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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Noliving
Your right that is why if you read the article you would have read this:
Researchers found drivers who had used marijuana within three hours of beginning to drive had nearly double the risk of causing a collision, especially those that were fatal.
The part your quoting is to backup the claim that marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug. They are not using it to say its going to affect your ability to drive.
Posted in: Marijuana users twice as likely to cause car crash, studies show
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Noliving
Why compare with alcohol before driving? All this is is a study/analysis about the effects of marijuana before driving.
Why does it have no credibility? Because it shows that people under the influence of a substance are more likely to get into a car accident? Because it doesn't make a recommendation that Alcohol should be made illegal? Because they didn't do an analysis on the effects of alcohol, something that has been analyzed to death by now. This isn't a study about alcohol nor is it saying that marijuana should remain illegal. This is an analysis about the effects of marijuana on people when they drive. If you got an issue with the fact that alcohol is legal and marijuana is illegal take it up with government in the country you reside in.
Posted in: Marijuana users twice as likely to cause car crash, studies show
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Noliving
Is there really a difference or even matters if one attacks/invades with its military force or if it orders a proxy group that is under its complete control to do the attack for it? I don't think it does one bit. Hezbollah is under the control of Iran, meaning it chain of command takes orders from Iran not from Lebanon or Syria or even itself and that is really what matters. By your argument the bay of pigs invasion was not a US invasion of Cuba because the invasion force was not US military or even Americans even though the invasion force was funded, trained and it's chain of command answered to the US government. Your just playing with semantics at this point. So technically no it's military has not invaded another nation outside of Iraq however though it has ordered its proxy groups that are under its complete control, most notably Hezbollah, to attack other nations which is basically the same-thing as ordering its military to invade or attack another nation. One could argue using your logic that if the US military ordered the Chicago PD to start killing people that technically the US military didn't attack Chicago because it used a proxy group that was under its control and not its own members.
Posted in: Fears grow of Israeli attack on Iran
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Noliving
He actually never claimed exactly which captured soldiers were beheaded, just that the Taliban have beheaded captured soldiers and then gave examples of possible forces that have been beheaded by the Taliban.
The US maintains that moral high-ground when it punishes those within its ranks that would do actions that violate the Geneva convention. The only time the US loses that moral high-ground is when it doesn't punish those that violate the Geneva convention.
Posted in: U.S. probes video of Marines urinating on dead Taliban
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Noliving
Are you seriously that ignorant? Iran signed the NPT, which is an international binding treaty that UN enforces, which means they can't develop nuclear weapons. Basically the US is stating that the world needs to enforce the NPT treaty with Iran. If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons then the NPT is essentially worthless. Pakistan, India, and Israel never signed the NPT as a result they have the right to build nuclear weapons. Actually the US did "threaten" pakistan. Before 9/11 Pakistan was heavily sanctioned by the US for developing nuclear weapons.
Posted in: U.S. Army to withdraw 2 brigades from Europe
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Noliving
You need to educate yourself on US State laws on Self-defense more specifically its castle laws. Me personally I don't think a warning would be necessary due to fact that they knew that by physically forcing their way into a home with any-type of weapon would be met with lethal force if someone was home and capable of defending themselves. At that point it becomes more of enter at your own risk. Due to fact that it is rural Oklahoma it is considered a given that the homeowners would be armed.
Posted in: Oklahoma woman asks 911 operator for permission to shoot intruder
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Noliving
You didn't read the article did you?
Posted in: Need help avoiding hangover? Less booze, more H2O
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Noliving
Actually it is, if you go to the Kurdish controlled areas you should not be at risk to any kidnapping or violence. Well technically the mission was accomplished because that mission accomplished banner was only referring to the invasion of Iraq not the post invasion or occupation of Iraq. Seeing as the mission of the time was to over throw Saddam's government, which they had successfully done, then technically it was mission accomplished.
Posted in: Baghdad suicide bomb kills five as standoff deepens
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Noliving
How does having the Taliban in control of Afghanistan bring peace to the world or to the region in general?
Posted in: 5 Polish troops killed by bomb in Afghanistan
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Noliving
Am I the only one who hates her hair "style" in this photograph?
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Noliving
Codomo what exactly do you know of this "Islamic model" if any at all?
