JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- 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
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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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ThonTaddeo
JT is already reporting on his 27th consecutive game with a hit.
The record is 56 (by Joe DiMaggio in 1941), so does this mean we'll be subjected to another article just like this for the next 29 games? He's not even halfway to the record.
Pitchers, hurry up and start getting Ichiro out!
Posted in: Ichiro extends hitting streak to record 26 games
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ThonTaddeo
MrHog, "sic" is Latin for "thus" and is used when you're quoting something that might be spelled incorrectly. You're telling the reader that what you're typing might be wrong, but that's how the original quote had it, so you're just repeating it.
And Jane, "time constraints"? "Pressure"? Your husband is out working all day providing for you while you get to watch daytime TV! If you want a good-looking guy, call your husband at work on a video phone and remind hmi that you love and miss him. You do appreciate him, don't you?
Posted in: Why are there no good-looking guys on daytime TV?
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ThonTaddeo
My company also bans commuting by bicycle.
I'm an avid cyclist, and I work in the middle of the night and would be able to enjoy the absolutely fantastic 5:00 AM road environment -- bright as noon, not yet hot, and very few cars -- were it not for this silly regulation.
Defy it at your peril -- even if they can't fire you for cycling to work, the company will just find some flaw in your work and decrease your salary accordingly.
Posted in: Companies offer special benefits to bicycle commuters
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ThonTaddeo
I would say that it is, slightly. By stealing the physical license, you could go sign contracts in the person's name (or sell the license to someone who looks more like them); with the alien card, you can do the same, and even apply for your own driver's license. (Should we foreigners be thankful that it's so hard to get credit or a loan? Maybe that's what's preventing pickpockets and yakuza from committing more fraud with stolen alien cards.)
And with only the skimmed info (or a photocopy), because the alien card contains so much information, a criminal could do a lot with it. It has the holder's home and work addresses right there; you could call the person's job and speak to them on some pretext while breaking into their home, with little fear of being caught! You have the person's home country and place of birth; just what you need to pose as an old friend from back home when you're trying to get the victim's boss to put the victim on the phone.
That's a little far-fetched, but remember, there are over a million of these cards, and you can often guess who has one just by looking at people's faces and listening to them talk. There are going to be crimes that could have been prevented had foreigners not had to carry these things.
But the police don't care about that, because they're more interested in controlling foreigners than in keeping them safe from crime.
Sharky1, this is already the case (see the Police Execution of Duties Law). The problem is that the police can just make up excuses not to follow their own laws, and find any flimsy reason why someone is "suspected" of something (bicycle theft, for one). I'd like to see cameras mounted inside all police officers' badges, with the contents streamed live to a publicly-available site. That would cut down on the police harassment a lot.
Posted in: Proposed resident registry card for foreigners creates Big Brother concerns
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ThonTaddeo
Lucky you, Himajin; I got turned down for PR here! (Probably for the effrontery of applying for it after 9 1/2 years and not the full 10).
I'm not too worried about the police or immigration officers prying into people's bank information -- you can always stash your money in the post office -- but I do worry about criminals skimming data from the IC chips from a distance. This could be avoided if the cards could be stored at home rather than in the holder's pocket.
Having to carry papers around is, I think, the most unfair imposition. No human being can remember to carry a physical object 100% of the time -- check out the huge warehouses full of lost articles such as wallets, cell phones, billfolds, and what-have-you at the JR stations!
But until now, even if we've forgotten our card at home or in the office, or misplaced it, we haven't had to really panic, since we're only in trouble if a rare instance of forgetting the card happens to coincide with a rare instance of a police officer demanding to see it. With the IC chip, I can easily imagine IC readers in police boxes, which means that the officer in the box might step out and question anyone with a foreign-looking face if the machine doesn't beep when s/he passes by.
And the fact that this law can't be followed 100% of the time will cause people to lose respect for law in general. How can you respect a law that no one can avoid going afoul of once in a blue moon? One of the principles of law should be that it should be possible to always obey it, and that it shouldn't be possible to break the law against one's will, as would happen if your alien card were stolen from you (unknowingly, say) and you were no longer carrying it.
And this argument doesn't even touch on the fact that the alien cards contain an enormous amount of private information, in plain text -- more than enough for an identity thief to cause a lot of trouble. In most of the world, people are advised to keep documents as important as these somewhere secure, like in a locked safe. Japan makes people carry them in the open, thinking only of the police's convenience and not at all of the dangers to the holder.
If the alien cards were only required when entering the country, I wouldn't have a problem with them. When renewing your visa, sure. Maybe when signing real estate contracts. But at all other times, if alien cards have to exist at all, they should be kept in a secure location where they can't be lost or stolen.
