JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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1
Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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2
Confrontation
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3
U.S. Navy investigating how parts fell off aircraft near Atsugi
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4
California court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'
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5
Kuroki reported pregnant 2 weeks after denying relationship with Akanishi
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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Betzee
Many a soldier has said, "I serve so my children can grow up in a better world." By contrast, Dick Cheney was making babies to avoid service. But he and fellow draft dodger El Rushbo now claim to know better than Colin Powell, smeared with the race card after a long career of public service which was not all behind a desk. The Republicans have appropriated the commie slogan, "Better Red Than Expert." We all know what happened to communist parties everywhere.
Posted in: Cheney backs Limbaugh over Powell
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Betzee
Your children and grandchildren will be saying this too.
As a Buddhist I believe in reincarnation and therefore expect to be repeating it myself over several lifetimes.
Posted in: Cheney backs Limbaugh over Powell
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Betzee
We win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon.”
Huh? This from #2 in the administration which undertook the biggest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ??? Talk is cheap and successive Republican administrations proved incredibly expensive.
Posted in: Cheney backs Limbaugh over Powell
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Betzee
Noted: the architect of the Bush administration would rather follow an arch-conservative buffoon than entrust the Republican party to a moderate who has spent his life in the service of his country.
SezWho,
Birds of a feather stick together. Both Cheney and Limbaugh are Chicken Hawks.
Posted in: Cheney backs Limbaugh over Powell
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Betzee
An expat in China has written an excellent review which arrived as a different appraisal:
Preceding the movie’s opening, many jaded expats and foreigners were quick to bemoan the possibility of “yet another” propaganda piece timed to whip up nationalist indignation and fervor, ever so coincidentally timed for the 60th anniversary of Communist China. Suggestions that China make a film about the atrocities it committed on itself rained from the peanut gallery. One recommendation: “Tiananmen! Tiananmen!” Zing, right?
Too many Chinese directors who make war films focus on creating battle scenes worthy of a Hollywood big budget film and forget about the narrative which should drive the action. According to the review, this did not happen here:
[T]he scenes of brutality, however shocking or illuminating they might be, are not going to connect “Nanjing! Nanjing!” to its audience. Rather, it will be the numerous scenes of complete and utter humanity that offers audiences a precious opportunity to better understand both others, themselves, and what we’re all capable of. These include the scenes of cowardice and bravery, defiance and resignation, self-preservation and self-sacrifice. They include the supplication for survival of a portly Shanghai husband and father, the helplessness of a compassionate German forced to give up his charges, and yes, the small things a bewildered Japanese soldier does or doesn’t do. It is this movie’s ability to give those viewers with minds and hearts open enough the opportunity to identify with each of these characters and the scope of gritty emotions they represent that makes “Nanjing! Nanjing!” a Chinese movie worthy of being compared to a spiritual predecessor, “Schindler’s List.”
For the foreigners, do not dismiss “Nanjing! Nanjing!” as a Chinese propaganda film. For the Chinese hyper-nationalists, do not denounce it for not being one. Set aside your preconceived biases and watch the film for what it was meant to be: A tale of the humanity found amongst inhumanity. Go watch it.
Posted in: Nanjing massacre movie avoids propaganda, muddles story
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Betzee
The odd thing is, Adverts, those this is not the fastest way south, though it's the one I typically use. The faster way, a bit inland, is boring and prone to thick fog in the winter. That's what causes the 40-50 car pile-ups. The other way, a road carved out of the cliffs along the Pacific, is the most beautiful but it takes much longer.
I looked at the local newspaper today since this accident occurred in the county where I live. There was no initial indication of why it occurred. We've never had an emergency rescue of this magnitude, and those involved did not want to contemplate on how it might have been worse.
Posted in: Bus crash in California kills 5 French tourists
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Betzee
He was the city DA (District Attorney), the police were there to protect him from retribution from the bad guys he was prosecuting. Duh.....
Posted in: Pennsylvania's Specter switches parties, bolstering Senate Democrats
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Betzee
Betzee, what was with the police car out the front? Was Arlen continually being arrested, or was his Dad a policeman?
I expect his foes will get to the bottom of it!
Posted in: Pennsylvania's Specter switches parties, bolstering Senate Democrats
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Betzee
Ironically my home state of Pennsylvania appears poised to follow my adopted state of California where the GOP puts up candidates who can't win in the general election. Arnold Schwarzenegger only became governor because the special election bypassed the primary process.
It's not clear that Arlen Specter can win reelection as a Democrat. What he has is a strong, bipartisan base of support in Philadelphia, where he started his career as the DA. I used to ride my bike by his house as a kid, there was always a police car out front. Other Democrats will no doubt challenge him.
Posted in: Pennsylvania's Specter switches parties, bolstering Senate Democrats
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Betzee
Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, compared Arlen Specter to Benedict Arnold, a traitor during the American Revolution. "You're either with us or against us," a totalitarian formulation, drove Arlen, a moderate, out of the Republican Party.
While his chances of winning the Republican primary were poor, his opponent's chances of winning in the general election are worse. Montergomery and Bucks Counties, high growth suburbs of Philadelphia and the most vibrant part of Pennsylvania's economy, are blue.
Posted in: Pennsylvania's Specter switches parties, bolstering Senate Democrats
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Betzee
Soledad has a state prison and a shopping center, neither of which affects the flow of traffic much on the 101. I drive that way myself and can't think of what would cause someone to crash there. It's quite flat in contrast to the road farther south which is hilly and windy.
