James Annan has been putting up a brave fight against the scaremongerers in this thread, but he did get a bit short with other posters, perhaps partially because he was getting fed up having his comments selectively edited. Now, what first caused this issue to come to the fore was this comment from AJ (my emphasis):
There’ll be no meaningful compensation to any little people, they’ll be told it’s safe and go back cos they’re too dim to think for themselves or know better, a few generations of Japanese will be hideously ill, and the food chain will continue to be polluted, just like the air has been for decades with chemicals that have been killing our lungs and respiratory systems for years anyway.
Mr Annan proceeded to get verbal kickings from other posters (and also I noticed AJ changing his focus from everyone in Tohoku to staff employed to service nuclear power stations) then Mr Arudou went back to his "Only 0 mSv is 100% safe!" standpoint, pointing out the Curies (Pierre got his skull crushed by RADIOACTIVE DEATH RUBBLE – well, OK, a cart – and Marie managed about 40 years of research with minimal awareness of the dangers before succumbing) and Hiroshima and Nagasaki where to this day THREE-HEADED GIANTS BATTLE GODZILLA EVERY NIGHT as examples of how everyone north of Tokyo is DOOMED!
Furthermore, I feel that painting pictures of generations being radiation victims is, quite frankly, the first steps towards discrimination against the people of Tohoku. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was (and still is?) discrimination against victims and their children due to ignorance about the effects of radiation, and now the attitudes of Mr Arudou, his fans and Fookooshimar loons like Chris Busby can surely only help to create a new underclass to be shunned like the hibakusha and burakumin have been.
“There’s no direct reference to the 30 millisevert a year risk level? The article is from the LAT. I think they’d have a source to back up the claim.
The issue here at it’s core is, who do you trust? The government that know temp workers are being exposed to 15 times the radiation of FT TEPCO employees? The LA times? Or the guy who says, hey, I’m a scientist, trust me, they’ll all be fine. For you and James, as with the government, saying it, and believing it, doesn’t make it true.”
No, saying and believing something making it true only works for you.
It’s amazing how they don’t notice how all of this applies to them.
Also, kudos to James for still trying to talk some sense into that crowd. I stopped reading there long ago.
amro: Amazing doesn’t even begin to describe it… Check out these choice nuggets from Mr. David:
“Just coming here and just briefly claiming something is just so does not make it so, nor does it convince people that it is so.”
“James’s tone of disdain for people with whom he doesn’t agree, making sweeping comments without evidence unlike a man of science (while heaping scorn on people unlike a man of civil debate), is why I’ve decided to moderate him more closely.”
Blogger, heal thyself
I no longer read the site except now and then when I need a laugh (at him, not with him.)
There’s no point in trying to convince conspiracy theorists.
We point out the studies that show there’s no evidence for increased cancer risk at these low levels.
They say “What if you’re wrong? You have to prove it’s perfectly safe!”
We can only say “There is no evidence that it is harmful! Nothing is perfectly safe. Slightly elevated radiation levels probably have no effect, but if there were, it would be too small to notice, and certainly much less than many other things you do every day, like smoke, drive a car, eat a banana, etc.”
Or the health effects of the increased stress of freaking out over harmless does of radiation. The stress of moving to another town, finding a new job, oh, and the stress of half your family being washed away in a tsunami.
But these people understand nothing about basic math, let alone statistics, standard deviations, etc.
They only understand anecdotes. “My Mom got a radiation treatment and 20 years later she got cancer! That radiation treatment killed her! Case closed!” (Uh, no, that’s not how it works.)
Hooray for the liberal arts education all these mere eikaiwa teachers
and Japan Studies majors have. No science, no math, and apparently, no rational thought taught these days either. No point.
Even when they pwned by data, science, and facts, they still think they are winning the debate. Because they are the Army of Light, they believe they are just and right. And you? The one with the numbers and facts? You are a heartless cog, a shill, Part of the Conspiracy!
