ReaperInc's past comments

  • 2

    ReaperInc

    A bigger issue is, how the world can hypnotize themselves into thinking only Japanese soldiers did this during World War II, and that Koreans, Chinese, American, British, Filipino, Indian, French, German, Italian, Austrian, Belgian, Dutch, and all other soldiers sat around reading bibles in between fighting.

    The point here is that Hashimoto minimizes the scale of the comfort women problem, its seriousness and impact, not that soldiers from other countries may also have committed rape. So while this is a valid point to raise, it is irrelevant to this particular discussion.

    Posted in: Do you agree with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's comments on comfort women?

  • 0

    ReaperInc

    And here I was hoping beer would remain excluded from the ever growing mountain of products with a green tea variation.

    Posted in: Tea shop offers something new: green tea beer

  • 0

    ReaperInc

    Still doing it, everytime I spot water and stones together in one place. :3

    Posted in: Stone's throw

  • 1

    ReaperInc

    For me it does not really matter, I do not worry about being troubled since I tower over everyone (in Japan more than in my country). However, when it comes to the surroundings and behavior on the streets in general, then Japan is definitely the more relaxed and comes across as safer. Hardly any stuck up youths who feel the need to prove themselves by picking on others (or at least less than in my country).

    Posted in: Do you feel safer walking along a dark or deserted street at night in a city in your country or in Japan?

  • 0

    ReaperInc

    Neither the Japanese or the Chinese are going to let the other party officialy own the islands, and this whole conflict is not about those worthless pieces of rock themselves but more about that what can be found underneath the seafloor surrounding them.

    In my opinion the best solution would be a cooperation, set up through the UN, of the Japanese and the Chinese. Something similar to the factory that the two Korea's used to run together. Let China and Japan set up projects and installations to extract the natural resources together, and split the output according to percentages agreed on. Maybe it would even be possible to make the Senkaku's/Diaoyu's some sort of neutral zone.

    Ah well... who am I kidding, it would be nice, but both countries are to damn proud and cocky to accept such a solution. Then agian, I doubt that there are many countries that would not be...

    Posted in: Abe vows to expel by force any Chinese landing on disputed isles

  • 2

    ReaperInc

    Good to see that the panel experts are making a stand against the new old way of doing business between TEPCO and the regulators. It is absolutely ridiculous to see that even after all the things that have happened the whole issue is apparently still not taken seriously. Cutting costs during a nuclear clean up is a grave error.

    Posted in: Experts say new nuclear safety oversight still too lax

  • 1

    ReaperInc

    so that is where the warmth went, here in Europe we've been freezing our behinds off since february...

    Posted in: Record temperatures for March recorded in 35 locations

  • 2

    ReaperInc

    200 fantasist wannabees who think its cool to call themselves ninja. The chances that any have been, or ever will be, involved in espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, is about as good as any finding a daimyo to serve lol.

    I doubt that that is the goal of the participants. I think you should view it, as stated in the article, as a self-defense course, it's sports basically. It is sad to immediatly put them aside as fantasists SecularBeast. Assuming that all of these women desire to run around in black tights with their faces behind a mask is just short sighted.

    Posted in: World ninjas gather in Japan for women's meet

  • 0

    ReaperInc

    @ Moonraker: Like I said it used to be an empire, thus it makes sense that if there was a symbolic role to fulfill that this would be the emperor. I come from the Netherlands and you can hardly call that a kingdom either. The Queen and the almost new King don't exactly rule, just as much as the Emperor does not rule Japan. The very notion of empire and kingdom suggests that their is an absolute monarch ruling (in the case of an empire it can also be a small group of people), which is not the case anymore, thus both nations do not deserve the titel empire and kingdom. Yet people like to hold on to traditions which is why we still have a royal family in my country and one in Japan. If we were to do this correctly, we should turn the nations into Republics.

    The few islands in the Caribbean that are still considered part of he Netherlands are actually for the most part independent countries withing the kingdom. Since when do kingdoms have independent countries that somehow are still part of the kingdom? Makes no sense either does it?

    So whether or not my answer was satisfying to you, it is simply the case that it is because of history as an empire and the desire to continue this tradition of having an Emperor that Japan still has an Emperor. For the same reason my country will get a new King 30th of april, not because we still have a functional kingdom, but because the people enjoy having a royal family as a symbolic entity.

    The exact differences between an empire and a kingdom can be found on wikipedia. There are in any case differences on governmental levels.

    Posted in: Visitors

  • 3

    ReaperInc

    It is not a kingdom either. It used to be an empire with an emperor and/or empress, pretty much since the country was founded did they always have an emperor and/or empress. It still is an empire since the emperor as a position still exists.

    So to answer your question: history, tradition and king and queen makes even less sense.

    Posted in: Visitors

  • 0

    ReaperInc

    OK, I was wrong then, I'm highly surprised Europe can produce any good baseball teams.

    I did not know the Netherlands had enough national baseball players to make a team.

    Ranked 6th best team of the planet and world cup winner of 2011, the Dutch team needs to be taken seriously. Especially in our own country, they receive very little money, no big national competition, no big sponsors. Some of the players don't even play in a professional team and work besides the sport in order to make a living. I believe that it has even been so that the players needed to buy their own flight tickets to the world cups because our national baseball association simply did not have the funds for a real good financial backing, I hope that this has changed after their 2011 world cup win. Then again it is a tiny sport here, only about 25.000 players in total from all ages.

