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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Hikozaemon
Sir, you ARE right, and I was wrong - actually, I miscounted the "0"s and thought you were talking about the pile of sexy beastliness that is the 60D (want want want want).
I agree, 600D is a better name (feels a bit more "credible") than the Kiss.
Incidentally, I got the Panasonic GH1 last year, the articulated viewfinder was hard to look past, which is why I am now longingly fixated on the 60D....
By all counts though, the Kiss is a very solid camera, and of course it lets people build up their lens collection before they upgrade to a more "serious" Canon camera.
Anyway, my humblest apologies.
Peace
Posted in: A Kiss from Canon
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Hikozaemon
papasmurfinjapan, you're wrong. The "Kiss" brand corresponds to the "Rebel" brand abroad (which is almost as stupid a brand name...). The 60D exists in Japan, and is a totally different, and rather sexy, camera.
Posted in: A Kiss from Canon
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Hikozaemon
Realist - the author is torn between applauding Tokyo being the first to address easy access to extreme and harmful pornography, and saying anything positive about its governor, who the author apparently considers himself an expert enough on to make tongue in cheek references to some idea that he is a dictator in waiting.
I have read opinions supporting his, that censorship of criminal pornography is the start of a slippery slope to dictatorship - mostly on 2chan boards that are railing against the governor attempting to impose "western christian" values about morality and taking away their child incest porn.
Personally, I'm on the side of the governor on this. The ordinance is a long overdue and common sense one, the only disgrace being that the national government has so far been unable to do anything similar.
Posted in: What’s really at stake in Japan’s revised pornography laws?
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Hikozaemon
Ooh, delicious!
Posted in: What do you think of all the hype over the arrival of two pandas at Ueno Zoo? Do you think it will boost the local economy and really help Sino-Japan relations?
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Hikozaemon
Wow, I just googled it and found it. I still can't find any way to navigate to it on the site - it isn't listed under the live feeds they offer that are all blocked. I guess I should have Googled.
Posted in: NZ earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing
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Hikozaemon
I'm sorry to ask, because I want this to work obviously, but I can't see a domestic/international access option anywhere. I'm looking at the live feed page now, Silverlight is installed and I'm getting the "you're outside NZ and we can't show you" message.
Can you give me an idea of what is in the URL after TVNZ Co NZ?
Posted in: NZ earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing
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Hikozaemon
Right, that's what I went to - actually Sky News Australia was using the TV3 feed and it was very high quality.
TV3 deserves real credit, they did a great job in the circumstances.
I think you can watch video clips from TVNZ but I've never been able to get the live feed to work. I even wrote them about it and they said basically it is their policy not to broadcast full news shows outside NZ because of their agreements with overseas news organizations, which I kinda get, but it seemed ridiculous to be region-blocking live feeds of the quake. Especially when other networks don't do that.
Posted in: NZ earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing
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Hikozaemon
Really? I went to the live feed from the news page and it was "NZ Only". Perhaps I need to dig around more...
Posted in: NZ earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing
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Hikozaemon
Ishihara is right on this issue, as he is on a number of other issues, and not like how he is wrong on many others.
I don't get the tone of the column.
The author apparently is worried that censorship of kiddie porn is the road to "1984" by Ishihara. The author himself acknolwedges mid way through that all this is doing is bringing Tokyo prefecture, one very small part of Japan, slightly closer to OECD norms for regulating harmful pornography.
If the author wants to make fun of Ishihara, I can understand, why not do a column about things he has said about Chinese and Koreans, or things he has said about homeless, or gays, or whatever. But poking fun at the guy for reigning in Japan's admittedly out of control child and violent porn issue seems petty and misjudged.
I agree with the ordinance, and if the publishing industry is going to boycott Tokyo over losing the right to show incestual rape in comics that get sold at train kiosks, then like the Gov says, they shouldn't be welcome in Tokyo anyway.
I think Ishihara picked the right fight in this case, and what you can give him credit for is that unlike many other ineffectual politicians in Japan, he has shown a track record for getting things done when he says he will do them, which is why he remains popular, in spite of managing to offend nearly every race, gender and demographic outside of his own at some point in time.
Peace
Posted in: What’s really at stake in Japan’s revised pornography laws?
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Hikozaemon
Pardon me, first paragraph got a bit messed up - I just wanted to comment on the amazing quick response from the Australian federal and state governments to assist in NZ as well. And to other governments - Taiwan, Singapore, US, UK and Japan that all started providing material assistance within the first 24 hours. In what is a very difficult situation, it is reassuring to see such an orderly and committed relief effort start right away.
