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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Klein2
Of course it is a popular decision. The mob cheers. But whenever one man can seize on some lame opinion of a committee of scientists gazing at their navels and shut down a billion dollar operation that is SAFE, then we should all be afraid. OF HIM!
Next time a plane crashes and kills 400 times as many people as have died in Fukushima, will he shut down the airports nationwide and declare a state of national emergency? Who will stop him? Logic and precedent will be on HIS side, after all.
Posted in: Do you think Prime Minister Naoto Kan made the right decision when he asked Chubu Electric to shut down the Hamaoka nuclear plant which stands in an area where a magnitude-8 earthquake is strongly projected?
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Klein2
No. It was illegal, confiscatory, and based on spurious speculation that was NOT intended for use in support of this kind of policy.
He is a demagogue. He made this decision to save his party and destroy due process.
Posted in: Do you think Prime Minister Naoto Kan made the right decision when he asked Chubu Electric to shut down the Hamaoka nuclear plant which stands in an area where a magnitude-8 earthquake is strongly projected?
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Klein2
Just to step out of this and give some perspective, has anyone seen "Charlie Wilson's war"? OK. It is Hollywood, I admit, but interesting Hollywood.
In the very early 80s, Pakistan was instrumental in channeling Israeli weapons paid for by Saudi money into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. They have been taking a cut ever since. A big cut. For 30 years now. Then as now, they have a HUGE interest in keeping the good times rolling. Seriously, what else has this country got going for its future?
Bin Laden was worth 25 million to the guy who shot him, but it is no exaggeration to say that he was worth 25 BILLION to the Pakistan nation. So they are bummed. Somebody killed their goose that lays golden eggs. The attack to get Bin Laden was the right thing to do. They should protest, but not too much.
Posted in: Pakistan warns U.S. of supply line cut if missile attacks don't stop
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Klein2
"Pirates" at Cannes. Like a Prius at the Indy 500.
Posted in: Depp steers 'Pirates' into critical seas of Cannes
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Klein2
Very not news. This happened on 3.11. Tepco said a few days later that this possibly happened. Radiation in the water showed that it probably happened.
Big deal. So what. They have a mess to clean up. They are cleaning up the mess. What has changed? Nothing. This whole article is forensics.
I have another Newsflash everyone: The Titanic hit an iceberg. I heard over a thousand people are dead.
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Klein2
Not late, I would say. Just in time.
Two months, people. It has been two months. These people still in the shelters are practically a smorgasbord for graft, corruption, and any kind of exploitation you might think of. I might just as well add endless proselytizing as another hazard of shelter life.
These people should be moved to real homes in real communities as soon as possible. Most would be better off just starting over.
Having police is a good move, but a weird dynamic might be starting. Are they going to be watching the outsiders, or the residents? WIll they be used more and more to settle disputes? They probably should not get involved in that. These shelters might be turning into pseudo-societies, like prisons. Already, they are filled by people with no jobs, no households to speak of, an ambiguous social role, no plans, no consumption decisions or choices. I think these places are pathological.
Posted in: Temporary police booth established in Fukushima evacuee shelter
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Klein2
I knew this was going to happen by about 3.20. This region cannot except all the cast off clothing of an entire planet.
What is "this problem?" To alleviate this problem, donation of clothing should be left to LOCAL donations only in the future. Seasons, fashions, etc. are best matched from people in the region, and I am SURE that enough was donated from Japan that it alone was sufficient.
As for THIS problem, Fadamor seems to have the right idea, but it won't work. The fan heaters are a hazard to store in huge numbers. The clothes will go out of style. (Imagine surviving a tsunami and then having to wear bellbottoms or overalls for the next three weeks.) In this humidity, it will cost more to store them than they are worth, and some will get all moldy no matter what you do.
The best thing to do is probably to .... well.... why not let the experts handle it? Hard Off, Book off, used clothing stores. Let them each have a truckload and try to put it into their pipeline. They will have to hire and train employees to sort, clean, fold, etc. The gift of jobs would be helpful, and the items will not just go to waste.
I went to a makeshift landfill in Sendai this week. People are throwing away thousands (millions?) of tons of stuff. Stuff. And more stuff. Sodai gomi paradiso. I talked with this cute attendant there. I asked her if it was good to see people who were cleaning up and getting their lives started again. No. Her first comment was, "Sugoi Mottainai!!" Uh huh. By the way, there was a fire at one of these places in Sendai last week, which highlights the dangers of storing fan heaters and spontaneous combustion that can occur when you try to stockpile anything.
