Janhoo's Blog

Another great article by Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer titled "Disproportionate' in What Moral Universe?". It is simply a must-read.

Today I visited Sydney's Taronga Zoo, which is beautifully located just a short ferry trip from the centre of Sydney. It has a great selection of Australian animals, and its location on the top of a hill provides for excellent views of Sydney harbour.

On a separate note, while in Sydney I managed to read through most of "The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus", a fairly boring book about a historian searching for all the remaining copies of Nicolaus Copernicus' famous masterpiece. While I enjoy reading history books, this one was a bit too narrow for my taste. Since I picked it up at Narita airport prior to leaving Tokyo, I had imagined the book would be fairly mainstream, but after having read it I believe the target audience must be someone who enjoys watching paint dry.

This Ottawa Citizen article, Hezbollah was using UN post as 'shield', provides interesting information on why the UN post in Lebanon ended up becoming a target for an Israeli air strike.

"Those words, particularly the last sentence, are not-so-veiled language indicating Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets near the post, said Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie.

"What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Forces)," he said".

The following blog article, "CNN's Anderson Cooper Exposes Hezbollah's Media Manipulations", exposes how the media is treated as complete idiots:

"Cooper exposed for CNN viewers that the sight of speeding ambulances, sirens blaring, was just a phony play staged by Hezbollah: “One by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians....These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”

Medieval book of psalms unearthed

It most likely is a weird coincidence, but in these troubled times, it does seem strange that the book would be found open on just this page:

"The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel".

The first 4 verses read as follows:

1 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

Thanks to Dan for sending me a link to this clip. While Japanese TV can seem really strange if you do not understand the language, this video shows that the Japanese have a terrific sense of humour. Towards the end of the clip, it becomes clear that they spent around 50 thousand USD to build the toilets used in the canned camera skit. Great stuff.

This blog article on the Israel/Lebanon conflict is currently linked by Google News. I have no idea how the guy got his site listed there, but it is yet another great article on the conflict. It proves that the online media can provide more information and viewpoints than traditional newspapers.

A very good article titled "The bloody truth is that Israel's war is our war" written by Michael Portillo was published yesterday. It is very well written, and worth a read. As he writes: "Critics of Israel point out that bombing Lebanon provides fresh grievances for Palestinians and other Muslims. That is undoubtedly so, and it is exactly what Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran would wish. Israel is forced to choose between looking feeble (which will increase its vulnerability) or playing into its enemies’ hands through “disproportionate” action. Before we criticise Israel we should at least understand that dilemma and be aware that if we stoke up anti-Israeli feeling we dance to a devilish tune". It is important for people in the West to keep a calm head during these troubled times, and put the blame where it belongs: On Hezbollah and its supporters.

Bondi Beach (above picture) is located 7 kilometers from Sydney city, and is therefore easily accessible by just about everyone living in the city. The beach is simply stunningly beautiful, and the surrounding area provides some excellent walks.

After spending just about 1 month living in Sydney, I have no problems understanding why this is supposed to be one of the best cities in the world to live in. The only disadvantage I can see is the isolation from the rest of the world, as it basically takes about 10 hours to fly just about anywhere (ignoring places like New Zealand, Indonesia, and the various Pacific islands).

While 1 kilometer long, Bondi Beach is far from the only beach in close vicinity of Sydney. Manly Beach (below picture) is just a short ferry ride from the centre of Sydney, and there are several other beaches around within easy reach. Considering that I am visiting in the middle of winter, I can only imagine how great things must be in the middle of summer. While spending 6 weeks here this Australian winter has been a great experience, I would love to come back once to experience Sydney during the peak season. If I were to complain about anything in Sydney, it would be the dirty trains. It seems like Australians find great pleasure in leaving trash on the trains, and the result is that most people prefer to travel by car if possible.

Melbourne was in a crappy mood this morning. While it has not rained here for weeks, the weather suddenly turns for the worse as soon as I decide to fly down.

For those who don't know, and I was blatantly ignorant until booking my plane ticket a few days ago, Melbourne is located 1.5 hours south of Sydney. While the latter is by far the biggest city in Australia, Melbourne and Sydney seem to have some sort of competitive relationship going. Melbourne's strong point is supposed to be culture, which probably is my weak point. Even though it rained today, they were not able to drag me into any art museums.

Instead, I visited some of the attractions outlined in Lonely Planet, which I religiously carry around like any other dumb tourist. The above monstrosity is the Federation Square, a public square in downtown Melbourne that opened in 2002. I thought it looked like a temporary display of expensive garbage, but perhaps the Federation Square will become hip in the future.

The far most interesting experience in Melbourne was to visit the Melbourne Gaol (known as The Old Melbourne Gaol). Apparently, gaol is Early English spelling for prison. There; you learned something new. Staying in an Australian prison such as the Melbourne Gaol would have been a horrible experience, and it does not seem like the 19th century jurisdictional system was up to par either.

Apart from that, Melbourne is just another city. Great dining and bars, I am sure, but so has almost every other major city on the planet. However, I was surprised to find a gigantic casino centrally located in the city. From what I hear, Australians gamble the most per capita in the world.

Finally, while it rained like no tomorrow today, few Australians bothered carrying around an umbrella. This provided a good cultural contrast to Japan, where people generally will bring an umbrella if there is the slightest chance that a tiny drop of rain might fall down to the ground somewhere in Japan. Having lived in Japan for too long, I quickly bought an umbrella at Target. Still, I managed to get soaking wet. Being an idiot isn't easy.