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Sunday news and blog roundup

October 5, 2008
By Ken Worsley


On September 30, US national debt passed $10 trillion, which means that the national debt clock in Times Square no longer has enough digits to correctly display the national debt. CNN has a video piece on the clock, including an interview with Douglas Durst, the owner of the clock.

Japan owns about 22.8% of outstanding US Treasury securities, at a value of about $590 billion.

Joe Jones has published a good list of financial meltdown-related links over at Mutant Frog, and there are more good links to be found in the comments section.

Eric Allie’s cartoon over at cagle.com sums things up quite simply (Follow link or click on image to see full size version).

Global Voices Online is tracking bloggers who are critical of Google’s Street View service being rolled out in Japan. There has been some noise made over this over the past few weeks, starting with the absurd letter that was written to Google by one prominent blogger. Why is there so much speaking out against Google Street View but seemingly no concern paid to domestic service Loca View, which is just as intrusive as Google’s service, and seemingly makes no attempt at blurring out faces? A cynical person would be forgiven for wondering if Google is the victim of a PR campaign.

Finally, if you’re paying attention to the US Presidential election, Japan Probe has posted three videos demonstrating Japanese TV news coverage of Thursday night’s vice presidential debate.

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Comments

6 Responses to “Sunday news and blog roundup”

  1. N on October 5th, 2008 10:45 pm

    How about a link to the Mutant Frog post?

  2. Ken Worsley on October 6th, 2008 12:08 am

    Good point. Done.

  3. Matt on October 6th, 2008 10:41 am

    Palin = “nucular” “Darn right” “Talk straight” “Joe Six Pack” “Hockey moms” “Ya know” “Drill baby drill” “eye-rak” “Washington outsider” “East coast politicians” “main street” “git out of my way” “say it ain’t so, joe” “dog gone it” “there ya go agin” “maverick” “middle class” “average american” “can I call you joe”

  4. Chris on October 6th, 2008 11:36 am

    HI Ken,

    Thanks for the link.

    About Location View, there was a comment on the translation of Higuchi’s letter from the operator of the service Satoshi Nakayama. There are some important differences between the services which Nakayama-san points out (height of camera, user interface, business model, etc.), but also in more basic terms, Location View is a fairly small operation compared to GSV (in terms of viewership, etc.), which I think is the biggest factor. Certainly it does not have the global audience that Google does.

    I think you’re really jumping to conclusions when you suggest there’s a PR campaign against Google here. Bloggers in Japan (particularly tech bloggers, of which Higuchi-san is one) are generally very positive about the company. All the more reason that this issue should be taken seriously, IMHO. And also don’t forget, there have been many other views expressed as well.

  5. Ken Worsley on October 6th, 2008 1:26 pm

    Chris, thanks.

    I think you’re really jumping to conclusions when you suggest there’s a PR campaign against Google here.

    That’s exactly why I didn’t suggest such a thing! I said that a “cynical person would be forgiven for wondering” if such a thing existed. ;)

    The differences Nakayama points out are silly, to tell the truth. Smaller-scale invasions of privacy are somehow ok? Angle of the camera? Size of the company? All irrelevant.

  6. Matt on October 7th, 2008 10:26 am

    Calculated Risk wonders about the possibility of an emergency G8 meeting.

    In other news, it looks like the U.S. Government is going to own everything, eventually. In addition to the recently approved TARP, a commercial paper purchase program is now being discussed. Tax payers have become owners of last resort…

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