JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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- Full-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥200,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month Depending on your ability and experience
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- 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
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frontandcentre
Pimp my Yakuza ride! That Benz looks like the kind of monstrosity that Kanda Uno would drive. It's difficult to think that anyone who could afford it would have such bad taste, but ....
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frontandcentre
In a mysoginist society like Japan, what reaction would you expect? Obviously it's the woman's fault, even though she's unmarried and he is the one far more in the wrong.
We all know from the past that Fuji TV is run by a bunch of dinosaurs, so this latest moral thunderbolt is sadly predictable.
Does Nioka keep his job as chief players' rep? I suppose that he does...
Posted in: Mona takes the fall, while Nioka gets off
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frontandcentre
I should also say that global warming should be an issue that transcends politics. I wish that someone else rather than Al Gore had made "An Inconvenient Truth" - perhaps then right wingers wouldn't be trying to out-do each other to rebut the facts that Gore made.
Unfortunately, by definition, quite a number of the people who oppose Al Gore's politics won't be broad minded enough to separate the "truth" on global warming that he presented and what he personally stands for. I'm an optimist, however - I think ultimately most people are smart enough to look at the world around them and not draw conclusions on what politicians say, but on what science and common sense says.
Effectively, people like Sarge prefer to believe that vested economic interests and that famed climatologist ("ahem"), George W Bush, are correct rather than a large consensus of scientific opinion with a major canon of peer-reviewed research to back them up. I wonder why. Since these are the same people that believe in creationism, the fictional character "omnipotent God" (tm) and other such fairy tales, I suppose we shouldn't be terribly surprised by this
Posted in: Citing effects on U.S. economy, Bush passes global warming problem to next administration
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frontandcentre
Zen B - I quite agree with you. My protest was against Sarge's defeatist, cynical and sweeping statement. The level of dependence that we have on petroleum products now is precisely the reason why I'm opposed to the profligate policies that Bush has perpetuated and why major change is required. We have every reason to conserve oil, which is why legislation to restrict consumption and encourage further development of the alternatives is essential, and far more likely to have immediately beneficial results that simply giving oil companies carte blanche to drill anywhere they see fit.
Unless of course, you are one of the people who believes that global warming is "a hoax" and that oil will last forever. Fortunately, more and more people realise that neither of those things are true.
Posted in: Citing effects on U.S. economy, Bush passes global warming problem to next administration
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frontandcentre
Never heard of nuclear power, solar power, wind generators, geothermal energy, hydrogen fuel cells? Sorry, this is about as accurate as saying "it was freezing cold last winter, so that means global warming is a hoax invented by left wingers." Bush's own panel of appointed scientists concluded that it is a reality. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
If you simply accepted it, and then said "I don't care, I want to drive my V8 Chevy" then at least I'd praise you for having some honesty. However, burying your head in the sand and refusing to believe something because (some) people whose politics you disagree with have explained it is plain wilful ignorance
Posted in: Citing effects on U.S. economy, Bush passes global warming problem to next administration
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frontandcentre
Surely insisting on much better fuel economy from cars, with punitive taxation for gas guzzlers, would make more sense ?
Posted in: Bush lifts ban on offshore oil exploration to cope with soaring gas prices
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frontandcentre
Might as well just burn their money - or better give to charity
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frontandcentre
Why is everyone picking on the British approach to tea? It's the finest drink in the world, which nobody really bothered with until we turned it into a huge multinational business. The Americans just chucked the stuff into Boston harbour...
...that said, my answer would have to be a dai-nama Sapporo in an iced glass. Nowt better!
Posted in: What drink do you recommend to help cope with hot, humid days?
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frontandcentre
Because we already know what human-controlled factors are contributing to global warming - and we CAN control those. The fact that we cannot accurately forecast whether it'll rain or be sunny on Thursday does not, unfortunately, negate that fact.
There's another reason to try and reduce energy consumption as well - unless you are trying to argue otherwise (which, who knows, you might be), there are obviously finite quantities of fossil fuels on earth, particularly oil, on which modern society has allowed itself to become dependent. Since it's inevitable that we must move to a post-oil economy one day, the sooner we do, the better it will be.
Another fact for you: between 1977 and 1985, U.S. oil imports fell by half, while the economy grew 25 percent in the same period. It's plainly nonsense to suggest that the U.S. economy is dependent on profligate energy use to grow. Fuel efficiency makes sense, even if you think that pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere doesn't make a spot of difference to the weather - though increasingly a growing majority of your countrymen disagree with you
Posted in: Citing effects on U.S. economy, Bush passes global warming problem to next administration
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frontandcentre
Why bother quoting scientists when the climate change deniers refuse to believe what an overwhelming scientific consensus has to say? As long as people are going to be wilfully obtuse and ignore the evidence - led by G W Bush, who believes that God created the earth by some wand-waving in 6 days - then their minds are pretty unlikely to change.