Posted in: Al-Qaida criticizes Japan, China over how they treat elderly
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Noliving
I disagree, they are essentially the same crime, the only difference is that the perp was successful. In order to find out the extend of rape one has to include attempted. Lets say for example there are 100 reported cases of attempted rape and 0 cases of successful rape. If one only uses the successful rape one would be naive to assume that it is safe. It shouldn't be about whether one was successful in their but their desire.
Is an attempted murder really better than a murder? No because the perp who tried to murder someone had the exact same desire and will to do it as the person who committed a murder. The only difference is that one was able to successfully kill someone. To further build off of that point, imagine two people who have the desire to kill someone and both of them are using bows and arrows. Both take aim and fire an arrow at someone, one misses and the other hits their target killing someone. Is the person who fired an arrow and missed really any different or "better/innocent" then the person who hit their target? The difference between the two is either luck or skill or a combination of the two when it comes to firing an arrow.
Posted in: 18.3% of American women have been victims of rape or attempted rape at some time: study
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Noliving
LFRAgain, Here is an article you might want to read on economy and crime rates:
www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/08/freakonomics-quorum-why-during-a-bad-economy-does-crime-continue-to-fall/
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
You do realize that I wasn't advocating the banning of private ownership of cars. I was just pointing that the argument that says cars are necessary and guns are not, as a result justifies the deaths and injuries caused by cars, which are greater than the deaths and injuries by guns, isn't true you don't actually need private ownership of cars. In fact you don't need private ownership of anything, commie alert just went off hehe. If the argument is about saving peoples lives and financial costs associated with it then banning guns doesn't make sense when private ownership of cars which is not necessary kills, wounds, and cost more money then guns. Heck the unhealthy lifestyle regarding diet and exercise is the biggest public threat in the US in terms of death and financial costs. Half a million people alone each year die from heart attacks in the US.
Theoretically that is true about economy and crime, however though for some reason crime increased during the roaring 20's but then decreased during the great recession of the 30's. The same was true during the 50's and 60's expanding economy and violent crime increased and yet the recession that stuck in 2008 and the economic stagnation for the past 3 years has shown that crime rates are falling. You could also instead just change cultural attitudes regarding crime when you are poor, Japan is a perfect example that you don't commit crime when you are poor and don't have a college degree. You could also change cultural attitudes that people should take more of an active interest in supporting people that are down on their luck like volunteering and donating supplies.
A case could be made that you would need private ownership of firearms in case the population ever needs to revolt against the state, as is the case in Libya, Syria. Of course the counter-argument is made that no armed population could ever defeat a state military to which I say what about Iraq and Afghanistan? You will always need something to defend yourself no matter how low the crime rate is. The other problem though is this, if you ban firearms you now have made 65+ million people criminals, and I can tell you that you are not going to get a very high rate of people voluntarily handing their firearms in, meaning that instead it will cost more to ban and confiscate firearms then it will to keep firearms legal because your not going to get 65+ million people in jail over the simple crime of possession and if you did can you imagine the court costs involved to just try them? Then you factor in how much money it would require just to maintain the prison system and then finally your taking out around 20% of the US workforce and putting them in jails that would devastate the US economy.
Keep this in mind, the majority of homicides in the US are related to the drug war, for example 60-70% of homicides in the city of Detroit are related to gangs fighting over the drug trade. The majority of homicides in Mexico are related to drug smuggling, meaning they are related to the drug war. What this means is that the primary motive for violent crime in the US is drugs, meaning if the US would legalize the recreational use of Pot, and go back to the policy the US had in 1919-1922 for harder drugs such as cocaine and heroine, and that is government sponsored clinics that handed out free drugs to the addicted. In fact the UN has even stated that the primary cause for corruption and crime in the Americas is the US drug war. So the point that I'm getting at is this, ending the drug war will have more impact on violent crime in the US then any gun law ever will and part of the reason for that is that there are 10k murders for the 65+ million gun owners. That means that 99.999985% of gun owners don't commit a murder, excluding suicide here, with there guns and if you include suicides and injuries then its 285k, which is less than a tenth of one percent of the US population is harmed by a gun each year, for 65+ million gun owners which means that 99.995% of gun owners don't harm a single person each year. So even if they don't need one there still being very responsible with there guns, the same is true with cars and alcohol.
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
Ok the argument that you made Hide was that private ownership of vehicles is necessary, as a result that justifies the 40K+ deaths on US highways. My point that I was making was that in fact private ownership of vehicles is in fact not necessary, if you have lived in the urban areas of Japan or France or UK or Germany or South Korea you would know that the public transportation is effective enough that you don't need a car to get around the country.
