JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- Financial Advisor
- Select Asset Management KK, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥100,000 ~ ¥999,999 Paid Training Commission Based
-
- Corporate Business English Trainers
- ACT Systems, Inc.（株式会社アクト・システムズ）, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥269,500 ~ ¥280,000 / Month
-
- 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
0
TheQuestion
This is a weird one to vote on. It really boils down to how they are teaching this 'patriotism'. When my brother's kids come to stay with me during the summer we learn a lot of history, religion, and politics. To me patriotism is understanding what your nation stands for, celebrating in it's triumphs, and learning from it's follies. I have the distinct honor of teaching them about our family's old home of Cuba in much the same way. I believe patriotism is measured by one's ability to love their country despite it's flaws rather than by one's ability to ignore them. In that reguard I feel patriotism should be taught, but considering how poorly government run schools tend to muck it up I can't very well vote yes on this topic. When I was in school being patriotic was saying the pledge every day and writing reports about Custer's heroic last stand, and to be honest those little state proddings actually only serve to dilute real patriotism in favor of the ability to bark on command. The educational model is a lot different over here to say the least but having never actually attended a school here I can't pass a reliable judgement on how they approach the subject here. All I know is what I read about and what I hear from friends and co-workers.
Posted in: Do you think that teaching patriotism should be part of a school’s education curriculum?
0
TheQuestion
Really? I tend to believe that both are rather hopeless. Different sides of the same coin.
Ha, don't worry about it. Takes a little more than comments on a news website to get under my skin.
I take it you've never seen the stuff made? Most of it starts off as a gel or powder, mass production does a lot to streamline the costing system. If I had standards I may have stopped eating the suff. Whole vegetables and fruits on the other hand require inspection and testing to make sure the product isn't tainted by mold, insects, or bacteria (thus the e-coli outbreaks and other related poisonings). Packaged foods aren't what anybody would call healthy but they come disinfected and sealed for long shelf lives.
Posted in: Republicans question healthier eating proposals
0
TheQuestion
I can't speak for other posters but... Obesity stands at somewhere in the mid 20s percentage wise so I wouldn't go so far as to say most. I'm about 6'7 and weigh about 300 lbs, so I'm not exactly the most delicate flower in the patch but 'fat' is just hurtful.
So we cut federal expenditures on healthcare. People will get the idea pretty quickly or they don't, either way we have less obese people. Especially considering that the most ample of the U.S population are often the poorest and on government aid. Give them foodstamps, healthcare, and transport passes and they get lazy. I still remember my food service days in high school and people trying to give me foodstamps for elephant ears and funnel cakes, I think that's when I started hating saftey nets come to think of it.
I would argue that nobody needs to step in. Those companies make something the consumer wants, cheap food, and the consumer eats it. No gun to the head, no threats of fines or violence if they don't comply. I love snowballs and I fondly remember eating 20 cent frozen pot pies when we couldn't afford better. Now I'm better off and don't need to eat budget food but I choose to indulge in some less than healthy things from time to time.
Posted in: Republicans question healthier eating proposals
0
TheQuestion
In principle I'm against regulation of food service. However, as long as these proposals only effected public schools that’s another matter entirely. If you’re sending your kids to inferior state schools they can eat over-priced 'healthy' state lunches. The school lunches were to expensive for my family anyway, I ate carrots and potted meat until I could buy my own bag lunches. Some of these regs are pointless and stupid but hay, that’s state run education in a nutshell anyway.
Posted in: Republicans question healthier eating proposals
0
TheQuestion
Well if the grenade has a pin in it, and it's stored properly, and it produces all my energy needs for the foreseeable future then I'd be glad to have it. Same goes for nuclear plants. As with anything they depreciate, and become outdated and require replacement but nobody wants a new one built in their area.
Start up costs for nuclear facilities are higher, cost recoverability is better though. Nuclear plants have estimated lifespans measured in decades and require comparably little in terms of upkeep other than periodic upgrades to energy management systems. Renewables require constant replacement and to produce energy comparable to a nuclear plant you would need miles and miles and miles of area devoted to them.
New nuclear plants are rarely built largely due to efforts by well meaning organizations like Greenpeace and the like that overstate the dangers of nuclear energy. They do carry an element of risk but these organization never offer a balance argument. The weak are always more likely to be swayed by fear than reason. I'm not a scientist so I read their journals and studies meant to inform. My opinion on nuclear energy is based off of my own readings and I find that the costs and risks are justified by the benefits.
However, there is a lot of room for improvement in nuclear power and that can only be done through testing and real life operation. Generation IV reactors are a step in the right direction and with more research and interest in the subject we might be able to crack fusion by the middle of this century, from there the sky’s the limit. Renewables are limited by area and with a growing global population and the eventual recovery of property values even with increasing technology their ability to be implemented will continue to shrink.
Posted in: Germany decides to abandon nuclear power by 2022
0
TheQuestion
Considering the Fukushima plant had safely taken earthquakes for years and only after a massive one in addition to a tsunami did it fail I can see no reason why the Germans should be concerned with anything remotely similar happening to their plants. I find it especially stupid considering how well nuclear energy has been doing in many European nations with virtually no incident. The only blotch being Chernobyl and that was due to the absolute poorest Russian construction imaginable, they didn't even shield the reactor.
By all means develop renewables. There's a lot of progress to be made in them. But do so along side a sensible revamping of current energy systems.
That’s what I was thinking. Renewables sound lovely up until the harsh reality of economic feasibility kicks in, then they'll be sucking down oil and natural gas through the pipelines like everyone else. With peak oil on the horizon I've got far more faith in new nuclear tech than any renewable on the market.
