There is a somewhat interesting article to be written here—this big figure in international news had connections to and actually lived in Japan—but the article is about 300 words long, probably. Not this sprawling thing.

The only parts that are less relevant than me to the Snowden story are Japan Probe and Japologism. I'd be shocked if I have more than 50 comments, total, spread among both of those places. The JT editors might want to remove references to websites that are clearly included because of the author's grudge against their managers, especially when they advance the story in no way whatsoever.

Now if you'll excuse me, Ed has invited me over to his palace to pet his phoenix.

"Durf"... if that is your real name, you ARE Snowden. Admit it!

I feel very, very dirty after reading this article. Not because of Snowden, but because of the creepy detail of his online activity. Has JT considered that something this... detailed should not have been published?

And there seems to be an attempt to link Snowden with foreign residents in Japan - to what end? Why bring in small sites for foreign residents in Japan into this?

I nearly stopped reading at "Like other foreigners, he struggled with kanji". Did he have trouble with chopsticks and standing on the correct side of the escalator as well? The fact that some (often extremely short-term resident) people may have trouble with - or not bother learning - kanji does not, nor should it, reflect upon the remaining huge number of foreigners in Japan, many of which are from east Asia and thus intimately acquainted with kanji, and even if not, often have little trouble with this aspect of the language despite national origin.
You should be absolutely ashamed to write such nonsense as if a mere few percent of the foreign population in Japan is representative of the whole - the very worst kind of stereotyping that those of us who are here long-term work so hard to get on without.

Except, sensei, that even Japanese struggle with kanji. Ask long-term expats. Like many complex tasks, and yes, learning kanji is complex when compared to learning languages written in the Roman alphabet, use it or lose it and this includes native speakers.

I (more than 4,000 followers on Twitter) would like to thank Mr Johnson ( more than 100 followers on Twitter) for the shout-out for my site, Japologism (err, 10 followers on Twitter), but I would also like to clarify that Mr Durfee has a grand total of 8 comments on my site, a mere 0.2% of the total number, so I am at a loss as to why Mr Johnson seems to want the reader to make a connection.

I missed your point due to laughing at your perception that the number of twitter followers you have is relevant to anything.

I was just riffing off Mr Johnson's obsession with numbers, such as the "Durfee, who has more than 3,000 followers on Twitter" in the article above.

"Thus, observers speaking privately wonder if Snowden adopted a new pseudonym to run his own blog or post on chat forums in Japan while working here, as many expats do."

This is journalism?

Surely you could have given us a more detailed account of what his favorite anime is? Or perhaps what Japanese foods he can eat? Can he eat natto?

You have right to remain silent. Everything you comment here may be taken down in evidence and used against you.

Well, he seems to never have progressed beyond the honeymoon phase of a Western person in Japan. Maybe he is quite gullible after all? I wonder if he started to see the "ura" of Japan, he'd still be so critical of his home country...