I tried arguing with someone posing as slightly more rational than the typical loon at Japan Probe in the case of the recalled baby formula (which was “privately tested” to show at worst 31Bq/kg of cesium, or about 6 banana equivalent doses in a whole kilo of powder, which already naturally contains 250Bq/kg just counting the from the potassium content!
..but they just keep demanding “completely safe” food, which is impossible, then denying they demanded completely safe food, then within 24 hours demanding “completely safe” food again, and ignoring the very simple math)
http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/12/08/radioactive-baby-formula-recalled-contained-less-radiation-than-a-banana/
I’d be shocked if any of these loons have dared visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki…oh wait..they have? Then they are DOOMED! DOOMED I SAY!
FWIW I tried to address the request for more supporting evidence, but my post was blocked. My inflammatory evidence-free rant :-) is now up on my blog here.
Christ, debito’s hypocrisy knows no bounds as the examples above show, a couple more..
“James’s tone of disdain for people with whom he doesn’t agree“, wrote debito disdainfully to a person he doesn’t agree with.
“..while heaping scorn on people unlike a man of civil debate“, scorned debito, while shutting down civil debate (for years) by censoring comments he doesn’t like and letting through bullshit without a challenge.
In soft-minded fuzzy-ville where everyone (on one’s own side at least) is right and everyone goes home with a trophy, just daring to tell anyone “You are wrong.” is SCORN! A person with more knowledge having the gall to also say “I know more than you.” is DISDAIN. In echo-chamber happy land, daring to oppose the groupthink is downright RUDE!
Poor babies.
You know, it’s not like you have to have a Ph.D. in actual science to have a valid opinion on this (like some of us). You just have to demonstrate that you understand how to use elementary school math. That 5Bq is not a threat because it is less than the 15Bq already in your banana. (not to mention the 5000Bq in your body)
There is no worse insult to a scientist than, “You are lying.” It’s like accusing a doctor of deliberately killing a patient.
But debito.orgers don’t understand such things. It’s called “projection”.They assume we think like they do (that fudging the truth is OK if you’re fighting for your cause), thus calling someone a liar is not such a big deal. Everyone lies in their sphere.
“I liked your book.” for example.
Sad.
The real problem with the fukushima folks is that they don’t bother to educate themselves when faced with something they don’t understand. Or, rather, they educate themselves in the worst possible way by following their confirmation bias to crappy sources and suspect authorities.
Certain people seem to regard science with suspicion mainly because they don’t understand it. If they don’t understand it, those scientists must just be making it up! People who don’t understand that reason trumps intuition are hard to reason with. They tend to intuitively think you’re wrong.
It reminds me of a friend who, in the middle of an argument, imparted the following wisdom – “the problem with you is you read too much. You read things and then change your mind.”
And another poster, with a completely rational, fact based, backed up with data, argument, bites the dust:
http://www.debito.org/?p=9650#comment-300649
But not before his post is edited and IP addresses are fully
stalkedinvestigated…Holy shit, what is Debito thinking?
Thanks for linking to that.
It certainly pays to think twice before entering the fray:
http://www.debito.org/?page_id=1866
Nothing pisses off the debito.orger (or most extremists) than having their unfounded bullshit proven wrong, with sources and links, especially if you cite the very same thing they do and point out the important bits they gloss over.
Of course, if you actually SAY it’s bullshit, heck, even just say someone is wrong, and you are “rude” and deserve to be edited, banned, net-outed, and then harassed.
BTW, wasn’t debito ENCOURAGING people to use an alias and do their best to remain anonymous, to prevent tepido from “stalking” them? (Remind me, exactly how many times has anyone from tepido tried to get debito or anyone on that team fired from their job?… Oh?. Zero? huh…)
debito’s double-double standards are so complicated!
by tepido is oh-so-intolerable… Well, debito does have a tendency to take a strong stand to oppose events that never happen(ed).
debito fans should stay anonymous and the alleged “stalking”
But prove debito wrong and debito himself can net-stalk anyone and threaten to out them, which, in debito-land, usually leads to him contacting your employer in an effort to take your livelihood away from you for daring to oppose him in a fucking argument on the internet. A common criminal would just be happy to steal your wallet. Debito tries to destroy peoples’ lives. People with families.
debito cares.