    Posted in: Ganbare Nippon

  • 1

    ReaperInc

    I dont know why North Korea is called Democratic People`s Republic of Korea .... i dont see any of those words in practise there...

    Dictatorial countries have used such names before. DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik, but was far from democratic. People's Republic of China but the people don't have a whole lot to say.

    On topic: Seems like the same of rethoric to me. It will result in more sanctions, then more threats, more sanctions again, and so on.

    Posted in: N Korea says it plans nuclear test aimed at U.S.

  • 3

    ReaperInc

    Great to see how a lot of posters here assume that when people commit suicide they are completely sane and as such take time to take every little detail into consideration before killing themselves. I mean they want to DIE, but of course it is only normal to make sure you don't inconvenience anyone whilst killing yourself.

    Call them selfish and stupid and unworthy of the title human all you like, good to know that you will act rational and sane in every possible situation. If calling them cowards makes you feel strong knock yourself out, but you're being a jerk in my opinion. Everyone deserves respect in dead, especially those who were so completely lost in life that they ended it earlier.

    Really, instead of accusing people, I think it more important to find out why.

    Posted in: 3 women found dead in Tokyo hotel room in apparent suicide

  • 2

    ReaperInc

    Megosaa: In case you have not noticed, international comedy and even everyday life knows it fair share of 9/11 jokes. Black humor it is called, and I find it to be damn funny. If a joke like this is enough to prompt the national government to wrote a letter of protest, then clearly the Japanese government has nothing important to do, and everything must be running butterly smooth.

    Posted in: French broadcaster apologizes to Japan over Fukushima gag

  • 0

    ReaperInc

    No reason for Japan to react so strongly to this. Just a simple joke... Just like comedians and people crack jokes about abuse in the church, Muslims, Nazi's. Humor often comes with a little offensive twist. Nothing to get worked up about. I myself have heard countless jokes about me glowing in the dark or seeing green since I went to Japan in the summer of 2011... It happens with everything, but nowadays because of the internet everybody knows instantly and many things get blown completely out of proportion because someone is offended/annoyed.

    Posted in: French broadcaster apologizes to Japan over Fukushima gag

  • 2

    ReaperInc

    Couple of things I would like to add:

    • Women don't always choose to stay at home. There still is a lot of social pressure to do so.

    • It is usually more profitable for a Japanese family to have the woman stay at home because:

    1 Men whose wife is a fulltime housewife tend to get higher wages than men with wives that work.

    2 Some companies pay extra money and train wives to stay at home and make sure that the employee is cared for properly so that he can work harder (this practice is becoming less common though).

    • Women that do work, usually work part-time because the wages for fulltime jobs are not double the amount given for part-time jobs, but fulltime jobs do require double the effort.

    • In general women get paid a lot less than men (this however is the case in every country, but the difference is a bit bigger in Japan).

    There are many more reasons, and there is no country in the world where women are truly treated equally to men. It is also a debate within sociology that is never ending because of reasons mentioned by other commentors (such as the contribution of housewives to the economy). In sum everything is gendered and striving for equality is a good thing, yet the how and when (and sometimes even the why) are always heavily debated. I do think Japan can win a pot by having more women work and upping the social security and welfare systems. I think Japan in a way underappreciates and underestimates women in the labor force, and Lagarde is, I think, correct in making sure the issue is on the radar.

    Posted in: Women could save Japan's economy: IMF's Lagarde

  • 10

    ReaperInc

    I get that there are unspoken rules in the train and that you should respect these rules, but sometimes a little unexpected entertainment can be fun right. Why is there the need to start critizing this man and call him inconsiderate, why such a denounceful atitude towards the unexpected and slightly out of place? What is so horrifying about this, they do this in other places all the time, it makes life a little bit more eventful.

    I get that you would be annoyed if someone's musicplayer is very loud or when someone is talking on the phone in a normal situation, but come on you're all stuck in a trian for a longer period of time why not have a little fun, why such a compelling need to condemn this and behave like soulless robots... you can always move somewhere else if you can't stand it....

    Posted in: Inspiring or inconsiderate? Foreigner plays guitar for train passengers stranded by typhoon

  • 2

    ReaperInc

    > until her mother took custody of her again >

    This implies that the mother can decide when she wants back custody of the child. That seems odd to me... to me it would make a lot more sense when the child welfare decides on that.

    Though in my criminology classes I did pick up that parents can just pick up their kids whenever they like, but I don't know until when this was the case... I certainly hope not anymore at present times.

    Posted in: Woman held for fatally abusing 11-year-old daughter with golf club

  • 3

    ReaperInc

    To stay on topic: the governments of several countries are way too easily influenced by the entertainment lobby. In my country it is illegal to download software (songs are fine usually) but the government and its friends go after the website and not the downloaders themselves... which means unlimited downloading and a very ineffective anti-download policy. Makes much more sense than these crazy fines and jail time penalties.

    Posted in: Law making it illegal to download pirated music, videos goes into effect

  • 1

    ReaperInc

    How about the Tor-Network? I'm not in Japan so no risks for me, but I have used the Tor-Network for some time and that seemed to be doing just fine when it came to masking my IP. Downside was that it slowed down my computer a lot.

    Posted in: Law making it illegal to download pirated music, videos goes into effect

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