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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- 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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- Business Teaching Positions - Part-time - Kanto Region
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥3,000 ~ ¥5,000 / Hour
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Klein2
"Good thing we captured Osama Bin Laden, that's all I have to say. Without that, I mean, it all would have been for nothing, right?"
"look how quickly the US was able to track down and capture bin laden"
Dude. You stole my gag. I sentence you to rereading my rants entirely before you can post again.
Um. Now I have to write something on topic. Has anyone considered what MASSIVE must mean? I mean, before 9/11 there was ECHEL*N by the NSA, which already gave them surveillance of all internet email traffic, if memory serves. Then we already knew that the telecoms had been held harmless for surrendering phone call numbers and times. We know that cellular phones can be monitored locally, and that various switching stations can be monitored for their logs of calls. Sheesh, what is left? I mean aside from JT forums.... ooops.
Posted in: Bush surveillance program was massive, report says
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Klein2
Noirgaijin.. uh ditto that, for want of a better phrase. Went to lunch yesterday and watched a very young couple, 23 tops... but probably closer to 19.. who knows. They took great care of their tot, but they seemed to be dressed pretty poorly for the 3000 yen entrees they were forking down. Not as stark as seeing strollers at 11 pm, but I have seen that too. Grandparents' money makes things go smoothly, I am sure, but lacking that, this is no country for young fathers or mothers.
Griff. I think you hit the nail right on the head, but you present a chicken and egg problem. My bright idea is that if you cannot give a decent labour market to people seeking opportunities, then you won't have good parents, or even children for that matter. We ought to be helping the parents instead of trying unsuccessfully to help the kids.
These parents don't deserve my sympathy, but look at everyone baying for blood on this thread, showing how far we have come from the days of Dickens: Have they no refuge, no resource? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
Posted in: 22-year-old couple arrested for burning 2-year-old son with hair dryer
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Klein2
Sarge, Regarding your "how many terrorist attacks" rejoinder, everyone else seems to shy away from stating it this way. Why has America changed everything about itself and its relations with the world based on 3000 lives give or take and four jets and some Manhattan real estate?
How can everything be justified by 9/11? If someone had told me that over 10000 US military people were going to be killed and maimed in unpopular wars, creating millions of civilian casualties and refugees, alienating the US among all nations, impoverishing the state, putting military personnel in charge of transportation, and trashing Americans' and others' human rights, ETC. who would have honestly agreed to that? Just the man hours lost to TSA and bankrupting of the airlines have GOT to be worth more than what was lost on 9/11, right? Good thing we captured Osama Bin Laden, that's all I have to say. Without that, I mean, it all would have been for nothing, right?
9/11 horrible? Sure. But what happened to my America? Look around. Surely a nation must be more valuable than 3000 people and some assets, right? This is a debacle. We have been manipulated by bunglers. And all the people who saw it coming were derided, shouted down, and pilloried as the US rushed headlong to squander its greatest treasures, sacrifice its sons, and pawn its future to the Chinese.
I can rant no more. Please Sarge, the boilerplate is just not doing the job anymore. For someone who watched CNN for three weeks after 9/11, maybe the last 8 years make sense, to someone reading the newspapers, though, it seems like one mistake after another. Why does remembering 9/11 have to mean forgetting everything that happened before or since?
Posted in: Bush surveillance program was massive, report says
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Klein2
This stuff makes me go ballistic!! Who scrapped probable cause? Where did that go?
"Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the “President’s Surveillance Program” did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the “mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile.”"
I think that there is the MERE POSSIBILITY that someone used the Constitution as toilet paper for no apparent reason other than to show that they could. And that person is "The President" as identified above.
Good thing that they got all this information safe and sound in US government computers, which are being hacked daily by Chinese and North Koreans. Did anybody ever suggest that merely gathering these data could have presented a security hazard?? Everyone knows about CLEAR going bankrupt, right? The data of 250,000 frequent travellers, down to SS numbers, retina scans, and fingerprints were provided by people so that the TSA could use it. Now that CLEAR is bankrupt, nobody knows what is going to happen to the data.
This has it all. Stupidity, arrogance, fraud,.. It makes me want to scream I told you so... at the top of my lungs.
