JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- Full-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥200,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month Depending on your ability and experience
-
- Part-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥10,000 ~ ¥15,000 / Day Depending on how many days a week are worked
-
- Core Developer - コアディベロッパー
- Midokura Japan K.K. - ミドクラジャパン株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M ~ ¥10.0M / Year Negotiable
0
dreamdrifter
Unless you can seal yourself shut for 6 months til they develop a vaccine it might actually be safer to catch this now and gain immunity before 1) the virus becomes drug-resistant and 2) the health service becomes overwhelmed.
Posted in: WHO says swine flu pandemic is imminent
0
dreamdrifter
I can't believe this is "top news".
Posted in: Hiroshima man held for burning girlfriend’s 4-yr-old son with cigarette
0
dreamdrifter
Hoserfella:
I take it you've never been to Britain, where "unprovoked attacks", often by a group, are all too common.
Moderator: Readers, references to other countries are not relevant to this discussion.
Posted in: Man beats pedestrian to death in Kanagawa; says it didn't matter who
0
dreamdrifter
Who are these "train security personnel"? I've never seen one. ARe they plainclothed? Are they JR employees, police, or private security?
Posted in: Man arrested for wiping saliva on woman sleeping on train
0
dreamdrifter
Thenewfront:
Even if the same recipe is used, if a beer is brewed in different locations then they would result in having slightly different flavours.
Posted in: Tokyo’s St Patrick’s Day Parade – It’s a long way from Tipperary
0
dreamdrifter
Disillusioned - thanks, interesting!
For many of those of us who are not Irish, St Paddy's day is pretty much nothing more than an excuse to drink Guinness, and why not? Much like how Christmas is treated in Japan, we all know it's a marketing ploy but it's a marketing ploy that not many people particularly mind.
Must say I'm impressed with Guinness's marketing strategy - they've managed to turn what could have been regarded as a boring old stout into one of the coolest brands in the industry (as well as making Ireland everyone's favourite country, if even just for a day!)
Posted in: Tokyo’s St Patrick’s Day Parade – It’s a long way from Tipperary
0
dreamdrifter
The only time I had a Guinness in Tokyo I was prepared to be disappointed (with all the distance it had to travel) but it was even worse than I expected - it was barely drinkable. Does anyone know if this is the norm or did I just have a one-off? What are the ones in America like?
Posted in: Tokyo’s St Patrick’s Day Parade – It’s a long way from Tipperary
0
dreamdrifter
GW - You seem to think that religion using your name for what they want is a violation of your freedom of religion, when it is actually a violation of your "religious personality rights". Don't confuse these two because this court case was actually a head-on conflict between these two.
The case was essentially freedom of religion VS religious personality rights, and the court ruled in favour of freedom of religion.
And anyway when did I say I agreed or disagreed with the court ruling? I actually happen to tend to disagree with it.
Posted in: Court rules soldiers' names to stay on war shrine
0
dreamdrifter
The relatives should start a new religion in which the head priest at yasukuni is personally worshipped as god, with pictures, statues, weird ceremonies and everything. See how he would like that.
Posted in: Court rules soldiers' names to stay on war shrine
0
dreamdrifter
GW - The shrine is not preventing the relatives to practice their own religions, and the relatives do not have a right to prevent the shrine from practising its own religion. So the freedom of religion is being applied uniformly, not selectively.
Posted in: Court rules soldiers' names to stay on war shrine
0
dreamdrifter
This is a pretty sloppy article which doesn't go into what legal arguments were being put forward by either side or by the court.
Apparently the relatives argument was that the refusal of the shrine to annul the enshrinement of these soldiers amounted to a violation of a form of "personality rights" to remember the dead in their own way.
The shrine referred to a 1988 ruling that the concept of "religious personality rights" has no legal merit, and claimed that the rights being claimed by the plaintiff are identical to this concept. It also claimed that under freedom of religion a court cannot order it to remove names from the written list.
The court ruled that these rights being claimed by the plaintiffs are mere expressions of disdain against a religions act and against the shrine, and do not fall under those protected by law. The court commented that seeking the relatives approval would be desireable in terms of social courtesy, but giving legal merit to one's disdain against a religious act of another party would amount to a violation of freedom of religion.
