JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- 秘書及び業務サポート
- 加治金属工業株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M / Year
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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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- ALT - Mie Prefecture - Yokkaichi City - June start
- NPO法人グローバル教育推進機構（GLAD), Mie
- Salary: ¥230,000 / Month For a full working month. Some months differ.
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GJDailleult
Why is a bad thing to spend your way out of a recession, if it wasn't a bad thing to spend your way into one? And by the way, this foreign-born, self-appointed expert on American economic issues doesn't think Obama and the Dems can "fix" the US economy. I think he can't, they can't, and that you're toast. And before the inevitable "Obama is taxing and spending and wasting my tax dollars with his big bad Democratic welfare state government" posts start coming, I'll say it again. He won't be spending your tax dollars - they're already spent, as are all your future tax dollars. He'll be spending Chinese money and Japanese money and money from all the other countries that need to keep the USA from collapsing to keep from collapsing themselves.
Posted in: Obama pushing hard for economic stimulus plan
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GJDailleult
Ok...Question 1, Korea and Greece both seem to have this same idea of themselves as "homogeneous" countries too, and no doubt there are a few other countries that do too. Depends how far back in time you want to go to find where different ethnic groups mixed to make the present "all parts the same" population (and if they really are all parts the same or just saying they are) as to whether they fit the definition of homogeneous or not.
Question 2, you are right, the definition is not useful in the context of social demographics. But that is because people are using a word that doesn't mean what they are using it to mean, not because of the definition. What they are really talking about is a "high degree of homogeneity within a population". Completely different concept from "homogeneous". In other words, people should say what they mean. Mixing the terms up means that people can then make up their own rules about what is "homogeneous", and then use the word incorrectly for their own advantage.
Posted in: Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity
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GJDailleult
Nessie - you can't change the definition of a word just because the definition doesn't fit the way you want to use the word. "Homogeneous" is an absolute state adjective like "dead" or "finished", and you can't use it with words like more or remarkably. Unlike say "big", which has different degrees of "bigness" - ie. "that guy has a remarkably big dog". Using them with homogeneous is like saying "my grandmother is remarkably dead" or "I am more finished than you", and is not English. Claiming that Japan is close enough to being homogeneous to be called "homogeneous" is like leaving work 15 minutes before your shift ends because your shift is "finished".
Posted in: Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity
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GJDailleult
No it isn't. It is coming from China, which has no choice because if the USA collapses they do to. It is also coming from Japan and any other country which is either in the same boat, or just foolish enough to buy US debt. It is not coming from the US taxpayer. Their tax money was spent a long time ago.
And Roger2 - No, not everybody knows the USA is bankrupt, and you should know that if you read the comments on this website. That is why you see all the whinging about taxes and the nanny state and Democrats and blah, blah, blah. It is like a horror movie where some guys sit around and plot how to get even with the popular new guy at school, but never notice the psychotic axe-murderer peering in the window.
Posted in: Obama touts economic aid plan's impact on average Americans
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GJDailleult
If Liddell had said that "Japan is remarkably close to being homogeneous" there would be no problem. But he didn't, he said it was "remarkably homogeneous", which is nonsensical gibberish. Combine that with his questionable understanding and /or use of the words "strident" and "progressive", and it is pretty reasonable to ask just who is grinding the axe. Now maybe his review is spot on. I don't know cause I ain't read the book, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Posted in: Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity
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GJDailleult
Strident (from Dictionary.com)- having a shrill, irritating quality or character: a strident tone in his writings. Yep, "Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity" is sure one "strident" title. And isn't saying that something is 98.43% homogeneous the same as saying it is not homogeneous? If it isn't 100% the same then it isn't homogeneous.
Posted in: Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity
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GJDailleult
The way things are going Americans are going to be lucky to have a bicycle in every garage. Forget about cars. Not quite how globalization was supposed to work is it.
Seriously though, I don't quite get how you deal with the effects of a burst credit bubble by spending money you borrowed from China.
Posted in: Obama touts economic aid plan's impact on average Americans
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GJDailleult
What's with the beard comments. Bearded just means they are probably fundamentalists and not moderates. What else did you expect?
Posted in: Hamas says it's back in control of the Gaza Strip
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GJDailleult
Well we don't have to worry about that now, we already got one of them.
As for man-made global warming, the last two hundred years (a mere blip in earth time)has seen human activity that never existed before, with all kinds of junk being pumped into the atmosphere. This activity either has a negative effect of some still unknown impact or it has no effect. Whether Antarctica is warming or cooling is irrelevant to answering that, because nobody knows what the natural cycle is in the first place.