But at least debito graciously allowed
the counter argument to be posted.
And besides, if he just threatens people and edits things until the bad, bad men with the bad, bad facts get tired and go away, that’s THEIR choice. He can claim he isn’t banning you, you just chose to leave because you couldn’t stand The Truth, or at least debito’s version of it.
So now, the poster has been branded a “spammer”:
http://www.debito.org/?p=9650#comment-300687
Because of the link debito.org provided:
http://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_82.113.99.152
Despite “Project Honeypot”‘s disclaimer that:
And simply following through with a domain lookup reveals that the IP address in question belongs to a network provider (o2 in Germany):
http://whois.domaintools.com/82.113.99.152
One of a NAT pool that could have been assigned to any number of people who use the o2 network on an ad-hoc basis over a period of time.
Someone needs to learn a little more about how the internet works before throwing wild accusations around!
This is really cultish.
I wrote a comment in protest that didn’t get through as well.
The mature (and effective) response to the alleged “insulting” posts is to just leave them as-is. Let the bad, bad men with the bad, bad facts hang themselves with their own “rude” behaviour. If the posts are actually rude and insulting, then thinking people can decide for themselves what to make of it.
After all, plenty of debito fans come here and prove their (lack of) character through their insults. And basically the only censoring here is when jerks start spamming (like, actually spamming – filling the board with multiple copies of cut-and-paste posts).
No, debito, posting responses is not “Spam” just because you don’t like them. Debito really, really has trouble with words not meaning what he thinks they mean.
Or perhaps people try making the same post twice, because he deletes the original? debito censors first post. Censored person tries posting again, assuming the post might have been legitimately lost. debito calls the second post “spam” and deletes it, too. Then perma-bans the poster for “spamming”.
What a great system! With his fans, he can pretend his censorship is just “spam filtering”.
Let the debito fans judge for themselves what is “insulting” and “rude”, rather than just editing or censoring a post and then claiming the deleted content was “rude”.
debito is so kind to protect his fragile fans from such bad, bad people with bad, bad ideas and their mean, mean words.
They need sheltering.
They need debito’s guidance.
There’s some sort of word suitable here, which I believe debito “coined”…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20110503ad.html
..what was it?
Oh yeah, “Sheeple”
But don’t pay attention to me. I’m eating a banana, and the radiation exposure has clearly driven me mad.
@beneaththewheel, it’s quite alright. The beauty of Tepido.org is that despite the disingenuous protests of a limited few, almost everyone over at Debito.org also reads Tepido.org, including the very people who complain that they don’t really read it. Should your comment ever be strategically deleted, all you need to do is post it here: everyone will read it and understand. And, by the way, Happy Holidays to you and yours!
@Level 3 — No, it’s worse than you think.
debito.org has retrieved El Guapo’s IP address from his post, accused him of nefariously using multiple IP addresses (actually quite usual as the majority of us get a dynamic IP address from the ISP), looked up this IP address on a site that keeps lists of IP addresses used by real spammers, leapt to a conclusion, and announced to the world that El Guapo is a Spammer (i.e. mass mails the world with offers for penis enlargements, phishes for bank details, etc.) and cut off his right of reply.
It’s that bad.
(Reposted to put reply in the right place).
@Level 3 — No, it’s worse than you think.
debito.org has retrieved El Guapo’s IP address from his post, accused him of nefariously using multiple IP addresses (actually quite usual as the majority of us get a dynamic IP address from the ISP), looked up this IP address on a site that keeps lists of IP addresses that have been used, or hijacked, by real spammers, leapt to a conclusion, and announced to the world that El Guapo is a Spammer (i.e. mass mails the world with offers for penis enlargements, phishes for bank details, etc.) and cut off his right of reply.