It isn't unfettered, you have to pass background checks. What I'm arguing is that the current restrictions in place are effective enough, violent crime rates have been falling for the past 15 years+, not just in per capitas but grand totals as well and that is even more impressive when you factor in that the US population has expanded 56 million people since 1991, there is no real need to apply new restrictions. Since Americans have a propensity to using force when they feel wronged, compared to other nations, then you want an effective tool or weapon to defend yourself with.
As for stating it makes no sense whatsoever, no it does make sense if you look at it from the perspective that you need to change cultural attitudes on how and when to use force. As long as you are making an active effort to change the cultural attitude about when to use force and as long as that policy is working you can keep firearms legal. In Japan guns are so heavily restricted they are pretty much illegal, yet with such heavy restrictions more people die by suicide in Japan then Americans that are murdered and by suicide. In other words more Japanese die by Suicide then the combined homicide and suicides of Americans.
Perhaps? It is a fact at least compared to 91. Its not nearly as fast but its not far behind either, in 91 murder rate was around 9.8 per 100k, today its around 4.8 or rounding down here 51% reduction in murder rate. For violent crime in general it was 758.2 in 91 now it is 403.6 per 100k, rounding down that is a 46% reduction in violent crime in general. To help put that in perspective 56 million people were added to the US population and the number of firearms added since 91 is around 50-100 million. So is it as low as 1960's? No but all indications is that it will eventually and the total number of guns will only increase. So what is the primary driving force? The answer is culture.
I disagree, your arguing with a 15 to 20 year trend in which population has increased by 18-19% and the total number of firearms has increased by around 25% with a reduction of crime in general close 46%. Which shows that Americans are in fact shedding their propensity to harm people when they feel wronged. They have they completely shed it? No but they are getting there.
Agreed, the problem though is that banning firearms or making it more difficult to get a firearm is not going to take away their desire to kill, as a result any gun law will be entirely useless if you don't take away their desire to harm someone. Again look at Japan's suicide rates, perfect example that you can restrict weapons and drugs but as long as there desire and cultural attitudes regarding suicide remains the laws are entirely worthless.
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
That is false, private ownership of vehicles is not necessary you only need public transportation. If you ban private ownership and then take the money people pay for gas, maintenance, insurance, after market parts and the cost of the car itself and put that into a tax that is used to further expand and maintain the current public transportation you wouldn't need private ownership. You could argue that you would need guns in the event that someone attacks you would want something that is effective in melee and at range to defend yourself with so it may not be something you use in your everyday lives but that doesn't mean you don't need it. For example fire extinguishers, that is not something you use in your everyday life but it is something you need to have at your house.
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
Um you didn't refute anything I said at all. All you did was just rant that there is to many drugs and guns and then went off on a tangent talking about drunken fights and how british people use fists yet you ignore the fact that America doesn't have anywhere near the same drinking culture and at the sametime since public drunkeness is looked down upon a lot more so in the US then it is in the UK drunken fights don't really happen as you seem to imply. Over 99.999% of gun owners that are mad at their significant other don't shoot them nor do they shoot up their workplace. As for going postal, well the US postal service has a homicide rate of 0.26 per 100,000 people, so no it doesn't happen as often as you think it does. You need to stop watching US media television. I'm sorry but the statistics don't support your view that red blooded Americans grab guns and start shooting people, in fact the statistics show that more than 99% of red blooded Americans don't murder anyone.
Again like I said before, if the US would legalize recreational use of drugs and end the drug war, what would happen to the gun crime in Mexico? If this would have been done several years ago gun crime would have gone way down. Do you honestly believe that if pot is legalized in the US for recreational use that it wouldn't make a significant dent in the cartels drug smuggling operations, that it wouldn't make a dent in the amount of violence going on over drug trading/smuggling routes in Mexico? Again Mexico's gun violence is a symptom of US drug policies, its not caused by guns because if you got rid of the guns but leave US drug policy in take guess what happens? The violence remains because they are still fighting for control of the smuggling routes.
I understand your very emotional on this subject but the figures show that America's crime violent crime rate has been dropping for at least a decade, I'm sorry to say for the point your trying to make but no the US crime rates are not going to reach the level of Mexico's.