Posted in: Antarctica joins rest of globe in warming
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GJDailleult
Wolfpack - Don't you know that the pro-life movement is all about protecting the life of the fetus, oops, I mean unborn child, and is no way way an attempt by religious zealots to "punish" women for sexual activity or discourage other women from sexual activity.
You go throwing around words like "punish" and people might start getting the wrong idea.
Posted in: Obama restates his commitment to abortion rights
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GJDailleult
You gotta wonder about a country where abortion is considered by many to be something that should be made illegal, but abstinence good and something to be encouraged. The end result of both abortion and abstinence are exactly the same - no child.
Posted in: Obama restates his commitment to abortion rights
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GJDailleult
In the last 40 years, the USA has had a Republican president for 28 of them, a mere 70% of the time. For the last 14 they have had a Republican controlled congress for 12 of them. But don't worry, I read Japan Today enough to know that all America's problems are caused by the Democrats, and the nanny state, and left-wing nutjobs. Kind of like winning a football game with 10 minutes of ball control isn't it!!!
Anyways, good luck to Obama, hopefully he is not just a one trick pony whose only real ability is the ability to get himself elected. The USA has been there, done that. And he'd better be able to live up to the rhetoric, because the real economic problems the USA is facing are huge. Of course, if JT posters want to keep going on about imaginary and / or irrelevant issues, please do. It all goes great with my morning tea.
Posted in: Obama tackles recession, war and ethics on day one
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GJDailleult
Some people seem to have lost their "Country First" buttons. What a big surprise that is.
Posted in: Obama sworn in as 44th president; speaks of 'new era of responsibility'
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GJDailleult
Seems the question here is whether bullying in Japan is a just a behavior problem, or if there is a cultural part to it too. If usaexpat is correct and Japan is the same as everywhere else, then the solution is for people, schools etc, to get their heads out of the sand and deal with the problem. If others are right and bullying is part of the culture, then nothing is going to change unless people start to examine some of Japan's cultural beliefs and attitudes (ie. what exactly is "harmony"?). And that level of self-examination probably doesn't happen in any country, not only Japan.
Posted in: 14-year-old Saitama girl commits suicide after being bullied online
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GJDailleult
I must have missed the speech where he said he was going to fix the worldwide economy. Anyways, nice to see some people are still cheering for failure. Nothing wrong with being skeptical or even cynical about Obama, but the cheering for failure bit just shows you don't know what you can't afford.
Posted in: 'Anything possible,' Obama tells roaring crowd
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GJDailleult
I agree with Sarge here 100%. Be a go-getter, develop your skills, be proactive etc. is all great advice in good times or bad times. In good economic times (in other words the last quarter century) it pretty much guarantees success, and in bad economic times it gives you a big advantage over the less skilled and more passive types. But no guarantees. It doesn't matter how many skills you have, if the demand for those skills suddenly drops due to falling demand for the product or the financial situation of the employer, then you are in the same boat as everybody else. I think that IF things continue to deteriorate as they are, then in the next few years a whole lot of people who now think they are immune from what is going on due to their "skill set" and "go-getter" mentality are going to get a big shock. The rules are changing, simple as that.
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GJDailleult
When I head off to work today to serve my punishment for Adam's sins in the Garden of Eden, I will gaze at all the happy Japanese salarymen around me with envy, for they are working because for them it is good and important to do so!!!
By the way, Adam's punishment was more accurately "forced labor" than "labor". It seems he was forced to work to get food, even though before that wasn't necessary. Another example of forced labor might be, say, having to work in a coal mine! Anyways, hope the world media has fun with this latest piece of nonsense from Aso-san.
Posted in: Aso says world religions can learn from Japan
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GJDailleult
I guess we can safely assume that George Bush is not a JT poster in his spare time then.
Posted in: Obama has lunch with four U.S. presidents
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GJDailleult
A better question than whether or not the spending is needed is will it actually work. This is pretty much uncharted territory for the USA and for everybody else, and the problems are about a lot more than just Bush and US politics.
Posted in: Obama says trillion-dollar deficits may last years
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GJDailleult
Ah yes them darn Democrats! Talking gibberish about the "ownership society", and running countries like Iceland into the ground with their evil Ponzi schemes. Just think what damage they can do now that they actually have power!
Posted in: Obama arrives in Washington for busy week