It’s that bad.
Is El Guapo just using an open proxy that has been abused by others? Or a Tor exit point? Precisely the sort of hiding of identity that Mr Arudou was calling for, but as we have seen before, the cloak of anonymity is extended only to the pro views.
Could be. Could even be that he happens to be in Europe, roaming on o2′s network. Not exactly a crime. Some people do post to debito.org from outside of Japan, I suppose…
It’s a huge conclusive leap from someone using an ISP’s dynamic IP address that’s within a range that may have been used by a spambot in the past, to that person actually being the lowlife kingpin of spam, though.
OMG iago,
You double-posted. You are clearly a spammer. We all are!
Hell, I post from more than 1 computer, I must be a spammer, too.
Spam Spam Spam Spam! Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!
It think we need a Glossary for debito.org:
Activism – Running a blog with an iron fist from home and/or work.
Article – Attaching a 2 sentence comment to a link supplied by someone else.
Disdain – Daring to claim more knowledge than a debito fan, when you do in fact have more knowledge
Human rights – The “right” to get everything you want with no corresponding responsibilities.
Mean – pointing out a debito argument is wrong
Not Stalking – harassing employers, staging ambush interviews in a public forum, silencing opponents, general intimidation tactics, publicizing names, home addresses, phone numbers and emails of opponents. All of these are Not Stalking.
Novel – Novella
Professor of International Relations – College Eikaiwa teacher
Rude – Opposing debito’s views
Scorn – Telling a debito fan they are wrong.
Stalking – Using Google to point out debito.org hypocrisy
Spam – Individually responding to multiple BS claims by multiple debito fans
Racist – Any action taken by any Japanese person in relation to foreigners
And many more…
Ha!
Dont’ forget:
We — Me
Wow, I am amazed David let that one through. It seems pretty clear that “J” just doesn’t want to accept what’s pretty clearly spelled out in law and policy.
Quick Ken, where am I posting from?
How about now?
http://gaijinwife.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/got-me-thinking/#comment-5185
And nice to see some more Debito.org fans! Too bad they don’t seem the sort who would get too into this place. But at least they were smart enough to figure David out on their own.
Jeez. I’d assumed she’d wrote to him — didn’t realize he’d simply trawled her site and ripped off her post to use to his own ends…
It’s not entirely clear what “J” does want, having deftly ignored the only piece of useful advice that was offered to him:
For those of you who caught Midfield Marauder’s comment, I decided to mark it as spam. I did warn him before about his potty mouth, and this time it was gaijinwife who was the target, not me, so goodbye MM.
As for your comment Jerry, yes, quite, quite entertaining.
They’ve sussed out his and his crew’s love of women quite well after he excerpted it (surely “wholesale cut’n'pasted”) to his site.
Reading through the comments, she has a really healthy attitude about the whole thing.
We’d need Eido’s opinion but I imagine that, after being married to a Japanese for 7 years, he might have an easier time getting naturalized than PR given his criminal history (my bet would be DUI but Japan has some batshait strict 0 tolerance DUI laws – I mean 0.03% is 1 beer for an average person – BUT the law is the law and they are equally strict about it with everyone).
Looks like our ol’ pal James Gray got his pecker chopped off, cuz he posted a comment over there as ‘Jane Gray’.
I found both the original post by Gaijinwife and the headline by AD (…is having authorities visit Permanent Residency applicant’s home and throughly photograph its interior now SOP?) to be almost amazing. I had a home visit from immigration when I applied (successfully) for permanent residency in 1995 (and that was after having been married and living in one town for 15 years and applying on the recommendation of the immigration official who handled the paperwork for my spousal visa renewal). I thought this sort of thing was common knowledge but then again I don’t get out much anymore and must have lost touch with the common. But haven’t any of these people seen, oh, what was the name of that movie, Green Card?