Some people have mentioned handling of Kobe in a disparraging light, but it is precisely because of Kobe and the extensive research into what went wrong that disasters like this are handled so much better now, in NZ and around the world, and it is a credit to Japan and the many other countries that sent help that everyone responded so quickly in such a meaningful way.
Peace
Posted in: NZ earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing
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Hikozaemon
As a worried Kiwi with family in the city, I just want to commend the amazing response, not just of emergency services and defense forces in NZ, but also from all over New Zealand.
I also am grateful for Sky News Australia offering a live feed there along with TV3, which although not altogether helpful for people still worrying about unaccounted for loved ones, still did a great job under very difficult circumstances of getting all possible information out under circumstances where the people reporting the stories were themselves victims, unsure of the safety of their own families.
Also as a Kiwi, I think TVNZ should have it's government funding stopped. It's a disgrace that they blocked coverage of the disaster from viewers outside New Zealand. We're the ones most worried, and a quarter of Kiwis live abroad, and are worried sick about people there just like everyone else. I'm very glad and appreciative that TV3 and Australian news networks, and heck, even Japanese news did a better job of getting information out to people abroad.
Everyone in my own family is safe and accounted for, and thoughts and wishes to those still unsure, or coping with loss.
Posted in: NZ earthquake toll at 98 dead, 226 missing
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Hikozaemon
The ladies should have married gaijins - then they can keep their names.
Posted in: Women file suit to keep their surnames after they marry
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Hikozaemon
China should not be worried. The People's Army has demonstrated clearly in the past that it is willing to massacre civilians in order to protect the communist party. The leaders of the military know that if the CCP is brought down, they will have just as many crimes to answer for as the leaders of the party, so everyone is locked into protecting the regime.
Tunisia and Egypt changed because the military was able to act honestly and independently to protect the best interests of the state. This isn't possible in China.
North Korea should always be worried - not afraid of a revolution from the people but the military itself. As I recall, an explosion nearly big enough to destroy an entire small town blew up a decoy train taking Kim into China a few years ago. So that's a different thing.
I would say that China is quite safe from being held to account by its people or its military.
Posted in: What do you think about the wave of anti-government protests in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Iran? Should countries like China and North Korea feel uneasy about it?
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Hikozaemon
Not sure, it sounds like the robbers could be planning to go into hiding during Spring Break in Acapoulco....
Posted in: Thieves in Malaysia steal $1.5 mil worth of condoms from Japanese company
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Hikozaemon
"Hey, you broke that condom on purpose"
"No, no honey, that's just a winky-leak..."
Posted in: Assange's Swedish sex crimes file is leaked online
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Hikozaemon
I think sumo has two choices - to deregister as a sport and take the road of Kabuki and Noh, as a kind of quasi religious cultural sports entertainment for tourists like an Edo Period WWE, or to take the road of Judo, and get rid of all the beya, all the wiping asses of senpais and fatal beatings, get rid of the mawashi, get rid of the religion and prohibitions on women, and aim to become a transparent worldwide olympic candidate sport.
As it is, sumo is dead. And it is the scumbags that have been beating up on gaijins for nothing at all for years and looking the other way at "insider traditions" that killed it. Guys like Mitsuru Yabo who was on sumo committees and said he knew about match fixing all along but didn't feel like bringing it up - even when appointed as an independent member of a committee into irregularities in Sumo.
This kills me as a sumo fan, but this really has to be the end - the last vestige of the Edo period killed by its own incompetent protectors. The people in charge of the JSA should just be glad that this happened during the Heisei period - Showa was an avid sumo fan. Who knows what would have happened to them if this had happened while he was still alive.
Posted in: After the latest scandal on match-fixing, can anything save sumo or is it a dying sport?
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Hikozaemon
Problem is that the elderly population is basically left idle by design - Japan, like most countries either needs to consider lifting the retirement age to the average life expectancy age of 79, or abandon it altogether, and focus on developing ways of keeping able elderly engaged in the economy and self sufficient.
By life expectancy figures alone, on average people spend 15 years of forced retirement and welfare dependent unemployment at the end of their lives in Japan. Declining population, mounting public debt, and elderly crime and so on, it wouldn't be popular but it is the only solution.
Posted in: Japanese prisons face swelling elderly population
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Hikozaemon
I saw this, and thought it was just a Prince Harry costume...
Posted in: Retailer Don Quijote pulls Nazi outfit after complaint
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Hikozaemon
Dear America.
Please stop acting like China.
That is all.
Peace
Posted in: Noose tightens around WikiLeaks' Assange
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Hikozaemon
She's not bad.
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