JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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Confrontation
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U.S. Navy investigating how parts fell off aircraft near Atsugi
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4
California court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'
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5
Kuroki reported pregnant 2 weeks after denying relationship with Akanishi
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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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SezWho2
The people may be being misled. However, they are also misleading themselves. The fault does not lie exclusively with the politicians.
Posted in: Obama, at Arizona memorial service, says polarized nation needs healing
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SezWho2
Yes, I think politicians should be held accountable when they succumb to demagoguery instead of attending to the problems of the nation. However, the people elect the politicians.
The human animal is not essentially Platonic and it dislikes being governed by philosopher kings. Give it a good sophist every time. (For example, what was there in Reagan's record from 1980 to 1984 that justified his reelection by a landslide? He wasn't really a rational choice, but, boy, didn't he talk realll gooood!)
The human animal wants the surge of emotion. The surge empowers. And there is little emotional difference between the Nuremberg rally and Martin Luther King's speech, between "yes, we can" and "taking back America". Stripped of the rhetoric, the only thing left is content and the moral choices the content presents.
The human animal, collectively still rooted in tribalism, cannot be counted on to make good moral choices--regardless of religion.
Posted in: Obama, at Arizona memorial service, says polarized nation needs healing
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SezWho2
Hmmm....
I think that at that time Obama said "if". And I think he was talking about the way to respond to threats.
Do you think that Sarah Palin would have the courtesy to retract her statement that "...acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state..."? After all, she is a more or less ardent supporter of the wars we launched in Afghanistan and Iraq in response to the act of monstrous criminality in New York.
I think that the core issue of this matter is whether or not Americans are mature enough for democracy, whether they really do have the maturity to listen to someone's ideas, weigh them and respond to them without resorting to nonsensical counterarguments which indicate a visceral intolerance of other points of view and which, if unchecked, lead to or promote violence.
Posted in: Obama, at Arizona memorial service, says polarized nation needs healing
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SezWho2
So, adjusted for our affluence, caution, care and red tape, the US is actually moving at a snail's pace in weapons development, right?
Posted in: U.S. defense secretary says China moving fast on new weapons
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SezWho2
Heavens to Murgatroyd! Somalia is becoming more and more like Bob Jones University.
Posted in: Somali Islamists ban men, women from shaking hands
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SezWho2
mikehuntez:
I think my comment is relevant to your comment. Perhaps you could explain how your comparison of the US to Europe is relevant.
Americans expect to live in a land free of terror. That's the dream. But it is only that--a dream.
Posted in: 2 packages ignite in Maryland gov't buildings; 2 hurt
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SezWho2
manfromamerica:
Are you complaining about the pronoun or do you just not understand the meaning of the phrase?
Until the recent misadventure in Iraq, Egypt was the number two recipient of US foreign aid, aid which it would not have received absent its recognition of Israel (former number one recipient) and its agreeable position on Palestine and Hamas. Given that US support for Israel is not received with overwhelming enthusiasm in Europe, it is hardly surprising that it might be less appreciated in Egypt--reviled even.
Islam is the state religion of Egypt. It wouldn't even take al-Qaeda provocation to foment resentment against anything associated with Western civilization. Look at anti-Muslim sentiment and consider that many citizens of European nations have a growing sense that they have been much too nourishing to a foreign culture. In other words, "and this is the thanks we get after all we've done for them, too."
England, Sweden, France, The Netherlands--you'll find that "viper in their bosom" there. Why would it be surprising that it shows up in another form in another culture?
Posted in: Pope stunned by wave of anti-Christian violence
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SezWho2
I think that the separation of Church and State tends to obscure the extent to which Christianity pushes its agenda on the world. The intent may be benign but the effect is not always so. It is not so stunning that some people conflate Christianity with The West and regard it as a viper in their bosom.
Posted in: Pope stunned by wave of anti-Christian violence
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SezWho2
If only it were.