Stuff needs to be reused, then recycled. Distribution is the problem, not accumulation.
Posted in: Some disaster-hit areas have had to stop accepting donated items because of a lack of storage space? What can be done to alleviate this problem?
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Klein2
Oh no. An "out of control" "nuclear crisis" that has neither killed nor injured anyone.
Well, if Kan can't save us from this calamity, he certainly should be lashed with a wet noodle.
It would all be harmless fun if there weren't more serious issues to be tackled. Cleo alludes to that, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Frankly Kan can't do jack about Fukushima, so he ought to do something else for the rest of the country.
And while the rest of Japan is watching paint dry in Fukushima, we in the rest of Tohoku are watching the death toll INCH to 15000. It was at 14987 today, so only a few more bodies to go before we hit the magic number. Then maybe Kan will care. I doubt it.
I find it odd that people are transfixed by a non-disaster as they ignore the real one. Manipulated by media much, everyone?
Posted in: Kan to forgo PM's salary until nuclear crisis brought under control
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Klein2
Yes becq, and no millisiev. I learned the latter quickly as a matter of life and death, and I had to do it from the katakana, with no internet. I had a CRC, luckily, and some other resources.
I understand the latter well enough to make life and death decisions for me and my family now, which I guess makes me an expert.
Posted in: Before the nuclear crisis that followed the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, did you know what becquerels and millisieverts were? If not, do you know their significance now?
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Klein2
Lady Gaga would have come to the premiere.
Just before he did 21 Jump Street, Johnny Depp was living in his car. Now he is just too busy to come to Japan when its people obviously would love to see him make the effort.
I think it is pretty clear what Depp is saying to Japan: "What have you done for me lately?"
Posted in: Depp sends message to Japan at 'Pirates' world premiere
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Klein2
Wonderful. Three reasons we are all doomed.
First, Japan's national government is ignoring the real disaster in Tohoku. 15k residents dead (and counting) and Nagatacho dithers about a few millisieverts more or less.
Second, Japan's national government is transfixed by a disaster that never happened (Fukushima Daiichi-- the disaster that killed nobody and injured nobody) and a disaster that "might happen in 30 years, maybe, right?" in Hamaoka.
Third, and this is a biggie, somebody gives a darn about what the New York Times has to say about Japanese affairs. The old gray lady has turned into an ugly witch that cannot even spell correctly.
This is not "the new Kan". It is the same old Kan and the DPJ. Talk big, do nothing, and watch the polls.
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Klein2
"WilliB, yes, there is a sizeable and non-crackpot school of thought that there is no safe dose (the "linear no-threshold model"). That includes no safe dose background radiation. In other words, you're better off in a place with lower natural background radiation than higher"
WIlliB makes lucid, logical, and correct comments.
This stuff above from badmigraine is just panic mongering. This "THERE IS NO SAFE DOSE" is tripe. I grew up in an area with higher background radiation than most of Fukushima and there is NO higher incidence of cancer there. None. ZiP. People are healthier there than in most of the US. Unquestionably. Big Macs will do more health damage to the people of Japan than Fukushima Daiichi. That is a fact. Acetominophen has killed more people in Japan than Fukushima Daiichi ever will. Another fact.
So people say, "we don't know enough about low levels over a long period of time". That is horse fat. The stuff that Madame Curie dosed herself with (radium/radon) seeps up out of the ground in many places in the US. Its effects and its lack of effects have been documented for many decades. There is nothing new about this, and the levels in Fukushima are measurable with very accurate and reliable instruments.
People are trying to focus on risk and uncertainty. Well duh. No government is going to promise that someone who has been smoking three packs of smokes a day is not going to get cancer... LUNG cancer. But low background levels are not "unhealthy". If they were we would know it. And they aren't.
And TEPCO IS going about things the best way possible. There is not a tool for everything they have tried to do, so they make them. They have ignored bad advice time and time again. I admire them. Go watch Apollo 13 if you want a lesson on how great a job they are doing. They know their mission and they were dealt a losing hand by the tsunami. They have attacked the problem with aplomb. Nobody in Fukushima has died from Fukushima Daiichi radiation and that is entirely because of TEPCO's efforts. That is just indisputable.
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Klein2
I suspect a lot of this is New York bias. Letterman and Steward and the others really really took the attacks personally, and are savoring the vengeance aspect of it.
It is odd that people see this as a milestone or watershed of some kind. I always thought that the goals of the war on terruh were so much greater than one man, so I paid attention to the geopolitical ebb and flow. I thought OBL was dead a long time ago. He was not that important, I thought. But, I guess it turns out that most people view this as some big football game. Now I wonder why I had assumed otherwise.