Posted in: Bush surveillance program was massive, report says
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Klein2
You know, before anyone gets on here and says "only in Japan" or "I will never understand", let me just tell you to see this movie. I know I am a johnnie come lately, but REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. There is a line in the movie, something like I DO NOT WANT TO BE THAT KID, which speaks volumes about how an ordinary couple come to lose control of their lives. FWIW, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet(t?) are in it. They are excellent, but I know that they put some people off. Don't be put off.
The movie presents a lifestyle not unlike what we have in Saitama or Chiba or Kanagawa today, but it is based on a book written in 1961 I believe, and it was co produced by the BBC.
In short, kids get abused as an indirect result of ennui and nihilism, which is an indirect result of Marxian alienation. Of course it is a terrible thing, but the line separating GREAT parents and TERRIBLE parents is a lot thinner than you might think. Unfortunately, it is all too understandable in any modern culture. Just saw the movie last night, so it is resonating when I read stuff like this.
Posted in: 22-year-old couple arrested for burning 2-year-old son with hair dryer
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Klein2
The CIA must provide congressional overseers any materials they request. They have too much influence and capabilites not to be overseen. This was made very clear when they were created. Whatever the congressional oversight panel chooses to do is not my concern, frankly, but the CHECK has to take place before any BALANCING can be done, get it? If the CHECK does not occur, then this republican democracy does not even have a chance.
For Cheney or anybody in a position to do hiring and firing at the CIA to tell CIA people to do otherwise is criminal. It is a breach of the public trust.
This is not a minor point. This is not an accounting error. It is a(n) usurpation of checks and balances, and that should never happen. It is not what the founding fathers would have wanted. It is bad enough that wars do not get declared anymore, if you want to make the CIA opaque, then you are letting a small group of unaccountable people invent truth. Wrong. No. It has to be stopped. It has to be punished.
Posted in: Democrats suggest CIA concealment broke law
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Klein2
"The climate bill passed by the House last month requires power plants, factories, refineries and electricity and natural gas distributors to reduce the emissions linked to global warming. It also calls for more power production from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy, and raises energy-efficiency standards."
This is a threat to the economy? I keep waiting for the Republican party to change its tune and denounce the policies that subsidized SUVs and GM and fossil fuels... guess not. If not, I will continue to hang all of that on Republicans. America is a joke on environmental issues and the Republicans would have continued that if Obama had not been elected. Check! Glad Mrs. Palin clarified that for us.
Posted in: Palin calls Obama energy plan a threat to economy
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Klein2
People this is no laughing matter. Remember about two years ago a guy took a big truck down a shopping mall and killed five or six people.
Posted in: Truck thief gets away after crashing into five police cars in Chiba
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Klein2
"i agree with this although it is a little off topic. hysteria about paedophilia does more damage than paedophilia itself. however, i think there is a world of difference between wanting to work in primary education, and wanting to look at prepubescent girls in bikinis"
Well. Uh. Thanks for agreeing I think, Griff.
My point is not off topic at all. If the debate is whether or not we should, as a society, prohibit stripteases of prepubescent girls for money, then we should consider that we are not just protecting 12 year old girls from their greedy mothers, or protecting leering perverts from themselves. Legal restrictions would protect people in primary education from being accused of impropriety. They would protect all adults, especially men, as they form perfectly normal relationships with young people. Making clear restrictions about what is acceptable and what is not does not merely benefit law enforcement in nabbing the bad guys. It draws a line around a whole bunch of other activities and relationships and says: THIS IS OK. That is my point.
Moderator: Stay on topic please.
Posted in: Innocence lost: the dark side of Akihabara
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Klein2
Ahem. Well, it seems that I always tag onto dead threads. What possibly could be added that is worthwhile? It is this. Society is not filled with demons and angels. For every person who wants to take Japan back to Edo, there are probably 10 who want it to get more in line with what some people would believe are civilized standards. You all go debate that if you want. Personally, I think that both have their merits, but what is the best solution? I think almost any solution.
The rest of us live in the real world, and similarly to obscenity laws in the US, we know sick when we see it. For society to guard ANY relationship between a man and a young girl or young boy, it is necessary to define what is inappropriate MOST clearly. Appropriate laws and vigilance in upholding them prevent so much more damage to people ohter than the Akihabara tots and the hen na oyaji. You ever seen an old movie where a 60 year old guy hangs out in a park watching kids and remembering when he was young? There is a scene that will never play again. These days the cops show up soon in such situations.
