Janhoo's Blog

FrontPage magazine.com :: Thou Shalt Not Draw by Robert Spencer

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is under tremendous pressure after posting some cartoon drawings of Muhammad. In the primitive Islamic world (the number of books translated into Spanish each year is one thousand times the number translated into Arabic), Muslims are angry as their religion does not allow for artistic representations of the human form. The brave cartoonists that made the drawings of Muhammad for Jyllands-Posten have gone into hiding, and Islamic organizations have put a price on their heads.

There is discussion whether the cartoons in Jyllands-Posten can be defended under the freedom of speech principle. Even some Western observers are of the opinion that the cartoons were made to provoke rather than to communicate any political message.

However, they are missing the point. The issue is that Western cartoonists and journalists are too afraid to draw and write what they would really like to, as they know that their lives will be put in danger. This is the problem, and it should be taken seriously. Personally, I would not mind posting the Muhammad drawings, but I do not dare to. However, I admire the editor of Jyllands-Posten who chose to publish the cartoons. More power to him and to the people of Denmark, who are now facing boycotts by several oil rich stone-age dictatorships in the Middle-East.

Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie is arrested

This reminds me of the demise of Yukos in Russia, where Vladimir Putin got the CEO Mikhail Khordokovsky jailed on what could appear to be very selective charges. The prosecution of Mikhail Khordokovsky eventually brought down the entire company that he had built up.

Similar reflections are made in this week's edition of the Economist (published prior to Horie's arrest), in which a lawyer comments that the hunt for Takafumi Horie may "represent selective enforcement against an aggressive young entrepreneur". Now that the prosecutors have placed Takafumi Horie in jail, there will be even less chance for him to prove his innocence. The old guard in Japan has stricken against a vocal voice and symbol of the new economy in Japan. This proves that one should be careful not to mess with the wrong people in Japan, as Takafumi Horie has done. You can easily break the law in this country, but please make sure not to upset the people who are supposed to observe it.

USATODAY.com - Marriott timeshare unit says customer data is missing

It seems like the poor souls running the Marriott Timeshare Scam in Orlando have lost the personal data of 200,000 customers and employees. As covered in my January 7 entry, we just attended a Marriott Timeshare presentation in Orlando earlier this month.

Having studied marketing and sales in school, and having a father who has been teaching sales techniques his entire life, attending a timeshare presentation is like getting a crash course in sales.

The first step for a timeshare salesman is to establish trust. Our sales guy was an Indian immigrant, and he quickly showed us pictures of his children (one is a teacher, the other a doctor), and for some reason also a copy of his W-2 and pictures from his recent trips to Hawaii. Supposedly, we were supposed to be impressed by how much money he was making selling timeshares. In many countries, that would be interpreted as the salesman is ripping you off, but I guess the logic in the United States is that you can trust anyone who's making lots of money.

After presenting his credibility as a salesman, even mentioning that he was a born again Christian, he then informs us that Marriott has a very "special deal" as they need to meet their monthly target or whatever. You only get the actually price by the time the presentation is fully completed, and by then you have been told the same things over and over again.

The overriding rule is that you have to make the purchase on the spot, and our sales guy even argued that the offer we were getting could not be extended due to Florida law. After refusing twice, however, we were suddenly offered an extension, so I guess the Florida laws are not taken very seriously even if they apply.

My parents once attended a timeshare presentation on one of the Canary Islands. At this presentation, the sales people would ring a big bell each time a contract was signed, thus adding to the excitement. When it comes to the art of selling timeshare, if the contract is not made right on the spot, the salesman knows that there will not be a sale. Should the customer get a day or two to think about the transaction, he will realize what a scam it is. Anyone thinking about buying a timeshare should think about the resale value, which for Marriott can be quickly researched here:

Marriott Timeshare Resale

Philadelphia Inquirer 01/17/2006 Despite triple shooting, Penn students feel safe

Seems like my former host school, the University of Pennsylvania, is experencing some problems lately. To have two shootings on campus in less than a month makes the UPenn campus slightly less safe than certain parts of Baghdad, though fortunately the student campus has yet to experience any suicide bombers.

The reasons why the shootings do not surprise anyone is that the University of Pennsylvania is located next to what can best be described as a warzone. West Philadelphia has experienced all kinds of social problems over the last few decades, but the neighbourhood is slowly getting back on its feet. One way out of poverty is of course to rob rich and socially inept Penn kids, though shooting them in the legs probably can not be justified.