If facilities were shut down and newer ones built or, you know, run properly none of the three major nuclear incidents would have ever happened. As it stands the plants in operation today should have been retired years ago and been replaced with newer ones with up to date safety systems.
Posted in: Germany decides to abandon nuclear power by 2022
0
TheQuestion
Impractical. For those living in apartments, urban areas, or low income housing the capital required for ANY of these ventures would never justify itself. Self sufficiency went out the window when we started living in cities, we need mass energy production capabilities and most modern renewables can't do it.
I'd much rather see more research go into better nuclear technology, generation IV nuclear reactors are expected to put out nearly 100 times the power of current ones and they might even run on old nuclear waste in addition to normal nuclear fuel and their waste degrades in decades instead of millenia. If we actually put some effort into it we could have them as early as the later half of this decade. More on the subject at the ossfoundation under 4th generation nuclear power.
Posted in: Which form of renewable energy do you think is the best alternative to nuclear energy?
0
TheQuestion
Hay, I already can't smoke indoors so if you're getting close enough to breath in my smoke that’s on you. Both in Detroit and Japan I see a lot of overhangs and/or enclosures for smokers a short distance away from the better places to eat to accommodate their smoking patrons. Though I only smoke a few times a month so I've never been in one.
Depends on the brand (thus the importance of packaging). Like I said earlier, the Southeast Asian tobacco is from terrible soil. Though cigarettes have never really been my thing. Cigars though, when done properly it's really more of an art form. Growing and curing and aging and rolling, sometimes accented with a good bourbon whiskey, magnificent.
Posted in: Australia takes on tobacco giants over packaging
0
TheQuestion
At which point the market becomes flooded with tax free smokes courtesy of their fellow Pacific friends and neighbors. Thus begins another cycle of government fruitlessly attempting to control what free thinking adults wish to do to their own bodies with their own money. They made a simple, correct point, that the generic packaging will make it easier for illegal knockoffs to enter the market and that the companies would need to drop prices to keep customers.
Governments like to tax 'sin' items not because they want people to stop but because they are an inelastic good that people will keep buying even with the taxes. Just a poor tax in most cases.
Well not just Chinese. There's a lot in Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It’s dirt cheap to grow there and there's a lot of it. Soil composition is horrible though, makes terrible cigars, but then most tobacco smokers don't really care about the taste, a shame.
Posted in: Australia takes on tobacco giants over packaging
0
TheQuestion
Well the most feasible would be geothermal, where you can make it work, or biomass. Beyond that the energy provided by the others fails to justify the space, resources, and time required to get them up and running.
Posted in: Which form of renewable energy do you think is the best alternative to nuclear energy?
0
TheQuestion
Only a coward raises a hand against a woman or a child. I don't care if the mother was medusa herself the moment he struck a child I can't think of anybody more deserving of blame and a tire iron to the legs.
And treating him as a minor? Good God. At 19 I was employed full time and going to college, if he's a minor he should have been at home terrorizing his family and not living with a 30 something woman and beating 5 year olds. Adult crime merits adult punishment.
I don't know about jforce but I grew up as an overly tall hispanic kid that couldn't keep his mouth shut in the Detroit public school system, yet I'm alive and mostly intact. I can say with all honesty that I would love to see him try tearing me apart.
Posted in: 19-year-old man arrested for beating up woman's 5-year-old daughter
0
TheQuestion
I don't have such qualms about the death penalty. Slot him and be done with it.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Wealthy or poor, educated or simple, social or isolated, monsters come in all shapes and forms but they are, without exception, of the human persuasion.
Posted in: Mladic hauled into courtroom after 16-year hunt
0
TheQuestion
Twice a day beats the careers of most Senators who haven't been right more than twice in a decade.
Posted in: U.S. Senate moves Patriot Act toward extension
0
TheQuestion
There's only so much one can prepare for and I can't think of anybody that would suggest getting into a car as a viable method of evading a tornado. They're unpredictable and if they can pick up a house they can easily toss a car plus there's the debris flying at a couple hundred miles an hour. Best case scenario is a windowless storm shelter, next would be a windowless room preferable in a basement, next is a windowless room as low to the ground as possible with something protecting you from debris. My house has a steel coal shed and I don't know if that would even protect me from some of the bigger ones.
Posted in: 14 killed as tornadoes carve through central U.S.
0
TheQuestion
Some of the storms are just to strong for them. If a tornado is strong enough to pick up a house off of its foundation it will probably be able to rip the doors off of a shelter. Plus there's a lot of people that live in flat ranch homes or mobile units that don't have access to one.
Best defense would be to keep the television on for early alerts and know where a community shelter is.
Posted in: Death toll from Missouri tornado climbs to 116
0
TheQuestion
Probably something about zionists or burn an American flag or fire rocket at a housing development. That might do the trick.
Posted in: Obama defends his Mideast peace vision to pro-Israel lobby
0
TheQuestion
They may be male, but without discipline I wouldn't call them men.
Posted in: Why do famous men with power and influence (Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, for example) risk everything with their sexual behavior?
0
TheQuestion
Sometimes it gets to the point where the names hardly matter. If they let Jose Zapatero leave and throw out his fellows only replace them with other members of the PSOE and PP you'll just have more of the same.
Posted in: Tens of thousands of protesters defy ban in Spain
0
TheQuestion
Politicians with plans come in, things go bad, people get angry, new plan is formed along with bans and restrictions on free speech. Gotta love that central planning.
Posted in: Tens of thousands of protesters defy ban in Spain
0
TheQuestion
BHL = Bernard-Henri Lévy
He's a French journalist, some of his stuff is alright.
Posted in: IMF chief under suicide watch at NYC jail