JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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DS
@vlad
I don't enjoy rubbishing other cultures. More often, they do it to themeselves.My view of the world is one of social justice and equality. It's based on accepted international standards and human rights, and international treaties which all members of the United Nations are bound to uphold. Countries like Egypt flout those obligations openly and nothing is done.
I'm not a cultural relativist by any means, that is true. I don't think all cultures are equal and deserve equal treatment or respect. Some are objectively better than others.
@yuri
Actually, historically speaking Muslim countries were fairly tolerant of the other Abrahamic religions. Non muslims weren't treated equally, and had to pay special taxes and penalties, but they were more or less protected from violence and physical persecution. It was called being "dhimmi", or "protected person". That state of affairs ended with the coming of political Islam and the Islamist movement in the second half of the 20th century. Previously moderate/secular countries like Iran, Turkey, etc. have all moved in the direction of intolerance and extremism. That's the reason for today's situation where apostasy (converting FROM Islam) is a death penalty offence in so many places.
Posted in: Christians under siege in post-revolution Egypt
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DS
Agreed that "green jobs" are largely an illusion. IF green technology were viable and profitable, there would be investors lined up eager to invest in it.
That obviously isn't happening.
It reminds me of self-righteous European countries voluntarily shutting down their nuclear reactors. Italy has just voted to do so, but it will create an energy shortfall (of course). The solution? Buy excess power from France. Great idea, except the energy produced in France is largely ........ nuclear!
I'm not sure if it is hypocrisy, since hypocrisy would require thought and effort. More likely, just lazy thinking and blind faith in quote unquote green technology.
Posted in: Australian parliament approves carbon tax
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DS
Less than one or two hundred Jews left in Egypt these days, used to be tens of thousands. Most institutions have quotas on Christians and Copts that are far lower than their proportion of the population. How many Christians are in the military? The police? The bureaucracy? The Pew Forum lists Egypt as one of the worst 10 countries in the WORLD for religious freedom.
Another charming statistic- the WHO estimates that more than 90% of Egyptian females have been subject to genital mutilation.
Posted in: Christians under siege in post-revolution Egypt
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DS
IRonic thing is, the poor in America are still far better off than 90% of the world. How many "poor" in third world countries have iPods and cell phones, and use Twitter to organize? Or live in homes with color tv, refrigerators, and game systems? Those who call the USA a third world country need to get out and actually SEE a third world country before making such ignorant statements.
Greed is not a politically driven emotion, however envy seems to be.
Posted in: Protesters in New York march on billionaires' homes
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@vlad.
Nice dodge on Hitler. You mention he is Christian (possible but endlessly debatable), yet conveniently fail to acknowledge the other four main murderers of the 20th century who were all devoutly athiest. Namely Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the Kims. I'll take your concession as closing the issue then.
As for Egypt, it is a country with a history of religious persecution, particularly in modern times. The Jewish population in Egypt has been reduced by 99% since the 1967 War, with some being murdered and most fleeing the country after years of being targets of theft and abuse. Similar numbers can be seen in most other African/Arab nations in that time. I wonder why, if Islam is so tolerant....
As for the Christian population of Egypt, they are subject to systematic and legal discrimination at many levels. They are not able to participate in the education system, military, government, etc. Those who convert TO Christianity come in for even worse treatment. The government also effectively forbids the construction, repair, or even maintenance of churches by law. These laws are, of course, not enforced on mosques, which can be built and maintained freely.
Fox News? Sorry, I don't watch it. Not a fan, and it isn't available here. Nice try at a drive by smear though.
Posted in: Christians under siege in post-revolution Egypt
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DS
The problem isn't religious fundamentalism, but Islamic fudamentalism. You don't see too many Hindu fundies or Jewish fundies or Jainist fundies slamming hijacked aircraft into buildings, do you? The problem is that many/most Islamic countries are populated with uneducated and uncurious people. Progress pretty much stopped 10 centuries ago for them, except in the tools they can use to hurt those who don't share their beliefs.
In general, though, athiests have caused far more death and destruction in the past century than have believers of any faith. From Pol Pot to Mao to Stalin to Hitler to the Kims of North Korea, they are responsible for untold millions of deaths.
Posted in: Christians under siege in post-revolution Egypt
2
DS
The majority of Chinese are still basically peasants, little changed from a century ago. The only difference is their master is central planning and not a landowner.
China is trying to leapfrog into the 21st century by taking dangerous shortcuts and stomping all over internationally accepted standards of trade and property rights. They copied the Shinkansen and had a major disaster within a year, whereas the original has had zero problems in 40. The worst, most polluted cities on Earth are in China.
China's impatience will be its downfall.
Posted in: China enjoys 'bubble' while Japan languishes on sidelines
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DS
Father's father is irrelevant. His father was an economist who studied at Harvard. Stepfather worked for an oil company. Obama attended private Catholic schools almost exclusively throughout his youth. His mother had an M.A. and worked for various government sponsored development agencies.
Definitely NOT humble.
Posted in: Obama's likability is keeping him afloat
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DS
Moore is a masterful film maker. He has great talent.
But by no means is what he does "documentary" filmmaking. It is agenda driven muckraking.
Posted in: Filmmaker Moore demands Georgia boycott after execution
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DS
Killing Bin Laden was a fine moment for Obama. However, he made a HUGE mistake in publicizing it so soon after the fact. Instead of doing the "victory lap", it would have been far better for the US to sit on the information. That way, they would have had time to act on any intelligence and information learned from BinLaden's files and computer.Instead, Obama went for the cheap publicity.