It is premature to assign any meaning to this event. It could have been anything from a youthful prank to a fulmination from a Mad Tea Partier to a terrorist test.
By the blessings of geography, America has been fundamentally isolated from the rest of the civilized world. However, it cannot expect to remain so while it stations it military around the globe. The American dream is fundamentally that--an American dream.
Posted in: 2 packages ignite in Maryland gov't buildings; 2 hurt
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SezWho2
TimRussert said
No. It is more provable. The proof lies in the facts of the case. Either there was or there was not an inducement. Whether liberals or conservatives are more susceptible to inducement will always be a definitional proof if made at all.
I don't dispute that the woman's (women's actually, no?) charges may be true. And I don't dispute that if the women's charges are without merit that they may have been motivated by factors other than inducements. However, if you believe that the timing of the charges was merely coincidental and that the government which is jumping through hoops to stanch the flow of information is not only capable of trying to enforce silence by other means but entirely willing to do so, you have failed to grasp the essential nature of politics.
Posted in: WikiLeaks founder turns to Switzerland for help
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SezWho2
TimRussert said regarding the timing of sexual misconduct charges against Assange:
Whether she is liberal or a conservative has no provable relationship to being susceptible to inducement to create a story line. It's hard to tell whether your argument is that like protects like, which rather flies in the face of history, or that liberals are more principled than conservatives, which--while it might be true--is as yet unproven.
Where is the denial? Do you mean there are those who willfully deny that her story is true? Or do you mean that there are those who deny that his story is true? My point is not about asserting any particular truth. It is that the charges were brought after governmental pressure began to be applied. Or does the willful denial extend to denying that this could possible have any relationship to what is happening here?
Posted in: WikiLeaks founder turns to Switzerland for help
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SezWho2
Assange and WikiLeaks have never been sworn to secrecy. If anyone has put lives in danger--a hyperbolic assertion which remains to be shown--it is the individual or individuals who provide the information for publication.
Once a secret is known, it is--by definition--no longer a secret. Of course the US is quite anxious that people not cast light on matters which in the view of the government may compromise its ability to act. This is true of all governments--China and Iran included.
Had Assange published Chinese or Iranian documents, I doubt that the US and its willing or unwilling allies would be quite so vocal in condemnation. Might they not even seize upon such information to further condemn the governments of these countries? I think it is almost a certainty that they would do so, however guardedly.
When a government of the people, by the people and for the people has risen to the position of the most powerful and most active military in the world, it matters not whether it is a king making decisions or a self-perpetuating democratic Leviathan.
As for the sexual misconduct charges against Assange, he may well be guilty of something. But even the most clueless would have to admit that the timing is highly suspect. In a he-said, she-said scenario it doesn't take a lot of imagination to conceive that it would cost a multi-trillion dollar debtor very little to suborn allegations of wrongdoing against Assange.
Posted in: WikiLeaks founder turns to Switzerland for help
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SezWho2
I don't think that should be any surprise. Denying Obama re-election has been the number 2 GOP goal for the last two years. Their other goal was to return to Congressional power.
The GOP's only plan to solve any of America's fundamental problems is to do more of what didn't work during the Bush years. All democratic politicians capitalize on the impatience of the electorate. However, nowhere is the electorate more impatient than in America, with its insouciant belief that every problem can be solved lickety-split and that if a problem ain't solved yet it must be the fault of the guy in the oval office. The GOP is highly skilled in creating a good story. The problem is, it ain't a true story.
The truth is, Americans need to learn to live with less--a lot less. Those jobs are not coming back. It's time to stop living in the 18th century and notice that many of the most successful countries in the world today have elements of socialism that are anathema to the followers of Alexander Hamilton and which dwarf any of the Obama plans that have been flagellated by block-voting idiots.
