JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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Betzee
A few guys privately employed make "mistakes" and it is revealed they cannot be held accountable for their actions. By contrast, US troops are and always have been.
Posted in: Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name
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Betzee
Evolutionary biologists would tell you beauty was traditionally associated with those physical attributes best suited to survival.
My Mom used to tell me when she was growing up, the chubby child was considered healthier than a skinny one. Why? Well, if you got sick, it was better to have some meat on your bones.
Posted in: U.S. churches to discuss evolution vs creation
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Betzee
Anyone in America is free to believe anything they wish. The tension revolves around the role creationism should play in public life. Should it be taught in public schools, for example, which are funded by the taxpayer and include the offspring of atheists?
In the UC admissions process we rejected a strong student who had been church-schooled because his science curriculum did not meet the California state-mandated biology requirement. It was a creationist alternative. I felt sorry for him but hold his parents accountable for depriving him of the opportunity to study at one of our research university campuses. If you make an exception for him, then it opens the door to lobbying by others. Where does it end?
Evolution exemplifies scientific inquiry. Nothing is ever proven true, it's held to be true until disproven. This is an important distinction to appreciate and a standard which creationism cannot meet since it must be accepted on faith.
Posted in: U.S. churches to discuss evolution vs creation
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Betzee
Nothing wrong with that. But you've also got to be accountable for your performance. And Blackwater security guards in Iraq weren't. This really didn't come to public attention until last September when security forces employed by Blackwater killed 17 and wounded 24 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad intersection.
Whether they were in the wrong or not was impossible to determine since there was no means to arrive at such a judgment. Among other incidents which preceded it, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a security guard working for the Iraqi VP in 2005. He was hussled out of the country pretty fast, perhaps to another job within the company?
Posted in: Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name
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Betzee
As the old saying goes, "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear."
Posted in: Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name
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Betzee
It's called Liberty Airport because on a clear day the Statue of Liberty is visible from it. Continental has a large commuter hub there.
Yabits, the 9/11 widow was traveling to Buffalo to make a presentation for a scholarship for high school students she endowed in her husband's name.
Posted in: 9/11 widow among 50 killed after commuter plane crashes into home in Buffalo
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Betzee
I think the devoutly religious do look at it that way. Orthodox Jews, among others, are prohibited from receiving this type of fertility treatment. Such efforts are seen as interfering with God's plan.
But the right-to-life movement is a politicized group; destroying those embryos is tantamount to destroying life, never mind it was created in a petri dish.
Reproductive technology has certainly opened up a can of worms.
Moderator: Stay on topic please.
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
Many of those who avail themselves of this type of fertility treatment do have leftover embryos and do destroy them, something which has been condemned by the right-to-life movement.
But it's an unregulated industry; if someone wants to avail themselves of it they can, no questions asked. By the same token, it's their right to destroy unwanted or "extra" embryos. Alternatively, they can be donated to an infertile woman seeking to bear a child biologically unrelated to her and her partner, if she has one. Few do that, however. A lot of them are in deep freeze storage indefinitely.
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
She puts up a www site asking for donations from the public and instead of clicking paypal, some people have apparently sent threatening and probably obscenity-filled messages. What the hell are the police supposed to do about it?
I'm sure the publicist is working for the free publicity. He will take a cut of whatever paying gigs he can get her. I don't think there will be too many of those, however; nobody wants to be seen as underwriting her choices given the reaction they've engendered.
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
Smith,
According to the article: One family from the Midwest has invited Suleman and her brood to live on their farm, Furtney said.
Would they open their door to her publicist as well?
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
I'm sure the LAPD is using every method at its disposal to keep Ms. Suleman and her brood, and yes her publicist, safe.
What was predicted was that she would need public assistance to make ends meet. Sho 'nuf, she's already receiving it to support the first six.
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
at least the money is going to a good cause.
To pay a publicist? How many hard-working people who've "played by the rules" can afford one? It's not fair!!!!!
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
Police Lt John Romero said officers were meeting with Suleman’s publicist Mike Furtney about the flood of angry phone calls and email messages against Suleman, her children and Furtney.
So it is the publicist who alerted the public to these threats? One wonders how she afford his services, they usually don't come cheap after all. Nobody condones death threats, but most recipients would probably want them handled quietly to avoid eliciting copy-cat threats. Unless the alleged threats served the purpose of extending the target's 15 minutes of fame.
Posted in: LA police to investigate threats to octuplet mom
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Betzee
This just shows how unethical the fertility industry is.
At least one doctor in it. According to the LA Times:
The Beverly Hills doctor who helped Nadya Suleman conceive octuplets also provided fertility treatment to a 49-year-old woman who is pregnant with quadruplets and is hospitalized at County-USC Medical Center.