Posted in: Bus crash in California kills 5 French tourists
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Betzee
Bush was a moron, Obama is an even bigger idiot. The difference, is at least the Iraqi people had a chance under Bush.
GWB had just shy of six years to make things right in Iraq. That's a pretty long time considering the war was advertised as a undertaking requiring between "six weeks to six months." Are the tea baggers willing to pay higher taxes to support an open-ended occupation? And how will we know when wer can leave? If the surge worked, as many of its backers claim, why can't we go?
Posted in: Clinton: U.S. stands by Iraqis, withdrawal on track
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Betzee
As I recall, Sailwind, John McCain declared "the end was clearly in sight in early April 2003." That was a full two years before Dick Cheney predicted "the insurgency is in its last throes." So why are we even debating this in 2009?
As I wrote above, it's morphed into a matter of stickin' around so as "not to look weak." The American public has rejected that rationale.
Posted in: Iraqi blasts kill 145 in two days, stirring worries of insurgent push
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Betzee
We were told by Dick Cheney back in 2005 that "the insurgency was in its last throes." Four years later that is clearly not the case, yet Obama is being tarred with the "cut and run" accusation. Go figure.
Posted in: Iraqi blasts kill 145 in two days, stirring worries of insurgent push
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Betzee
"At some point the US will leave Iraq with its tail between its legs and Iraq in total disarray."
How can that be if the surge worked? You can't have it both ways. Incidentally, it was GWB who negotiated the security agreement mandating our withdrawal. How quickly they forget.
Posted in: Iraqi blasts kill 145 in two days, stirring worries of insurgent push
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Betzee
The insurgents sense that Obama is weak.
Didn't you tell us we had won? So how can this be happening? BTW, I can't express outrage over the violence for fear of being accused of "wishing Saddam was still in power."
Your post does get to the heart of the matter, inadvertently of course. As was the case with Vietnam, Iraq has ceased to be about achieving a well-defined military mission and morphed into a matter of remaining "so as not to appear weak."
Posted in: Iraqi blasts kill 145 in two days, stirring worries of insurgent push
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Betzee
Among the world's industrialized nations it would appear America already has the most 'progressive' tax system.
Whether or not America has the most progressive tax system, the purpose of taxation is to meet the government's operating expenses. They weren't met in 2006. Or any other year of the GWB administration. Borrowing does in entail "taxation without representation" since it's the unborn who get stuck not only repaying the principal but with hefty interest payments as well. Don't recall any protests though.
Second, the wealthy disproportionately enjoy the benefits of public spending. I'm a graduate of UCLA, one of California's public university flagship campuses. We loved to dismiss our cross town rivals, USC, as "University for Spoiled Children." So it came as a bitter pill to swallow when we learned the median family income for students at public UCLA was in fact higher than private USC.
Is it genes? Partly. But the wealthy are able to invest much more in their children and that makes a difference in a hyper-competitive situation. I tutored my nephew, now at Berkeley, in preparation for standardized tests. When he did well parents of his friends, most of whom were top income earners, wanted to hire me to tutor their kids. With what they were willing to pay, I could have quit my day job and had the same salary working far fewer hours. But, if your parents aren't in a position to underwrite such preparation, you're at a distinct disadvantage in getting into a flagship campus, where the state spends much more per student, than a lower-tier teaching college.
Posted in: Anti-Obama 'tea party' protests mark U.S. tax day
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Betzee
Had they been explicit about what they wanted cut from the budget, I wouldn't have needed to make the post. All I heard was a lot of generalized whining about the government from people with whom reasonable debate appears highly problematic to say the least:
Man calls Obama FASCIST at GOP Teabagging Rally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCA-3q6t57Q
Posted in: Anti-Obama 'tea party' protests mark U.S. tax day
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Betzee
A wise approach. Nisegaijin accused the moderators of violating his first amendment rights to free speech by deleting his posts. But the first amendment only applies to government efforts to censor individuals. This is a privately owned site and the mods can set whatever policies they want with regards to content.
Posted in: Anti-Obama 'tea party' protests mark U.S. tax day
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Betzee
When GWB introduced his tax cuts, he didn't use the equity argument advanced above. Rather he claimed cutting the tax rates of those at the top would enable them to invest and create jobs, in the process stimulating the economy. In this era of globalization, however, those jobs may well be overseas, an issue left unacknowledged.
Nonetheless, Republicans persist in the view that small business owners will be taxed to pay for services utilized by the less enterprising. Enter Exhibit A, JTP, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher as a stand-in for the average Joe, whose entrepreneurial dreams will be dashed under Obama’s tax plan. As an archetype, Joe doesn’t hold up so well. He isn’t a licensed plumber, isn’t about to buy the company he works for — or anyone else’s – and owes more than a grand in back taxes. (No wonder he doesn’t like them.) Under Obama’s plan, of course, he would actually receive a tax cut since he doesn’t make anywhere near $250,000, the income level that would see a modest rollback to Clinton-era tax rates.
When tea baggers talk about reducing government spending, they are vague on specifics. Cut the defense budget? Cut entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security for the elderly? These are the big budget items which would have to be cut to reduce government spending in any discernible fashion. So which is it guys?
Posted in: Anti-Obama 'tea party' protests mark U.S. tax day