This is, after all, an administration that has decided that the best way to energy independence is not to try and use less oil, but to wreck Alaskan wilderness drilling for a tiny percentage of extra domestic oil that would scarcely affect import volumes at all. Very clever.
Bush commissioned a scientific study into whether climate change was a reality and just as with the intelligence reports that didn't suit his political aims in Iraq, he's simply ignored the conclusions that he didn't like.
Words honestly fail me
Posted in: Citing effects on U.S. economy, Bush passes global warming problem to next administration
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frontandcentre
ambrosia...
It's not bathwater...it's filtered and chlorinated swimming pool water which has doubtless passed health checks in this officious bureaucrat's paradise.
And they seem to be enjoying themselves. Sorry to those of you who would prefer to grumble.
Honestly!
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frontandcentre
Slave labour? How daft! Slaves, by definition, are coerced... What an ignorant bunch of critics this woman has.
Posted in: 'Eco-actress' Saya Takagi under attack
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frontandcentre
I think it's amazing that these people have the gall to complain at all when they are all on a "jolly" paid for either by their employers or the taxpayers of their country (or US in Japan...) I'm quite sure that they were given perfectly good futons to sleep on, which as anyone here should know, can be just as comfortable and warm as any western-style bed.
...and my heart doesn't exactly bleed for African delegates who in some cases simply steal government revenues from their people to fund the kind of lifestyle where sleeping on a luxury futon is unacceptable to them.
I hate stories like this.
Posted in: Tatami rooms don't agree with G-8 visitors
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frontandcentre
Looks like Angela Merkel's husband was replaced by J K Rowling (front)
Posted in: Lunch
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frontandcentre
I hope they enjoyed the lunch that I and millions of other Japanese taxpayers bought them.
Posted in: Lunch
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frontandcentre
Modern technology would enable them to video conference over three days from the comfort of their various palaces without the Japanese government wasting billions of OUR tax Yen on not letting a squirrel within 5 km of George, Gordon, Yasuo et al.
Ludicrous
Posted in: It's time to downsize G-8 summits
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frontandcentre
If Bush had a decent bone in his body, he'd simply quit and confine his disastrous tenure as supposed "leader of the free world" (ha ha) to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
He has increased the vulnerability of his country, and the world, to terrorism, he has talked about energy independence when actually making his country MORE dependent on imported oil, he has set back the fight against climate change at least 8 years, probably more, by acting in denial of overwhelming scientific evidence, he has reduced tax on the rich and done nothing to improve the lot of the poor and he has encouraged the religious wackos who wish to replace the teaching of demonstrable science - i.e. evolution through natural selection - with fairy stories about creation and "intelligent design".
He has an entirely consistent record - one of consistent failure.
Posted in: Challenges abound for Bush at final G-8 summit
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frontandcentre
Well, many of the AU leaders are about as legitimate as Mugabe has now made himself - in other words, not at all - so they'd have a lot of front to criticise him.
Posted in: Mugabe looks for political boost at Africa summit
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frontandcentre
You know there's a funny thing about Japan - for me that's the way that the fact a complaint has been made seems to be far more significant than who made it, why, or whether there's any merit to it whatsoever. It's rather like the wide-eyed refusal of many Japanese people to consider anything strange about judges having super-high conviction rates. The "well he wouldn't be in court if he wasn't guilty, would he?" kind of attitude prevails, I've heard it more than once first hand.
The Japanese also seem to be more upset with the fact that this stuff is being translated into English than the fact that it is being written and published in the first place, and Mainichi have publicly said that they will severely punish the staffers involved without saying who complained or what the specific issue of complaint was. Until they do so, it looks like these people have been victimised for simply doing their jobs, making a pretty dull website interesting and amusing for a lot of English readers.
The "ton of bricks" approach of MDN suggests that it's not just any "Mr Suzuki from Yasukuni" writing in and having a whinge. But whatever the case, people's priorities are completely skewed here - Waiwai always made it clear that its source material was the lower types of unsubstantiated scandal rags etc., so I don't think too many non-Japanese will have based their whole view of Japan on it. That said, it also seems that, lurid sex stories apart, the weeklies can and do talk about some taboo subjects which mainstream Japanese media with its established press club system simply won't touch - hence the sensitivity.
Posted in: What do you think of the Mainichi's decision to cease publishing its WaiWai tabloid tidbits section on its English online site following complaints that it portrays Japanese society in a negative light to the world?
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frontandcentre
The US Presidential election is about selecting a secular leader, not a religious one. I wish that both sides would keep religion out of it. The Bible's such a long shaggy dog story that you can probably find quotes in it which would appear to support alomost anything
Posted in: Obama dismisses Dobson criticism about Bible