Like I said, he's a nice guy, but in way over his head. He doesn't have 5% the political skills of Bill Clinton, who managed to govern and get his measures passed while dealing with Republican majorities in Congress.
The last line of the original story made me laugh. Obama came from "humble beginnings"?!?!? His parents were both highly educated, he attended private schools most of his life, grew up in Hawaii....
I dont see much humble about it.
Posted in: Obama's likability is keeping him afloat
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DS
More excuses for poor performance. Obama is undeniably intelligent, and I don't doubt his sincerity. Unfortunately, he is not a very able politician and also isn't much of a leader. Not surprising, since he demonstrated little/no leadership in his life before the presidency.
Americans elected an image, and are paying the price.
Posted in: Obama's likability is keeping him afloat
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DS
I'd like to see Moore boycott Saudi or Venezeualan oil....
...but that might actually impact his lavish lifestyle, so no chance of it happening.
Posted in: Filmmaker Moore demands Georgia boycott after execution
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DS
Nope. But there was no "gale of Republican opposition" when he was elected. He had a golden chance to work with a friendly Congress and didn't do it.
The blame for the meltdown can be spread around between both parties, Wall Street, and a number of parties.
Posted in: Obama's likability is keeping him afloat
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DS
"Obama was given one historically lousy legacy and had to right the ship of state against the gale of Republican opposition."
No, he didn't.
He had a Democratic congress and a Democratic senate when he was elected. The Democrats had in fact controlled BOTH houses since the 2006 elections. That control finally ended with the 2010 elections, which left the houses split.
Sorry, the current mess is the President's to own. No use blaming anyone but the Democrats and their president.
Posted in: Obama's likability is keeping him afloat
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DS
If you cheat and then confess, all you are doing is victimizing your partner. You put the responsibility on HIM/HER to forgive you or not. If you cheat and then feel guilt\remorse, then live with it. Use it to strengthen your resolve to make it up to your partner.
Posted in: Kyoko Fukada appears at men-only preview of movie about infidelity
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One of the essential elements of statehood is recognizing and living with your neighbours. Somehow, I think that Palestine may have a little trouble doing that, considering their goal is the elimination of one of their neighbouring states. Ironically, a state that ALSO came into being as a result of UN recognition.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians, I really do. They have been abused by their Arab/Muslim 'brothers' for decades. Not granted citizenship or basic human rights, forced to live in squalor, used as attack dogs. Israel accepted hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from across Africa and the Middle East, who were fleeing terror and mayhem. A pity that the same didn't happen to the Palestinians.
Posted in: Palestinians submit U.N. statehood bid
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DS
Time to dispel a few of the usual rumours about the end of WW2:
a/ Japan was NOT finished militarily. To the contrary, the IJA was stockpiling men and materiel in Kyushu for more than a year. The air force had assembled more than 10,000 aircraft to be used as kamikaze. Look up the operation by the name given to it by the Japanese general staff, Operation Ketsu-Go.
b/ Japan was NOT ready to surrender. See above military preparations. Also, the complete disregard of the Potsdam Declaration which spelled out exactly what would happen to Japan. Also not that the final decision by the Japanese war cabinet to stop the war was a split decision, which needed the totally unprecedented intervention of the Emperor to come to a decision.
c/ there was NO time or need for a "demonstration bomb". The US had only 3 working atomic weapons. One was used as a test in New Mexico, which left 2 for use in combat. There was no way that one would be dropped in the ocean on the off chance that enough high ranking people would see it. They had to be used in combination to give the (false) impression that the US had loads of weapons and was waiting to use them.
d/ Other options: continued firebombing, more civilian casualties. Invasion, millions of civiilan casualties. Continuing blockade, more civilian casualties due to starvation.
Sorry, what was that painless alternative again?
Posted in: Do you consider the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be war crimes?
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DS
If Afghans are so easily duped and used by power hungry mullahs, maybe we had better just leave them alone and let them kill one another. An American Christian did something that insulted them, so in turn they murder 4 Nepalese Hindus and a variety of Europeans. Two weeks later.
Posted in: Afghans riot as anti-foreign resentment grows over Quran burning in Florida
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...and Jones would say that HIS root cause was 9/11. Or the London subway bombings. Or the attack on the marine barracks in Beirut. Or.....
get the picture?
The consequences are squarely on the shoulders of those who did the killing, and those who whipped them into a frenzy. Or are you one of those racists who think that Muslims are so immature and barbarous that they are incapable of controlling themselves, incapable even of targetting the person who so insulted them?
Posted in: Afghans riot as anti-foreign resentment grows over Quran burning in Florida
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DS
If you want to blame anyone, blame the imams who whipped the faithful into a frenzy at Friday prayers. THEY are the ones who overstated what happened, much like the "mohammed cartoon" controversy a few years back. The original story wasn't controversial enough, so they (the imams) made up even more extreme cartoons and displayed them.
As far as I'm concerned, Afghanistan isn't worth one more dollar or drop of blood. Offer to give refugee status to those Afghans who want to leave and are in danger (such as women or professionals) and then abandon the place. Battle Royale for those who choose to stay behind.
Posted in: Afghans riot as anti-foreign resentment grows over Quran burning in Florida