I think it is standard practice, and even a hell of a lot more strict in the West, but it’s still an experience that people wouldn’t know about it in their home country most likely, and one that feels degrading. GW’s post makes sense to me. Hello, even if she knew it was standard practice, posting about the experience makes sense to me.
I was actually talking about it with a friend the other day (in his Western country), and he mentioned dated photographs, phone records, looking at the bedroom, etc.
Just to clarify, what I found amazing what that GW seemed surprised by the visit and that AD seemed to think this might be something new. I have no quibble with her blogging about it per se. And I certainly do not imply that these visits are any kind of fun experience. I found the questions asked by the immigration guy about our lack of children and when we might be rectifying that situation (how many J-J couples start having kids after 15 years?!?), when would I be moving in with the parent-in-laws to physically care for them, etc etc, to be excruciatingly intrusive and not truly related to whether our marriage was indeed real enough or whether I was worthy enough to be allowed to stay permanently. But the knowledge that these kinds of visits are made seemed to be well known among foreign residents of my acquaintance in Japan in those days (early to mid 90s) and I wonder why that would not be the case now?
I definitely didn’t find it out of the realm of possibility it just caught me off guard. When I posted about it I was actually quite surprised that so many people were a lot more shocked than I was – and a lot of my readers are other foreign wives in Japan. No-one I I know has had a home visit before – in the 15 years total I’ve lived here. Seems that the Immigration offices are very inconsistent.
Fortunately they didn’t ask me about Granny K, my mother in law who we live with, as if they had they would have found out I plan on packing her off to a home (or perhaps the eldest son, or even the second eldest son) at the first signs of old age loopiness.
‘Trawled her site and ripped off her post’ – haha, I hadn’t thought of it like that but now that you put it that way I guess thats what it was.
Really! God I’m naive. Can’t people do that kind of crap. Almost worse than posting anonymously.
can’t believe people do that kind of crap.
This may be where the emasculation occurred:
http://www.debito.org/?p=9623#comment-300683
And the response?
http://www.debito.org/?p=9623#comment-300795
“Do you not realize who I am?”
So, taking other peoples’ blog posts without prior consent is yet another example of “It’s OK for me, but not for thee.” dodgy behaviour from debito.
Of course when we use debito’s stuff, we’re “stalkers”.
GW, be aware of debito’s stalker-ish tendencies. He probably won’t go after you or threaten to figure out your identity (you posted to his message board, so he has your IP addy) and publicize it, as you’re on what he sees as the right side, but you’re clearly already on his radar (how else did he find your post?).
Would not be at all surprising if he decides his fans don’t need to hear about your FULL opinion on this incident. Being understanding as to why this inspection would happen would make you an “Uncle Tom” Japan sympathizer.
But it’s nice to see that debito’s behaviour is outrageous enough that most anyone can figure him out, even without knowing his history of more disturbing actions.
GW, suppose we are going way off topic here but will just say the obvious, just don’t mention your plans for Granny until after you have the PR in hand. It is a trial going through the application process but once you have it you can relax. As for me, 16 years after getting PR I still don’t have any kids and still haven’t moved in with in-laws
At the home visit I remember being tempted to answer that I was not planning to move in with in-laws because I was following the example of about 70% of my Japanese female friends married to only or eldest sons. 
Just remembered the other thing that surprised me about AD kidnapping your post off to his site was that he did not lecture you on your choice to include the G word in your name
It is puzzling that a human rights crusader of 2 decades would be so shocked, SHOCKED, I say!
that Immigration officials inspect peoples’ homes as part of the application process for PR or citizenship from time to time.
After all, debito has written about this kind of thing involving the citizenship process. Or is he merely shocked that it could happen to PR applicants, too?
