fellow exchange students Brookie (very proudly of Texas) and Magnus. (very sarcastically of Norway)

In response to the roguest of the rogues' recent actions, my favourite, funny-looking, double-minority politician is headed to the Far East. Condie Rice was dishing out optimism left, right, and centre over the weekend, encouraging China to live up to its sanction obligations against long-time-ally North Korea.

She said, "I am not concerned that the Chinese are going to turn their backs on their obligations. I don't think they would have voted for a resolution that they did not intend to carry through on. And let's remember: no one has an interest in seeing the trade in dangerous materials or weapons of mass destruction. That is, if anything, more destabilizing to the neighbors than even to the interests of the United States." (Epoch Times)

It's nice to hear the US tooting the multilateral horn every now and then. Now that the White House has broken its silence and confirmed what Russia has been saying for weeks I expect we'll be hearing a lot from them over the next few days. If the rhetoric stays this moderate, I'll be willing to give GWB and staff some points for diplomacy.

Not a lot of points mind you.

High-level Japanese politicians seem to be very aware of the need for multilateral and bilateral dialogue, and moderate language. But not surprisingly, it looks like some of the most radical language is coming from lower down.

"There are concerns that North Korea may launch large-scale terrorist attacks or sly and heinous activities in retaliation to additional sanctions," said Hiroto Yoshimura, deputy director general of the National Police Agency.

Yoshimura was addressing the first meeting of a security task force that he heads since North Korea's Oct. 9 atomic test, according to NHK.

Yoshimura told task force members to step up security and intelligence efforts to head off possible retaliation by North Korea. (Japan Times)

And that would be all for the day, if it weren't for some terrible news my old friend Evan told me this morning. He's going through a rough time, and my thoughts are with him and his family.

Pinko Commie Bastards!

I've made a few additions to the sidebar.

I don't know how I missed this, but sometime over the summer the perceptive and ardently left-wing Matt Good started blogging again.

The erudite Terry Glavin, of the Georgia Straight and that messy article I featured in last January, has a blog that's too good to miss. Plus he's been helping me out with some journalism stuff recently, and is an alround good guy.

The China Daily is now featured, so that you can get the dish on Abe's visit from the Chinese perspective. It was recommended by my Chinese Industrialization professor, who being Chinese himself, hopefully knows what he's talking about.

I almost forgot this one, but the Epoch Times (Canadian Edition) deserves mention under the Asia category. It's the out-spoken newspaper that spawned the Nine Commentaries on the Comunist Party, and it's available for free in most major cities I know of.

And there's a new category as well, Coin, which features links to daily tabulations of currency values for the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen. My East Asian Finance professor wants us to pay attention to this stuff.

Test

Test test test.

私はマットヘールスと申します。どうぞよろしくお願いします。