What I am even more sure about is that 9/11 did something awful to the American spirit. People should be looking forward to the next victory, and the next, instead of just gloating over this and then joking about it. I think my viewpoint is a lot like that of that SEALS themselves. You go in, do your job, and move on. Everyone else is having a party and doing the back slapping, as though they had some part in it. Like fans after a football game.
I was actually AT a football game when Noriega's capture was announced. It was bizarre to see the cheering for that kind of political victory at a sports contest. It was not a juxtaposition at all. The announcement fit the mood perfectly, and the cheers blended right in. And nobody ever ever gave thought to the fact that Noriega had been OUR guy once, just as OBL was. Like Randy Moss or Brett Favre, Noriega and OBL got traded to the other team some time ago, so of course you root against them, and you cheer all the harder when they get nailed in a tackle. Now people are wondering if "the tuck rule" should have been enforced in this case, right?
But good thing our team won, eh? Woo hoo!
Posted in: Bin Laden's death provides fodder for U.S. TV late-night hosts
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Klein2
"get some signs in japanese though as the english speaking community is one of the smallest minorities in"
Ah but Sharpie, maybe the goal is not to collect funds, but to SHOW AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE that they are collecting funds.
Maybe I am a tad too cynical, but I would say that a lot of aid organizations need funding more than people in Ishinomaki need a hot meal these days.
Posted in: Peace effort
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Klein2
It looks weird to me. Could the drug and counterfeit trade IN Nork be that profitable that these guys would risk it? Even assuming that the companies were bogus fronts, these guys were suits, not hippies.
So why are three guys in suits doing trade with Norks in drugs and counterfeit bills? Kim can't even buy tractor parts for his people.
Well, we will never hear their side of the story, unless Masaki Furuya has something to say.
Posted in: N Korea detains 2 Japanese over drugs, counterfeit money
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Klein2
It is a good article about the frustration a lot of people feel in Tohoku. We all hurried up to get our lives back to normal, now we are in this long period of waiting.... waiting.... and worrying about things over which we have no control.
Maybe it is the long hangover of the adrenaline rush of the first week. Scrambling for heat, food, clean water, then gasoline. It has all given way to wondering about rent and jobs again.
A festival or two in Sendai has been cancelled, but things will be getting back to normal soon. Some businesses have failed, and people have moved away, but as things get cleaned up, we can look forward to better times.
Posted in: Watching, a stone’s throw away in Iwate
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Klein2
YongYang might be mistaken. Assuming that you are using a laptop and a hot seat for 24 hours a day, that might be 60 W for the computer and 20 W for the hot seat, so the PC uses THREE TIMES AS MUCH!
But my wife made this mistake: the toilet seat is on ALL DAY, definitely. The PC might be used 6 hours a day, with sleep the rest of the time. The sleep phase power consumption might be 5 W or less, so the PC might actually use less power overall. In our case, my wife kept a heater in the bathroom that I think cost us 600-1000 yen during December. 24 hour a day heating is just stupid. This is exactly why a good refrigerator is money in the bank.
If it is the right kind of laptop, just keep it on the toilet seat and close the lid. It will keep things plenty warm. Ha.
If it is not a laptop, all bets are off. Old monitors use 60-100 W or more all by themselves, and the fans, hard drives, etc of desktop machines all need power too. Sleep mode with the monitor turned off is not bad, but it still does not get you to zero power consumption.
Posted in: What are you doing in your daily life to conserve electricity?
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Klein2
There are a couple of points people should remember.
First, PEAK capacity is the problem. Usually, power companies can generate enough electricity to meet demand fr0m 10 pm to about 8 am or so, but they cannot meet demand during other times. Therefore, trying to save electricity between 10p and 8a is not going to make much of a difference beyond... being green. ANd YES, consumers need to cut back. Consumers compete with businesses for that precious capacity between 8a and 10 p.
Second, heating and cooling take A LOT of electricity. If you want to heat water for tea, fill the kettle, leave it out for a few hours, and THEN heat it up. It uses a lot less electricity and takes less time to heat it up (100 W becomes 50 W). If you heat with electric carpet or electric blankets, that is ok (remember that night use is not a problem), but turn them off when the sun comes up (0.2 kWh). Microwave ovens typically use 500-700 W compared to a convection oven, which uses 1 kW or more, but microwave ovens do the cooking in 1-3 minutes, not 10-20 minutes, so they use about a tenth of the power. I try to bake and cook at night or early morning, and then reheat food for breakfast or maybe lunch. Doing laundry late at night is good too. Washer motors use a few hundred watts, usually.