The social need for order and healthy human interaction by all members of society far outweighs the desire on the part of a few for fetishism with children who have no comprehension of what they are doing. Stronger laws in this regard would benefit everyone in my opinion.
Just as a recent example, do you know what really bugs me about Michael Jackson? For the record, he was acquitted of charges of inappropriate sexual conduct with minors. Putting that aside, what really bugs me is the number of people who believe that it is just SICK for him to want to be around kids at all. People who want to be near children and enjoy them are being labelled as SICK because the law is not doing a good enough job of defining strict limits. It is wrong that someone cannot have a normal relationship because they are automatically labeled as abnormal by a society that judges that there must be some impropriety in someone over 30 having a conversation with a 6 year old.
So go back to name calling: someone is a pervert and someone else is destroying liberty. For myself, I know that there are all kinds of possibilities for normal healthy relationships between young and old people, and I would like those to be protected, not destroyed, in all of this controversy.
Posted in: Innocence lost: the dark side of Akihabara
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Klein2
Oh brother. Nothing in the post above should be grayed.
Posted in: GM exits bankruptcy; CEO vows better performance
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Klein2
"Known for its sluggish decision-making process and bloated management ranks, GM will create a single, eight-member executive committee to speed up day-to-day decision-making, replacing two senior leadership forums"
I see nothing in the article about UAW taking management posts. Where did you get that Kwaabish?
Posted in: GM exits bankruptcy; CEO vows better performance
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Klein2
You know, this is Iran Contra and Watergate all over again. Stonewall stonewall stonewall, then set up a fall guy, then wait for people to lose interest. If it does not happen, try to move it to a political arena.
But it all comes back to Republican administrations taking liberties WAAAAY beyond what they are allowed under the Constitution, and then making everybody go through a lot of trouble pinning it down. I mean Clinton's transgression was an extramarital beej.... and it was not even in the Oval Office. Did not affect my life one bit. I am a beej and let beej kind of guy... but messing with oversight, wiretapping, break ins, arms deals, and mucking around with sacred institutions... Why is it always Republicans doing this stuff? Just because they get caught more? Don't think so.
Posted in: Cheney told CIA not to discuss counterterrorism program
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Klein2
Congressional oversight was part of the original deal to create the CIA. It makes sense. It is necessary. Saying that covert operations can be undertaken with no oversight and no accountability would set a clock ticking for the end of democracy in America. That is no exaggeration. Truman and Eisenhower, early in the Cold War, were not too keen on it in the first place, accepting it as a necessary EVIL. Get it? Its mission is so antithetical to American ideals that its mission was distinctly NOT to spy on Americans. Hoover was all too willing to do that anyway.
The Bush surveillance effort should be reviewed very strictly. Already, we know that phone companies had all of their records accessed illegally, and that they are being held harmless for that. But who IS being prosecuted for that? Nobody I guess. We know that the CIA has usurped its mandate NOT to investigate US citizens by now claiming that any communication with a foreign point of telecommunication can be accessed. Meaning that an American in Tokyo calling his American grandmother in Paris can have the conversation monitored, with data collected, analyzed, and stored in any manner desired, and for any purpose. That would be the same grandmother who gets cavity searched by armed guards when she boards a plane from Newark.
If being very nit-picky about oversight is the way for Americans to claw their way back up the slippery slope Bush sent them hurtling down, then I am for it 100%. The modes of data collection were sufficient to have prevented 9/11. The management was not. What do we have now? More data collected by whatever means available, with the same old crummy management. That says to me that the new surveillance programs were probably intended for something other than national security, but I cannot be sure.
And finally, I give SmithinJapan full permission to call em as he sees em, as an honorary American. Non-Americans have been far too polite in the past in addressing such issues, then recoiling in horror as nightmare after nightmare parades from America into the headlines. If he wants to stand up and say his piece, keeping the US and Dick Cheney honest, so to speak, then let him do it. I shudder to think that if Cheney and company had had their way, only Canadians would have been able to dissent by now, anyway.
Posted in: Cheney told CIA not to discuss counterterrorism program
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Klein2
"spitting in swimming pools" What was the movie I saw where a guy in a public pool spit out a band-aid? I suppose linking polite behavior to generally good public hygiene would move its success on a little more. All that nose picking in public transportation can't be too good for the bacteria count.