Posted in: Proposed resident registry card for foreigners creates Big Brother concerns
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ThonTaddeo
Himajin, while US PRs are indeed expected to carry the green cards, keep in mind that regular non-nationals on ordinary study or work visas don't have to carry anything, and also that the circumstances in which an immigration officer can demand to see the green card are extremely limited. It's nothing like Japan and the National Police Agency. You don't see Immigration and Naturalization Service "boxes" on every street corner, with officials pulling non-white people aside and demanding papers!
Posted in: Proposed resident registry card for foreigners creates Big Brother concerns
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ThonTaddeo
Wait a minute, people. What proof do we have that he actually abused them?
Remember, the only person who could speak in his defense is dead -- at the hands of the other party!
If this were premeditated murder -- if, mind you -- wouldn't this be the perfect way to go about it? Pretend to be abused, make a few calls to the police beforehand, get the kids to agree with you, and then when you commit the crime, you've got a gullible, righteously-indignant public on your side and you're likely to get leniency.
And even if he were violent, which it looks like he probably was, what right does any other person have to take his life? Send him to jail, send him to a police interrogation cell, but murder? We wouldn't let the state take someone's life; why let an individual do it?
Posted in: Wife, two children arrested for father's murder in Hiroshima
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ThonTaddeo
Presumably he thought he was back in his own home, ready to change clothes, maybe take a shower, and go to sleep..
Posted in: Kusanagi will pay heavy price with contract cancellations
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ThonTaddeo
I'm just impressed that a reputable news organization is willing to use the word "kick-ass". As an adjective, to boot!
Posted in: Up! Down! No, go that way!
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ThonTaddeo
There's a big difference between a bike parked near the station because the rider is using a shop nearby, and a bike that's been abandoned there for months. This is why I like the "warning tag" system that many municipalities use, where they tie such a tag to bikes parted in these spots, and then only take away the tagged bikes when they come back days or weeks later.
And I agree 1000% on the cops and their egregious street stoppage campaigns. Finding stolen bikes is only the "tatemae" part of what they're doing -- they're also using it as an excuse to question foreigners, young freeter types, and anyone else they might consider undesirable. If they were really concerned about bicycle theft, you'd see 60-year-old Japanese women stopped just as often as, say, 25-year-old Middle Eastern men. But of course you don't.
Posted in: Outing litter louts
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ThonTaddeo
Dump the "and the" in favor of a possessive and it's perfect.
Posted in: Anti-Obama 'tea party' protests mark U.S. tax day
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ThonTaddeo
*three sho of rice [a small daily portion] *
Actually, three sho is 5.4 liters. Ryokan would have died a very fat man had he eaten this much every day. Perhaps the author meant three go, or 540 ml, which would indeed be a meager daily ration.
Posted in: Recession a good opportunity to return to Japan's core virtues
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ThonTaddeo
Brainiac, good catch -- I hadn't even noticed that both incidents were in the same ward of the same city.
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ThonTaddeo
Well, yes, the Satsuma clan forcibly took the islands in 1609 and enslaved the people. That they were able to hold the islands for so long doesn't mean that they have any moral right to continue to exploit the Okinawans.
Posted in: American consul general in Okinawa doused with coffee
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ThonTaddeo
Looks like we Ainu will be the ones taking up the "we stole them fair and square" gambit then!
(Still, I don't know much about the Ainu forcibly taking anything from any of the people who lived there before them -- the Ainu were never much militarily. Could be wrong though.)
Posted in: TBS clarifies Mino Monta’s remark that Japan should buy back Northern Territories
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ThonTaddeo
If these four islands are gong to be returned to somebody, theyshould be given back to the Ainu, who lived there for centuries before the Japanese came along. Is this another of those "we stole them fair and square" gambits?
Posted in: TBS clarifies Mino Monta’s remark that Japan should buy back Northern Territories
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ThonTaddeo
What's with the bare feet sticking out?
They would have looked a lot cure had the photographer pointed the camera upwards a bit.
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ThonTaddeo
I suspect that this thing is meant to be eaten by a party of four if not more.
Posted in: Warning sought for burger the size of one's head
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ThonTaddeo
Isthistheend, I agree completely. Imagine if a Japanese student had been killed (Ichihashi, say) and the main suspect was his English teacher. Do you think the cops would have been "expecting the suspect to get agressive"?
Yeah, thought so.
Moonbeams, the latest update of Wiki (as of the time of this post) does contain Ichihashi's name as a suspect. Not nearly as prominently as in the English version, but it's there.
Posted in: Hawker's family to visit Japan on 2nd anniversary of her murder
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ThonTaddeo
Awesome job by the Dutch!
Posted in: Netherlands topples Dominican Republic at WBC