I received some angry emails from various inhabitants in Sor-Trondelag that are rather angry with with my January 13 entry. They claim that not everyone in Sor-Trondelag marry their cousins. In fact, they claim that many people in Sor-Trondelag recently have started marrying their siblings, and more progressive members of the population actually marry their second cousins. Both the options are considered rather normal, and the anti-semites in Sor-Trondelag are proud of their flexibility when it comes to marriage within the family.

Ynetnews - Money - Wiesenthal Center slams Norway's Israel boycott

Norway's much celebrated constitution originally stated that "Jesuits and Monastic orders shall not be tolerated. Jews are furthermore excluded from the Kingdom". During the second world war, Norwegians eagerly handed over its Jewish population to the German occupation forces. With such a history, one would think that Norwegian politicians would think twice about attacking a state founded by a minority population that have been discriminated against since the beginning of time.

Even if you are of the opinion that Israel should be criticized for "occupying" Arab land, hopefully you do not think that Israel should be treated any differently than occupying powers in other parts of the world. Sadly, extreme left-wing politicians in Norway comprehend next to nothing of this, and it is easy to reach the conclusion that the hatred against Jews currently is manifesting itself through the more politically correct hatred of the Jewish state, Israel. While the left wing parties in Norway argue for a boycott of Israel, Morocco's occupation of West-Sahara and China's occupation of Tibet are silently ignored. Even if criticism of Israel is to be freely accepted, shouldn't there at least be a minimum of consistency? The foreign policy priorities of the extreme left wing parties defy common sense, but in the end that seems to be a common policy trait of the Norwegian left.

The Socialist Left Party of Norway is currently demanding an apology from the Wiesenthal Center after having been compared to Nazis during the second world war. This is an unfair comparison, though it would not come as a shock if the Socialist Left Party of Norway were to publicly acknowledge its admiration for the German leader. Norwegian socialist politicians have a long history of supporting leaders like Pol Pot and Stalin, and are currently big fans of Fidel Castro, thus admiring Hitler would not be a big step. The female Norwegian leader of the Left Socialist Party can bear a striking resemblance to the German leader on a bad day. I am sure that I have seen a photograph of Adolph Hitler making a very similar expression to the one by Kristin Halvorsen below, please feel free to send me a link if you can find it.

More recently, a representative for the Socialist Left Party called Iraqis working for the coalition forces in Iraq as traitors. It may be difficult to comprehend for outside observers, but some Norwegian politicians actually have a bigger dislike of the U.S.A. than they ever did of Saddam's regime.

In conclusion, I am embarrassed on behalf of all Norwegians over this issue. The boycott of Israel announced by the provincial government of Sor-Trondelag is unfortunate, but please remember that the district has a population of only 270,000. Being elected to government in Sor-Trondelag is easier than it is to find someone in the district that is not married to their cousin - and when you finally find someone married outside their family, it will most likely be due to an unhealthy preference for domestic animals (very common in these parts of Norway).

However, while the idiots in Sor-Trondelag can be easily ignored, the Socialist Left Party that supports the boycott is more of an embarrassment. The party is actually part of the national government in Norway, and the situation will unfortunately stay that way until 2009 at the earliest. For that, there is little I can do but to apologize. Please expect more stupidity in the years to come.

Telegraph News Angelina: 'I'm having Brad's baby'

Well, this may not come as a shocker, but if the offspring is a girl I will be more than willing to date her in about 20 years time. I can even be flexible and date her before that, because this girl is bound to more than just slightly attractive. The only competition I can really see is if Anna Kournikova and Enrique Iglesias manage to produce a little brat. While both kids are likely to be dumb as rocks, they will not need their brains.

My Bangladeshi friend sent me the following joke, which actually made me laugh a little. Although Bangladesh is widely recognized as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, it is good to see that its citizens are able to joke about it:

"A Bangladeshi dies and goes to hell. There he finds that there is a different hell for each country.

He goes first to the German hell and asks, "What do they do here?" He is told, "First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the German devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day."

Then he goes in and out of the USA hell then the Russian hell and Australian hell as well as many more. He discovers that they are all more or less the same as the German hell.

Finally he goes to the Bangladeshi hell and saw a lot of people waiting to get in. Amazed he asks, "What do they do here?" He is told, "First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the Bangladeshi devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day."

"But that is exactly the same as all the other hells - why are there so many people waiting to get in?"

Because maintenance is so bad that the electric chair does not work, someone has stolen all the nails from the bed, and the devil is a former Government servant, so he comes in, signs the register and then goes to the canteen for tea break".

