Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has developed a robotic seal they call Paro, a creation designed for therapeutic benefit that is currently being tested in nursing homes and with handicapped children.

Having a pet is good for people, especially people who are lonely or depressed, and Paro was created with this in mind. But just as the creation of robots intended as sexual companions raises the kind of moral and ethical questions I examined in Robotic Prostitution, so does the creation of robots intended for therapy:

Is it right for anyone who feels desperately lonely or depressed to gain relief in an illusion? Would it be fair to use robots, which appear to have feelings, among elders with dementia who might think they’re dealing with a real animal?

Robotic Prostitution continues to attract comments and attention, including from the distributors of the movie Ghost in the Shell that I referenced, who contacted me to tell me about their newest film, Karas, which will be released on April 25. I don’t know if the film will have the same social relevance as Ghost, but the production values look outstanding and they’ve hired a long list of Hollywood talent for the voice acting, something that happens all too rarely with Japanese releases.

They’re sending me a copy to check out, so I’ll be sure to let you know what I think.

When you’re wrapped in the North American media cocoon, it’s sometimes hard to know what to think. Is Iraq on the brink of civil war? Should governments deal with a Palestinian administration formed by Hamas? Paying for stories to be planted in Iraqi media sounds an awful lot like propaganda, but is there any justification for it? Is Zarqawi dead, or does he even exist?

Amy Goodman’s interview with Robert Fisk today has some answers to those questions from someone who has spent years in the Middle East, on the ground, in the war zones, and in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, not in the walled-off Green Zone or behind a desk.

You also get a fiery condemnation of American journalism by the renowned author. An absurd, even comical performance by an American military spokesman with a peculiar mustache in the Hitler style and a pathological inability to give a straight answer, even as the room erupts in laughter at his obvious discomfort and embarassment. And a call for the immediate end to the occupation of Iraq and why it needs to happen now.

This is 25 minutes of journalism that I guarantee you will enjoy. If you feel like you need to give your head a shake, this will do it. Check it out on Democracy Now! or pick one of these streams to watch:

Watch 128k stream | Watch 256k stream (You’ll need RealPlayer to watch these).

You can also get the MP3.

A year after he was shot by US troops in Mosul and then sent to Abu Ghraib, CBS cameraman Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein was acquitted in an Iraqi court today.

A three-judge Iraqi panel ruled there was insufficient evidence against Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, who was filming the bombing aftermath in the northern city of Mosul when he was apprehended.

…

The charges against Hussein were never made public but at one point it was said that he could get life in prison if convicted.

After his acquittal, US forces took Hussein back to Abu Ghraib and reimprisoned him, “pending final U.S. military approval of his release”.

If there was any doubt about who’s really in charge in Iraq, the case of this cameraman, who was found innocent on all charges by Iraqi judges and then sent back to prison by the US military, removes it.

Given that the US has sent judicial experts to Iraq to advise on the creation of an independent justice system, the message is clear: “Do as we say, not as we do.”

I know it seems like I barely write these days, but I assure you, I’m writing more than ever.

The problem is my writing looks like this:


if ($appointment2->recurring) {
$recur_stamp = mktime(0,0,0,$month,$day,$year);
for ($i = 0;$i < $appointment2->recur_weeks;$i++) {
// add 7 days to the recurring date
$recur_stamp = mktime(0,0,0,$month,$day + ($i * 7),$year);
$date = date("m/d/Y", mktime(0,0,0,date("m", $recur_stamp),
date("d", $recur_stamp),
date("Y", $recur_stamp)));
$objAppointments->setscheduled_date($date);
// new appointment
$objAppointments->setid(0);
if (!$objAppointments->save()) {
$ret[0] = 0;
$ret[1] = $objAppointments->error[0];
return $ret;
}
}
$ret[0] = 1;
$ret[1] = "Booked $i appointments!";
return $ret;
}


When I finally have the time to start writing stuff that is readable by human beings, I promise to do so. After April 15, things should free up for me.

I hope you’re all doing well and thanks for continuing to drop by.

If you’d like more information on the sudden closure of the four TKF locations in Ontario, you may visit the page I have created for that purpose, Temple Kung Fu Ontario Closes.

(Note to my regular readers: there’s no reason you’d find this interesting, I made this post to get the information indexed.)