The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by David:

P.S. Apologies. Looking closer, I realise that you must already know that since you wrote "were non-Koreans too wedded to hard plosives?".

I am more interested in the shift from Pusan, to Busan in Korea. Korean is supposed to have one of the most rigidly phonetic alphabets in the world, so has the pronunciation changed, or were non-Koreans too wedded to hard plosives?

I Do Not Speak Korean but that's just a result of the switch from McCune-Reischauer to Revised Romanization.

There's a theory that the Anglican bishops of Africa are such hardliners precisely because they're afraid of losing people to Islam.

Or to Evangelical churches, which are growing rapidly in Africa.

You can also almost drive to France from the US via Newfoundland and a trip on a ferry. The islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, southwest of Newfoundland, are French territories.

Nice idea, but the ferries do not carry cars.

The "folk community" things above made me blink...

For 'folk' read Volk, perhaps.

There's an opinion piece in today's Guardian about Berlusconi's control of the Italian media.

Berlusconi the blunderer is news abroad, not at home. The astonishing trail of antics and misdemeanours that Berlusconi blazed across Europe as he hopelessly tried to squeeze into the limelight of Barack Obama left the rest of the world gawping and most Italians apparently resigned. It's an old story, which may puzzle outsiders but not anyone familiar with the Italian media.

Trouble usually starts when Berlusconi ventures abroad. In Moscow at the end of last year, he hailed then president-elect Obama as "handsome, young and suntanned". (Speaking for the many Italians who cringed, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy said she was glad she was no longer an Italian citizen.) Back in 2003, during a debate at the European parliament in Strasbourg, he called a German MEP "kapo", as the guards in Nazi concentration camps were called, and said he would put him forward for a part in a film about the camps. In the same year he attempted to charm investors in New York with the line: "Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries." The list goes on.

At home, however, Berlusconi's image and public appearances are minutely managed. He chooses questions, his staff plan every outing and appearance, cameras are positioned at what he and his aides consider flattering angles. Remember, half the journalists in Italy work for him and the other half know they might do so one day.

Kenya is a member of the Commonwealth. British nationality is an entirely different matter, defined by UK law.

Here we go.
Wikipedia: British nationality law

English law and Scots law have always distinguished between the Monarch's subjects and aliens. Until 1914 British nationality law was uncodified. The British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914 codified existing common law and statute, with a few minor changes.

With the development of the modern Commonwealth of Nations in the 20th century, the single Imperial status of British subject was increasingly inadequate to deal with the realities of a Commonwealth with independent member states. In 1948, the Commonwealth Heads of Government agreed that each member would adopt a national citizenship, but that the existing status of British subject would continue to be a common status held by all Commonwealth citizens.

The British Nationality Act 1948 established the status of Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC), the national citizenship of the United Kingdom and those places that were still British colonies on 1 January 1949, when the 1948 Act came into force. However, until the early 1960s there was little difference, if any, in United Kingdom law between the rights of CUKCs and other British subjects, all of whom had the right at any time to enter and live in the United Kingdom.

Between 1962 and 1971, as a result of fears about increasing immigration by Commonwealth citizens from Asia and Africa, the United Kingdom gradually tightened controls on immigration by British subjects from other parts of the Commonwealth. The Immigration Act 1971 introduced the concept of patriality, by which only British subjects with sufficiently strong links to the British Islands (i.e. the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) had right of abode, the right to live and work in the United Kingdom and Islands.

Although there have been several amendments to the 1971 Act in the intervening years, the principal British nationality law today is the British Nationality Act 1981, which established the current system of multiple categories of British nationality, viz. British citizens, British Overseas Territories citizens, British Overseas citizens, British Nationals (Overseas), British subjects and British protected persons. Only British citizenship includes the automatic right of abode in the United Kingdom.

The 1981 Act also ceased to recognise Commonwealth citizens as British subjects. There remain only two categories of people who are still British subjects: some people (formerly known as British subjects without citizenship) who originally acquired British nationality through a connection with former British India, and also a number of people connected with the Republic of Ireland before 1949 who have made a declaration to retain British nationality. Those British subjects connected with former British India lose British nationality if they acquire any other.

Behold the official blog of the Obama Administration.

Just seen Dr Strangelove, I mean Cheney, being pushed down to his limo in a wheelchair...

Melody @ 123:

Ugh. Oleander and I had a cat (which lived to the semi-respectable age of 18) named Aiko. Now every time I think of my cat it will be joined in my head with robot nerd sex. Thanks once again Making Light, for making life less comfortable than it was. Sigh.

It's even worse than that. Aiko is also the name of the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan's seven year old daughter.