Due to family pressure, today I had to visit another idiot center. This time, we visited the original Universal Studios amusement park, not the Islands of Adventure that we went to yesterday. The discount pass that we bought (which is a whole different story), is valid for 7 days to both parks, but anyone willing to spend more than 2 days in these parks must be insane. Yesterday was more than I could handle, but today we were back for more rides. Shrek was probably the only one that was memorable and funny, most of the rest was just crap. The "Back to the future" ride takes its visitors to the year 2015, and it is 2015 as imagined in the late 1980s or whenever the Back to the Futures ride was invented.

Anyway, the different idiot parks in Florida do not provide any opportunities to learn anything at all. They are completely devoid of any intellectual or actul information of any kind.

In the morning, we went through a timeshare presentation by Sheraton here in Florida. While we did so in order to get cheaper tickets to Universal Studios (saving about $100 in total), the promised breakfast presentation of 1.5 hours ended up lasting more than twice that long. As with timeshare presentations in Europe, you are presented with random figures on a piece of paper, and professional salespeople do their best to convince you that it is a great deal. We were offered a 2 week timeshare, admittedly in a nice 2 bedroom apartment, for about $38,000. Close math tells you that this values the vacation apartment to approximately $1,500,000, which speaks of a big real estate bubble. In addition, you are promised all kinds of points from Starwood, but there is not written documentation as to how you can use any of what you are buying.

Anyway, as posted in a previous entry, I am extremely disappointed by Sheraton. Even more so, the incompetent and hopeless souls selling their timeshare packages seem to believe that their customers are idiots. Perhaps that is for the best, as you probably need to be an idiot to buy a timeshare property in Florida with its inflated bubble real estate properties.

Hilton might suck as well, but there is no Paris Sheraton. Screw you, Starwood. More on this later.

I visited Universal Studios Islands of Adventure today, one of the most popular amusement parks (also known as idiot centers) in Florida. The most impressive ride there is probably Spiderman, the rest did not provide anything new. At least most of the rides were from this century, making the rides at the Epcot Center seem historic in comparison.

Yesterday, I visited the John F Kennedy Space Center (NASA), which was a good learning experience. It was also an exercise in nationalism for the American visitors, who seemed to applaud after every video presentation. However, it is correct that the U.S. far ahead of any other nation in most fields of science, especially with regard to space exploration. Europe has little or nothing to show for, though I hear they are supplying toilet paper and other equipment for the international space station. Good stuff to be proud of.

We went to the Everglades yesterday, a very interesting national park in Southern Florida. It is the third largest national park in the United States (excluding parks in Alaska), and I was surprised to hear that the Everglades basically is the world's widest river. However, the millions of people emmigrating to Florida are all using the Everglades as their main water source, which means that the Everglades won't be around for much longer. Anyway, I am pleased to have been able to visit the park before the people here drink it up or waste the remaining water in their swimming pools. Apparently, only 15% of the Everglades remains, the rest has already disappeared.

Another interesting fact concerned the Burmese pythons that have started appearing in the park. A quick search in Google should show pictures of a gigantic alligator fighting an equally gigantic Burmese python. Sometimes the python wins, other times not. Whoever idiot decided to let his pregnant pet python loose in the Everglades should be shot, thought I am sure it makes for some spectacular animal fights.

Today, we went to visit Florida Keys and the southernmost point of continental USA, namely Key West. The latter city actually surprised me in a positive way, though it seems like 1 million dollars is the minimum required to purchase an apartment or a vacation house there. As we noticed in Miami Beach yesterday, there are plently of gays and other lifestyle eccentrics around, one guy was running around on a bicycle wearing an Elvis costume and red hair. Ernest Hemmingway wrote many of his books while in Key West, thus I guess I should try to read some of his work while I get back to Tokyo. The question is only where I am going to find the time.

Having visited the Disney Epcot Center in Orlando Florida yesterday (New Year's Eve), I am happy to say that paying $60 to visit the park is a great deal if you fit into one of the two following categories:

1. You are retarded, a miscreant fool, an idiot, or otherwise a social misfit.
2. You are new to planet earth, and learning that "water can be good for plants" and that "communication is important" are valuable lessons to you.

Although I usually would fit into the first category, after having visited Epcot I realize that I would prefer to enjoy my vacation elsewhere. However, visiting Disney Epcot made me understand two things. First, I now understand that Disney must be making tons of money on their amusement parks, and second I finally understood where Americans go on vacations. You almost never see them in Asia or anywhere else interesting, but you certainly find a lot of them in Orlando, Florida. Anyway, more on this later on, I will surely find more opportunities to insult Disney in the future.