Think of peak consumption and then total consumption. Use LED and CF bulbs for lights that will burn long and often. Use old incandescents for lights that get flipped on and off a few minutes each time. DONT use even a small incandescent for a night light, use an LED.
Finally, I guess, I would advise people to just do the math. Read the labels on your appliances. A slow cooker or crock pot MIGHT be better than a frying pan. The former might use 100 W for 8 hours, but the latter might use 1 kW for one hour (and remember that you want to keep PEAK usage down anyway). You might find that all the energy you are saving by scurrying around doing this or that is a fifth of what you would save by just getting a new refrigerator (if you buy on credit, the electricity savings will pay your borrowing costs). A hot toilet seat 24 hours a day is quite probably using more energy than all the lights in your apt.
"Doing the math" is what I have done for a long time, but in the last two months, I have been able to cut usage by about 30%.
Posted in: What are you doing in your daily life to conserve electricity?
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Klein2
It is news. News for the day. You know now I know it is not over? All the people dancing around in New York and Washington reminded me most of all of the dancing radicals celebrating 9/11 and victory in Iraq, and this or that "victory" someplace. There will just be more tit and more tat. Which certainly means that nothing has changed. Islamic extremism preceded him, and I have no doubt that it will continue.
Celebration? OK. But I don't see much that has changed. The death of one man is a milestone? Symbolic I guess. What is the practical significance?
This makes very little difference to my everyday life. That it matters so much to so many people surprises me. What are people feeling? A decade and thousands of deaths were leading up to this moment?
Posted in: BIN LADEN BURIED AT SEA AFTER BEING KILLED IN FIREFIGHT WITH U.S. FORCES
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Klein2
"It is awesome to see the number of people with a desire to help the stricken."
The stricken. The poor. The aged. The disabled.
All of those people used to have lives and dignity and humanity. Now they are just adjectives whom someone can feel sorry for. The shelters must seem like a zoo.
56 of 65 of the areas where people who have been displaced now reside have asked that no new volunteers come. All of those people need to get their lives in order. They need to have attention by local governments and some kind of stability and routine. However well intentioned the volunteer tourists might be, they have been asked, politely, for about 4 weeks now by my reckoning, to just stay away.
Alternatively, I know it lacks a human touch, but take a group and go stack garbage at the coast. There is all kinds of stuff scattered everywhere, and it will take money to gather it up and get rid of it all. Or go clear a train station up the coast as the US military have been doing.
Think seriously about your motivations and consider that when you are not really helping people by volunteering, you are performing a selfish act, not a selfless one.
"Most of the victims right now are receiving one meal a day."
There is no way that Hakujinsensei could know this. I believe it is false. I do not know how it could possibly be true. I see the same demagoguery rearing up now as I did a couple of weeks ago for Fukushima. Like this:
"Big misconceptions propagated by the media/authorities so they don't look bad."
Yeah. It is one big bad conspiracy delicately and skillfully handled by people who are at the same time too stupid to do their jobs right, is that it? And how about this? Families, for instance those with four kids, are being given 8.9 man per month in rent subsidies to go find homes to rent, and there are thousands of temporary homes being constructed right now, but Hakujinsensei lets this fly:
"There is not enough food and besides housing it is the greatest need right now."
And Elbuda tells us not to trust the media. ONLY TRUST HEARSAY, everyone.
"This info I am getting from volunteers (Japanese) also robberies, murders etc..are happening in these disaster areas but the regular NHK, etc..WILL NOT COVER nor BROADCAST any of this kind of news."
Wow. News organizations will not cover it. Amazing. And considering the number of police I see in those areas, this seems extremely unlikely. ElBuda, even the LOCAL papers cannot find these stories you hear about. Doesn't that seem odd to you? Don't you think a crisis of public safety, if it existed, would be reported?
But can we all consider that if ElBuda was correct, then maybe limiting the number of outsiders bothering victims day and night would be a GOOD thing, right?
I am all in favor of reinstating civil order in these areas and kicking all the do-gooders out to go do-good someplace else. If you want to help, write a letter to your rep. in Nagatacho and let them fund local governments to help their own people. I do not see how this circus of chaos and people coming and going is a good thing. Get nagatacho to fund some real companies hiring real workers who can act professionally and get to work.
Posted in: Golden Week volunteers overwhelm some disaster sites