SoCal, no all of California for that matter, is an expensive place to live. The prospect of raising four children would be challenging to most women young enough to conceive through natural means. This 49-year old, if she is married, has a partner who is likely older than she. In today's world, nobody should count on working beyond 60, unless you have a secure job. Yet she will be 67 will they reach age 18 and become legally adults. Moreover, no matter how much effort you put into diet and exercise, your energy level goes down with age. To be in your 50s with four toddlers....
These cases underscore the ethical issues reproductive technology has created over what restrictions on it should exist. Yet several posters are unable to focus on this case outside of the culture war prism:
Nice try Liberals
If she were Mexican and in California illegally you'd see "liberals" fighting with each other over who gets to "defend" this woman.
I bet you watch "The View" with Barbara WaWa. They praise single motherhood as long as the kids aren't theirs.
I can understand why you are forced to round up the usual suspects. After all, welfare deadbeats are the lowest of the low according to conservatives. Yet every mother collecting welfare, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), also chose life, a choice that is to be celebrated whatever her circumstances according to the same group. If someone could address this public-policy contradiction rather than resorting to liberal bashing it might result in an interesting debate.
Posted in: Octuplets' mom says she's not living off taxpayers' money
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Betzee
Wuzzademocrat,
By lashing out at Democrats via an alternative hypothetical example you avoid acknowledging your earlier defense of this woman and her all too real situation. For most of us, however, this about sums it up:
The treatments Suleman underwent to bear her children aren't cheap; they typically run from $8,000 to $15,000. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that her doctor gave her the lower rate (as a volume discount), which would put her expenses, simply for conception, at $48,000. Suleman told a television interviewer that she covered those costs out of a $165,000 disability settlement she obtained after suffering a back injury working at a state mental hospital.
She also said she is not "on welfare," which is a bit of a semantic dodge, because it turns out she's receiving both food stamps and Social Security payments for two of her children who suffer from unspecified disabilities. She also told the interviewer she plans to "support" her family with federally guaranteed student loans while she pursues a master's in counseling. (One tries to imagine receiving therapy from this woman, but the mind refuses to form the requisite image.)
In the meantime, the Kaiser Permanente hospital where the eight newborns remain under care reportedly has applied to the state for assistance with its expenses under the Medi-Cal program. We don't know yet whether any of the octuplets will be disabled in ways requiring public assistance. It appears that, in the case of the Suleman family, raising 14 children takes not simply a village but the combined resources of the county, state and federal governments.
There was some concern that all the attention Ms. Suleman has been receiving might inspire copy-cat behavior. Yet few would have the financial resources she did to pursue fertility treatment while unemployed. It's clear, given the societal implications of this type of reproduction, the fertility industry cannot remain an unregulated cash-and-carry business.
Posted in: Octuplets' mom says she's not living off taxpayers' money
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Betzee
Maybe you can help them overcome the stigma of manufacturing shoddy and unsafe products through creative prose! As the global economic situation worsens, I predict there's gonna be a lot of steel pilin' up everywhere.
Posted in: Steel coils
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Betzee
India has just reintroduced tariffs to keep cheaper Chinese steel out of its market. It justified this move on the grounds "China isn't a market economy" and therefore it subsidizes its steel.
The US has also accused Japan of dumping steel from time to time, charges which have not always held up in court. Steel is particularly attractive to dump, or unload at below production cost, since storage is expensive and cheap production requires economies of scale.
Posted in: Steel coils
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Betzee
I think it costs about 10 grand per try. That's why some patients want to maximize the odds of one taking through multiple implantations at once. Since Ms. Suleman had already had twins, it increased the likelihood of that happening. Indeed, of the six implanted embryos, two split hence eight babies.
She got a 165,000 workers comp settlement back in 2001 for injury on the job, so that was enough to pay for in vitro treatments. If she concealed her savings when applying for public assistance they may be able to get her on that. But she may have used it for educational-related expenses.
Posted in: Octuplets' mom says she's not living off taxpayers' money
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Betzee
You may not find it too funny when you learn that you, too, are going to be payin.' MediCal is a state program, but food stamps and social security, both of which she's already drawn on for the first six, are federal programs.
Posted in: Octuplets' mom says she's not living off taxpayers' money
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Betzee
As someone wrote last week:
Ms. Suleman, who still hasn’t appeared publicly (although you can bet your bottom dollar she will, once the price is right) has a degree in child and adolescent counseling from California State University, Fullerton, and was even enrolled in a graduate program until last spring. (This proves, once and for all, the vapidity of the idea that “education is the key.”)
Posted in: Octuplets' mom says she's not living off taxpayers' money