Posted in: GOP says main goal is to deny Obama re-election
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SezWho2
Democrats are not the problem. The problem is unremitting captiousness and that's not going to stop with a change in Congress. In the current climate the only thing that will lead to recovery is locking the legislators into a room and refusing to let them out until they come up with a coherent plan.
The jobs have gone away and they are not coming back unless we destroy a major portion of the rest of the world's productive capacity. That is one of the things that made us so great after WW2. Americans have to learn to accept leaner times. But we don't wanna.
Posted in: Obama calls GOP 'Pledge' echo of disastrous decade
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SezWho2
You know a country is in trouble when one of its two viable parties is right about saying that the whole reason for voting for them is that they are the lesser of two evils.
Posted in: Obama calls GOP 'Pledge' echo of disastrous decade
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SezWho2
Tch. Tch. Tch. Specify.
I have no particular tolerance for the notions that Ahmadinejad expresses, but I do have tolerance for his expression of them. The best way to counter error is not to get all huffy and trade inanity for inanity, but to demonstrate that it is, in fact, error. This is something that you (and SuperLib) consistently refuse to do.
Posted in: Obama, Ahmadinejad trade barbs over 9/11
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SezWho2
I'm not quite sure what this means, but I guess it doesn't mean the hundreds of thousands killed in Afghanistan and Iraq or in the ongoing violence in Africa or elsewhere around the globe. Wouldn't you know that the we would claim the greater tragedy?
If what Ahmadinejad is saying accurately reflects his views, he certainly has a whimsical view of history. But I don't think he's the only one. Obama chastizes Ahmadinejad for making us hurt the Iranian people. I guess that's one way to look at it, although Ahmadinejad did not really do that. We did what we wanted to do because Ahmadinejad didn't do what we wanted him to do. It comes down to what we wanted--not what Ahmadinejad forced.
Part of the price of hosting the UN, something that is much to our advantage, should be allowing a country's leader to speak freely there without having to worry about the "sensitivities" of the host country.
Posted in: Obama, Ahmadinejad trade barbs over 9/11
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SezWho2
It would only seem like that to someone who was willing to ignore evidence and who substituted his own impressions for actual facts. Perhaps you could quote the leading clerics who endorse al-Awlaki's fatwa.
When you call for loud repudiations of al-Awlaki's fatwa, you put yourself in the position of making up the rules. Your rule: denounce or else! While I think it is fair to ask that moderate Muslims indicate that they do not support this fatwa or the cleric who issued it, I think it rather unfair to ignore those who do so indicate without providing any evidence of prominent Muslims who support it.
I have given you a list of prominent Muslims who have gone on record as saying al-Awlaki's fatwa is not consistent with Islam. This list includes three Imams, none of them Imam Suleiman, whose current opinion regarding this matter you might also wish to seek out. For that matter, you could even ask Imam Rauf.
Posted in: Seattle cartoonist goes into hiding on FBI advice
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SezWho2
WilliB, it seems to me that you are assuming that a public denunciation by big name clerics is exactly what moderate Islam needs to do in order to prevent maverick clerics from issuing a fatwa such as this one on Norris.
There have been denunciations aplenty from the West and a fat lot of good that has done. While you may not have heard clerical criticism of this, I doubt that you have heard a chorus of clerical approbation of it either.
So you demand denunciation. How would strident Glenn-Beck-like denunciation solve the problem? For all we know, it would exacerbate the problem--unless of course you are privy to the Muslim heart and mind.
In the meantime, here is a short list of distinguished Muslims who have spoken out against the fatwa to the extent that they have publically opposed it:
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/adefenseoffreespeechbyamericanandcanadian_muslims/0018241
Posted in: Seattle cartoonist goes into hiding on FBI advice
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SezWho2
So what? That is still a man--not a religion--ordering someone's death. The prophet did not call for Norris's death, al-Alwaki did. Al-Alwaki no more speaks for Islam than Reverend Wright speaks for Christianity.
Posted in: Seattle cartoonist goes into hiding on FBI advice