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
What did you expect? Did you honestly think I was going to be in denial like Smithinjapan and blame cultural problems on inanimate objects? People who blame firearms for violence in society are taking the easy way out, they don't want to admit that the real problem is societies attitudes towards force/violence and when it is acceptable to use force/violence. Gun violence is nothing but a symptom of societies attitudes on when to use force, it is not the cause. Putting a gun in someone's hand does not cause or give them the desire to go out and hurt people. Here is another example of how gun violence is a symptom and not a cause, in Detroit 60-70% of the homicides there are related to the illegal drug trade, in fact most gun violence that is homicide is related to the drug trade in the US. That means that criminal gun violence is a symptom of our societies attitudes towards recreational drug use, meaning that if we change our attitudes towards the recreational use of pot, for example, and made it legal we would dramatically reduce gun violence in this country more so then any gun law ever would. To further build off of that point, look at the gun violence and just violence in generally in Mexico right now, the majority of that violence is based off of USA's attitudes towards recreational drug use, meaning that gun violence is a symptom of cultural attitudes in the US and Mexico.
Smithinjapan and all the others that blame societies ills regarding violence on guns and the "easy" availability of them are making the same argument that Muslim men make about the hijab and veil and that is if a woman doesn't dress "modestly" she will be harassed, or in other words because your not wearing an inanimate object automatically means that men can't control themselves and therefore will harass you. Total BS, the reason why Muslim women that don't wear a hijab or a veil is harassed is because the culture or society has said that if they don't they need to be harassed, they don't question and say hey wait a minute maybe we need to change our views and attitudes and say just because a woman shows some skin doesn't mean we can't treat her with respect but no they take the easy way out and say its because she is not wearing an inanimate object.
So what is the good news in all of this? That Americans are learning that force isn't always necessary to resolve a dispute. Violence and petty crime is down across the board in the US even with a poor economy and with 4.5+ million guns being added each year, why? Because societies attitudes towards force/violence and resolving disputes is changing. US attitudes towards the recreational use of pot are changing and hopefully within a decade or so we will see it legalized.
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
Yes actually he could have, be on the freeway traveling at around 70 mph with suv's tailgating you along the way, suddenly the bed of your truck opens with hundreds if not thousands of bananas falling out causing the cars behind you to swerve which then causes a multi-car pileup. Yes it is in fact very possible. Your point is essentially worthless because you could say it is another nut coming out of whatever country with any type of object like a knife. There is meaningful gun control in the US, you can't buy a gun if you have a criminal or mental history, it is illegal to be a straw-buyer, it is illegal to point and or shoot a gun in public unless it is self defense and hundreds more laws on that. The current gun laws in the US are so successful that for the past 15+ years gun violence whether it be assault, homicide or suicide have been falling not just by per-capita levels but grand totals even though the US adds 4.5 million guns per year. That would suggest that the current gun laws are working. Why is it smith that you are incapable to acknowledge the fact in the US gun violence is on the way down in the US and has been for the past 15+ years.
You know why no one killed, besides the shooter, in this case? Because the shooter didn't actually want to kill anyone but himself, this was clearly a suicide by cop by the fact that he went to the police screaming at them to kill him. This is why people say guns don't kill but that it is people that kill. Because if a person doesn't have a killing desire it doesn't matter what tool they use because chances are they are not going to kill anyone.
Wipeout: That is the point, Ideology or culture, its not guns, knives, clubs, flamethrowers, homemade bombs, etc. its culture that determines the level of violence in a society. For example during the early 20th century before world war 1, London had a higher population density then Chicago and both countries at the time had very similar restrictions on firearms, meaning they practically had none, London across the board had less violence and less homicides then Chicago. Why is that? Culture. Americans have a culture that pretty much says if you have been wronged it is ok to respond with force, that means that even if you take away the guns they are still more likely to assault you then say a European or a Japanese person would. Europe has historically always had less violent crime then the US even when Europe had similar restrictions to firearms.
Here is something to think about. Overall Japan has higher population densities then say UK, why does Japan then not only have less violence but also less non violent crime as well compared to the UK? The answer is culture is it not? Its not because of gun laws or laws on knives but because of culture. Here is another example for you, Japan's suicide rate is higher than the US combined homicide and suicide rate in the US, meaning that a person is more likely to die in Japan then they are in the US. Why does Japan have a such a high suicide rate? Is it because the culture of Japan is more likely to view suicide as an honorable way to die then the US does?
Posted in: Police kill gunman shooting at cars in Hollywood
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Noliving
Oh man that is cold.
Posted in: 25 Rottweilers maul Czech woman to death