“Unconfirmed but repeated reports had officials opening refrigerators, cautioning children against playing with ethnic dolls, testing Japanese ability by having candidates read a newspaper aloud, asking Filipinas suspected of mizu-shoubai connections about their previous sex partners. “
“Unconfirmed reports.” Yep, that’s 90% of the content on debito.org.
http://www.debito.org/japantodaycolumns1-3.html
Yeah, it sucks, but in countries people want to immigrate TO, the authorities need some sort of procedure to confirm things are on the level.
Though why they’re checking up on this kind of mundane thing, married folks with kids in the countryside, while still giving out thousands of “entertainer” visas (though no longer tens of thousands, there has been a crackdown after all!
) to young females from SE Asia is kinda sick.
http://www.moj.go.jp/housei/toukei/toukei_ichiran_touroku.html
Ex. 14,000+ entertainer visas to females from the Philippines in 2006, but only 6000+ in 2010! 6000+ Filipina “entertainers” and I haven’t heard a single one on the radio or seen any on TV.
Well, debito probably knows more about this kind of thing.
Can you put MM’s comment up on The Wall ? I thought that was what it was for and I would like to read it. I thought that sorta thing was against policy. Let others judge if it’s its spam, that and I need the entertainment.
It wasn’t spam, it was foul-mouthed abuse against gaijinwife. I won’t put stuff like that on The Wall.
But of course conversely gaijinwife has Mr Arudou’s IP address, which would be much more valuable!
interesting indeed. I would be keen to read the foul mouth comment that was deleted also. The above comment makes me think perhaps I’m applying for the wrong visa. I’m sure there’s a pole round here I can start practicing on.
Was my comment really offensive? Main point was that Gaijinwife has popped out 3 half Master Race kids.
Why immigration thought it necessary to check her out like this, I have no idea.
OK gaijinwife, you asked for it! I’ll send it to the email that you are using here.
BTW, James/Jane Gray also uses the handle Jim Di Griz on Debito.org, and the fact that he is allowed to post whatever nonsense he wants over there is a sign of how few reasonable friends Mr Arudou has left.
Thank you Ken. Got through that relatively unscathed then :)
@Jerry: this post about your question may answer your question:
http://www.turning-japanese.info/2010/12/faq-what-if-you-committed-some.html
There is one big difference between PR and naturalization regarding the “guidelines” in question: Special Permanent Residents are exempt from the “don’t be poor / on welfare” requirement. (Special Permanent Residents also don’t need to write the “Motive/Reasons for Naturalization” essay). However, there’s nothing I’ve seen that gives this special treatment to regular permanent residents or spouses/dependents of Japanese nationals.
The actual Japanese verbiage in the Nationality Law is very similar (almost identical, in fact) to the language about PR in the Refugee/PR law, in that it gives a vague mention about “being able to support yourself {not on welfare}” and “be of good character {crime}”, AND provides a third clause saying the details of this are done at a lower level and gives a lot of discretion to Immigration/etc.
My guess is they give a lot of discretion because of the nature of what they’re doing: fitting a round peg into a square hole (looking at foreign records — criminal and non-criminal like genealogy)… and there isn’t always a one-to-one correspondence with Japanese law and foreign laws and record keeping. For most people, these “discretion” and case-by-case judgement calls help you clear the bar, not hinder you.
Since naturalizing does (as the post mention above) require you to go get your own paperwork regarding your driving record, both overseas and domestic, I’d guess anything worse than a minor speeding ticket (like an accident or DUI) would do you in. Sorry, Dante Carver.
Anecdote: they like as much paperwork as possible to be three to six months “fresh” if possible. When I first submitted my paperwork, one of the first bits of paperwork I collected was my perfect Japanese driving record (issued for free by request from your local police department with a license renewal section).
Right before submission to the MoJ, though, my case worker told me that I had to get a new copy of my JP driving record because more than three months had passed since I first collected that paperwork. I guess this was to prove that I hadn’t gone on a DUI fueled speeding spree in the past four months while I was applying.
Oh dear god I absolutely love your attitude. I wonder if it’s a sign of a superior coping mechanism that causes generally sarcastic people to have an easier time in Japan than others…