P.S. Someone raises this issue on the Project Aiko forum:

Seriously Le, just no. For one, I doubt people would care about her reading abilities if they knew this. And second, it's just sick dude. Sick and hilarious at the same time.

The inventor says that his robot isn’t a sex toy, and who am I to doubt it? The fact that he has to keep saying, “No, no, honest, it isn’t a sex toy!†though, should be a clue to what the next guy to get one is going to do with it.

Absolutely, Aiko is not a sex toy. Not at all, not even remotely, how could you possibly think that? But she could...er...be...um...modified to function as an...um..."companion":

Companionship: Yes, it is possible to have Aiko as a companion. Aiko has sensitive sensors on her faces, body, including her breasts and even down there. Aiko will know the difference when being touch gently or being tickled. The BRAINS software and Aiko can be re-designed to simulate her having an "O.....". The software can be re-designed to "play hard to get" or "straight to the point".

Alex @ 41:

Meanwhile, if you decide to kill North American GM and Ford, can we keep Ford of Europe, Vauxhall-Opel, Saab and friends, all of which make sensible cars? Kill the head and the body will die, they say.

I've read quite a few online discussions about the bailout, and hardly anyone seems to be aware that Ford and GM are global businesses or that their foreign operations are doing ok (or were before the credit crunch). A lot of people suggest parachuting in managers from Toyota or Mazda or wherever, as if they couldn't adapt to making smaller cars without help from outside. (Never mind that a lot of Mazdas are based on Ford platforms anyway.) And then there are the folks who think that the Big Three should be taken over by the Japanese, or by electric vehicle startups like Tesla Motors.

perikat @ 9:

Does the Russian way of doing things ensure that the State will gain an ownership status in the reclaimed industries equal to the money it invests in those industries? Cos if so, that's a considerably better deal than the American taxpayers are getting.

The issue seems to be how the state gains ownership status. The NYT article implies that the Russian government uses investigations, fines, lawsuits and insider trading to force down a company's share price so that the state can mount a takeover cheaply.

Wow, that thing is enormous!

It doesn't look significantly larger than one of the London Ambulance Service's Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, but then again they're bigger than previous British ambulances.

If von Trapp could be in the Austrian Navy, why couldn't Hungary have a navy?

Historical pedant mode on:

You overlooked the small matter of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Georg von Trapp was born in Zadar in Dalmatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in Croatia. He joined the Austro-Hungarian navy in 1894 and trained at its academy in Fiume (Rijeka). When the Empire collapsed in 1918, its navy ceased to exist.

'As You Know' Bob@30:

May they live long and prosper.

I'm surprised that it took so long for someone to say that. :)

Anyway, congratulations to the happy couple.

I suspect Tkehinde, btw, is not a native speaker of English; I don't think a native speaker would use "reunion" in that way.

The person who wrote that is probably a native French speaker, since réunion in French means meeting.

Dave Bell says:

Pericat, having admitted to being an MBA member, hasn't Seth Finkelstein laid himself open to challenges over his neutrality? At least within Wikipedia.

It certainly looks that way. Wikipedia's policy page Wikipedia:Conflict of interest states:

If you are involved in a court case, or close to one of the litigants, you would find it very hard to demonstrate that what you wrote about a party or a law firm associated with the case, or a related area of law, was entirely objective. Even a minor slip up in neutrality in a court-case article on Wikipedia for an active case-in-progress could potentially be noticed by the courts or their parties, and this could potentially cause real-world harm, not just harm to Wikipedia. Because of this, we strongly discourage editing when this type of conflict exists.

And Zochaka has written the following on Seth Finkelstein's talk page:

I'm quite willing to concede that the material I added to the Media Bloggers Association page, and which you removed, did not meet neutrality standards. But you say you are an MBA Member. How well does that sit with a Wikipedia ideal of neutrality?

The MBA website has a strong feel of self-promotion on the part of Robert Cox, and that may be carrying over to my reactions to the Wikipedia Page. Prior to our edits, it almost seemed a boast about long-past success. The page definitely needs to be brought up to date.

I'm suspicious. You're a member. This could develop into a hot topic. Should some less-involved third party take the lead on editing the topic? Zhochaka (talk) 07:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

When considering the willingness to use those weapons, one has to consider that the Iranians just might pose a greater threat especially because of the fanaticism of those in power. Granted, it may be a show only to secure a base of power, but one has to wonder how dedicated the Iranian power structure is to that fanaticism.

The "willingness" or lack thereof of Iran's leaders to use "those weapons" can be discerned from the fact that the Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa prohibiting the production and use of nuclear weapons.

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