"waltzing out of bathroom stalls and sashaying past bathroom sinks where they cant be troubled to WASH THEIR HANDS after wiping!!!"
How can we be so sure they are wiping? Knowing that men do not wash their own underwear, levels of common decent hygiene would have no reliable lower limit if it were not for frauen.
Posted in: Older men up in arms over slovenly female behavior
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Klein2
I can imagine that finding silly drunk Americans is like shooting ducks in a barrel in Roppongi, hence the problem. Easier marks for a shifty foreigner than a Japanese person by a long shot. How many credit cards is a Japanese person likely to have after all? What American credit company is going to refuse a charge in Tokyo at 2 am? A Japanese credit company will call the bar and ask to talk to you... haha.
Posted in: U.S. Embassy issues new warning over drink-spiking in Roppongi
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Klein2
"Basically, when they go abroad they act as if they are visiting a relative or a friends house. They are quiet and keep their manners on at all times."
Yep. If I were in the tourism industry, I would always smile at seeing busloads of Japanese drive up. They spend. They don't even hardly look at prices. They buy kitsch by the suitcase-ful. They are not going to bother other guests at hotels or steal the towels. They will not try to immigrate, and they will not have passport or other problems. They don't pass funny money. They don't even have kids anymore. Other people who have travelled with Japanese know what I am talking about. They get the best service wherever they go because the locals know that if word of DANGER or POOR SERVICE gets back to JTB or kuchikomi in Japan, the gravy train will stop somewhere else.
Which is as it should be.
Posted in: Pushy French are world's worst tourists; Japanese are top: study
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Klein2
"Honestly I don't believe anything will be done about this problem so I honestly think we should all just boycott Roppongi until this problem is resolved." There you go. A voice of reason from out of the din. Everyone else seems to think that life without a few overpriced milliliters of alcohol would be unbearable. Alternatively, going without credit cards and keeping a few notes in your shoe would be a stinky but practical solution.
Posted in: U.S. Embassy issues new warning over drink-spiking in Roppongi
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Klein2
Sicklittlemonkey, you make an excellent point.
If everyone has these urges, and we acknowledge that they can be destructive because one party cannot legally consent to fulfilling the urges, then the weaker party must be protected. In this case, the girl must be protected even from her own parents if the parents stand to benefit.
Personally, I do not have these urges, and I do not understand how desiring to have sex with prepubescent kids is less weird than desiring the same with animals. A lot of people would agree with me. The easiest way to keep the THOUGHT POLICE at bay is to recognize that on THIS side of the line, you can do and think what you want. On THAT side of the line, you are a perv who is going to get locked up. That line needs to be clarified a lot better in Japan. And I say that what is happening in Akihabara is way over on the sick side of the spectrum. Anyone who has a normal social relationship with a woman, especially a young woman, would understand that.
Posted in: Innocence lost: the dark side of Akihabara
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Klein2
50 old men crowded around a 13 year old yelling as she takes her clothes off.
That is just so wrong in so many ways. You can wiggle and justify all you want, but that is not something a 13 year old chooses to do for fun or money. Somebody is exploiting that. Somebody is committing a crime or thinking of committing one. It is misogyny. It is misandry. It is dehumanizing.
Just think for one moment what the girl would see. What she would think. How would that change her forever? Leering grandpas. 50 of them. With money.
Where is the victim you can't see? I have a few. Somewhere, someday soon, there will be a man who sees a girl crying for her mother. Rather than doing the normal thing and going to help the child, he is going to turn and walk away quickly because he does not want someone to see him with the child and think that he is some kind of pervert. A man at the beach taking pictures of his family will be approached by the cops because he is a middle aged guy with a camera, on a beach. Some guy on a train being blackmailed by a young woman threatening to tell someone he groped her. Pay the money or lose your job? An eikaiwa school will have to have two teachers for every class because who knows what kinds of claims will come from some parent about a (male) teacher. Will children, by default, have less and less contact with normal men of any age? A whole set of innocent people become suspicious all of a sudden when you condone this kind of indecency. Drawing lines allows us to have freedom of action within limits. Blurring the lines makes everyone a criminal.
If people have to have their sick magazines, well, that is freedom of the press, I guess, but doing kiddie strip shows in Akihabara is way way over the line, and it is damaging to them and to us.
Posted in: Innocence lost: the dark side of Akihabara