The plaintiffs also claimed that, because the government co-operated by providing the shrine with a list of names, the enshrinement was an act carried out jointly by the state and the shrine and therefore anticonstitutional, and claimed compensation of 1,000,000 yen per person from both the state and the shrine.
The government's defence was that provision of information is within the scope of its normal administrative affairs, and that the actual enshrinement was carried out by the shrine.
The court ruled that the enshrinement was indeed a decision made by the shrine.
court ruled that the enshrinement was carried out by the shrine.
Posted in: Court rules soldiers' names to stay on war shrine
0
dreamdrifter
Under the "freedom of association" clause of the Japanese constitution, mere membership of an organisation cannot by itself constitute a criminal offence. That's why even as Aum and Chongryon face crackdowns, membership is still legal. If they haven't been convicted by a court of specific crimes, who is to say that they are not entitled to what everyone else is entitled to?
Posted in: Yakuza eligible for gov't Y12,000 handout
0
dreamdrifter
Betting:
Still, a 2008 Canadian study of 17 industrialized nations put Japan in 2nd place for food safety. (UK was 1st).
Search for "Food Safety Performance World Ranking 2008".
Posted in: 23 suffer food poisoning at hotel in Kagawa
0
dreamdrifter
davidattokyo - I can't see how Japan not taking whales from an anti-whaling nation's EEZ could possibly be described as a "compromise". Correct me if I am wrong but Japan is already taking whales from waters which are considered international waters by most countries on Earth?
Posted in: Sea Shepherd intercepts Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters
0
dreamdrifter
imacat - the rhetorical tone of your question suggests that you too know full well that he wouldn't agree with such nonsense. In other words, you are already aware that reasonings given by one pro-whaler will differ from reasonings given by another pro-whaler. There's plenty of uninformed, racist nonsense being spouted by anti-whalers which someone could equally bring up and say to you "this guy is one of your mates, right?"
Davidattokyo has a point when he asked how there could be a trade in whale meat if there is supposedly no demand. Why not discuss that instead of producing a red herring.
Posted in: Sea Shepherd intercepts Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters
0
dreamdrifter
Harsh words there imacat - maybe davidattokyo is just pointing out why Japan is justified in Antarctic whaling even though he thinks it isn't the best option for Japan - I do not see a contradiction here.
I'm against this bureaucracy-driven waste of tax money but it's also pretty clear that Australia doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Posted in: Sea Shepherd intercepts Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters
0
dreamdrifter
Soldave - quite the opposite in my opinion - Japanese media tend to make such a fuss about crime these days that it scaremongers people into thinking Japan is more dangerous than it actually is. If you see no updates in the news it'll most likely be because there won't be anything to update (i.e. no clues or developments).
Posted in: Body without head, limbs found in Okinawa field
0
dreamdrifter
I doubt it. Nations regularly conduct military operations on the high seas on the principle that international waters are "free to all nations but belong to none of them". How do you think they catch pirates?
Posted in: Japan to arrest anti-whaling activists, newspaper reports
0
dreamdrifter
Bit of a misleading headline here. Japan is only saying that anyone forcibly boarding their vessel on the high seas will be detained, which I think is reasonable enough and of course perfectly legal (it could even be argued that the captain would be negligent in his duty to do otherwise).
The only way Japan will stop whaling is to turn Japanese public opinion against it, and the actions of Sea Shephard are only serving to discredit the entire anti-whaling movement in the eyes of the Japanese public (and thus playing straight into the hands of the very small pro-whaling lobby.)
The anti-whaling movement's biggest enemy is themselves, and the fact that 95% of their arguments are full of flaws and eclipse the remaining 5%.
notimpressed:Just something I noticed in your post:
Norway, Britain and France have made claims, so cleary distance isn't an issue here.
Posted in: Japan to arrest anti-whaling activists, newspaper reports
0
dreamdrifter
According to spudman's link most of the bears on the list are classified as "vulnerable" or "least concern", and the only species classified as "endangered" is the giant panda.
Posted in: Two people attacked by bear in Niigata