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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- 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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gonemad
I read a lot of reviews for all kind of things. And of course, I judge by myself as well, though often that is only possible afterwards. For most things, there is too much choice, so the reviews help to quickly focus the selection. Whenever possible, I try to keep the same reviewer so that I can get used to his way of thinking. Checking his reviews on something I know already helps to get some confidence.
Most reviews tend to be too positive for many reasons, so it helps to focus on the negative sides or look for things which don't get mentioned in the reviews.
Posted in: Do you let reviews of movies, theater, books, restaurants, etc, influence you one way or another or do you prefer to judge for yourself?
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gonemad
On a more serious level, I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the South Korean marine sunk the Cheonan by accident. There was a similar ship operating nearby in the area and that ship reportedly fired at something, be it a submarine or a flock of birds, shortly before. Incidents like this are quite common in the area and nervousness of the crews must be high.
Other than that, it could be a retaliation act by the north for some previous incidents in the crab wars. Childishness seems to be common force in east Asian politics, so it makes a plausible explanation.
I don't believe that any of the powers in the region has an interest in military escalation. Everybody can only lose. So I hope the responsible politicians manage to calm down the emotions again.
Posted in: Who do you think was behind the sinking of a South Korean warship on March 26?
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gonemad
It was Iran. They want to engage the US at the other side of the world :-)
Posted in: Who do you think was behind the sinking of a South Korean warship on March 26?
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gonemad
The author's view is a bit simplistic, isn't it?
When you look at the list of countries with high public debts, where is the correlation between debt level and "welfare states"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
I'm too lazy to look up the figures, but I'm pretty sure that those countries in Europe with extremely high debts spend relatively (in terms of % GDP) less on welfare than the Scandinavian countries which the author cites as such good examples. It rather seems that too much money is funneled into other, non welfare-related, channels and cleaning up those should have highest priority. Look at the situation in Japan and you can get a feeling...
I certainly don't want to say that there aren't opportunities for cutting wasteful spending in the welfare budgets in Europe. But I think the numbers do not indicate that the European debt crisis is triggered by too high welfare spending and that cutting in these areas will not solve the underlying problems.
Posted in: Fiscal crises threaten Europe's generous benefits
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gonemad
acubed, good post.
Don't expect too much from any technical solutions. They will work occasionally, but if it is really true that the distribution of child porn is a multi-billion dollar business, then they will be able to hire technical experts which allow them to stay ahead in the cat and mouse game with law enforcement agencies. Look at the sophisticated methods of the spammers if you want to get an impression.
I'm not sure that making possession illegal really contributes to solving the problem. My concerns are that scarce qualified resources of law enforcement agencies will be diverted to fight the symptoms instead of the root and that it will effectively outlaw own research into the distribution networks by child protection organizations.
Let's not forget the primary target, that we want to protect children from abuse. Everything else is secondary or even irrelevant. According to police statistics, in the vast majority of cases, child abuse is done by persons close to the children. When we all, be it as parents, teachers, relatives, friends or whatever carefully watch the children around us and act when we find signs that (may) indicate abuse, we will probably gain most. I'm convinced that only when we succeed in building a society which cares, and does not look away we will have a real chance to fight child abuse and consequently child porn.
Posted in: What is the most effective way to eradicate the sale and possession of child porn?
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gonemad
Oh, thanks for the award ;-) Just, it seems your justification is not particularly strong...
Regarding the Craig E Morrey case:
Maybe I haven't gotten the whole story, but I think that's not true. He has the custody for his son Spencer. According to Japanese law, he does not need to ask the mother to travel or move abroad. He asked the court to grant a permission, but since there is no requirement to ask the mother, the court doesn't feel responsible. Craig's problem is not the Japanese court, but that he is afraid that when he moves to the US he would be accused of child abduction under US or Brazilian law. I think he is a bit too overcautious here (probably related to the fear to never see his daughter again?). The "couple" lives in Japan and has divorced under Japanese law, so regarding child custody, Japanese law applies. If he has any further concerns, he should get a court injunction from a Brazilian or US court.
By the way, the situation would not be so different if the couple had lived in the US and he wanted to move to another country. In the US in most cases the parents would have been assigned joint custody. With a veto from the mother, he would not be able to leave the country with his child. And he would not have any chance to get a court injunction except in the case that he can get his wife certified insane. Would you call the US laws a complete joke as well, just because the lawmakers could not foresee every possible situation?
[please correct me if I didn't catch the facts correctly]
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gonemad
Regarding Greece especially, we can see two separate problems, public debt running out of control and the government cooking the books. Regarding the first one, I'm afraid we can't do much in general. Organizations like to EU or IMF may have some influence on the decisions, but ultimately it's the Greek people's decision. In a democracy, people do not only have the right to vote, but the obligation to vote responsibly. They haven't taken their responsibility seriously for so many years, so I don't commiserate terribly... Greece should serve as a warning example to others.
Regarding cooked books, do we need a kind of SOX for public budgets, with maybe the IMF as a controlling instance? That should increase visibility for the people. If laws do not cover it yet, abuse of authority laws should be amended so that criminal charges can be brought against the responsible people.
Regarding speculation, I'm not a friend of regulation. Regulation works too slow and there is too much danger that the speculators, which are those who have the money, will influence the regulation in their favor, rendering it useless. Corruption is everywhere. It's probably better to find some system-inherent friction. That could be done by e.g. taxing every single financial transaction as opposed to the current taxation of profit/loss only. I think those taxes don't need to be very high to dampen almost all short-term speculations. Long-term speculations should be addressed individually, depending on their root cause. The tax money can be used to decrease basic corporate taxes, benefiting productive companies.
Posted in: In view of what is happening in Greece, what do you think should be done to stabilize global financial markets?
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gonemad
I have to say the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the current Japanese laws are the better way do deal with child custody. That doesn't mean that I don't agree with most of you that ideally the child should be able to keep the contact with both parents. On the other hand, as nigelboy has correctly pointed out, that is only true if both parents don't continue their fights in front of the children. Now, the law has to be the same for everybody and cannot make case-by-case distinctions. You could formally leave that to the courts, but on what basis should they determine objectively which way is best for the child(ren) in the particular case? Isn't the best criterion whether the parents are still somehow able to cooperate in favor of the child's benefit? But that exactly is what the Japanese laws do. They assume the worst case and assign custody to just one parent. When both parents pursue the best for their child, they will agree some kind of joint custody anyway, independent from what laws or courts might say. On the other hand, if a couple is so estranged that they cannot even put priority to their child's well-being over their own quarrels, then it's probably best to have a clear cut.
I think the point where Japanese laws need improvement is that foreign parents should have a right to permanent residence in Japan when their underage child lives in Japan. I don't think this is the case now, is it?
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gonemad
Sarge, if you knew anything about Gaza, then you'd recognize that the sad answer is 'no'. There are no official statistics, but even the most conservative estimations give unemployment rates well beyond 50%. Those who are lucky enough to have a job, cannot earn enough to make a living, so that 80~90% of households live in poverty.
Posted in: Hamas says Egypt killed 4 tunnel smugglers with gas
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gonemad
northlondon, Mr Walsh is by far not the only airline boss behaving like this. I suspect the reason is that the airlines have insurances for the case a plane comes down, but there is no insurance for the losses incurred when the planes have to stay on the ground. No surprise. You didn't know that profits have always had priority over human lives?
Posted in: To fly through ash or not? That's no easy question
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gonemad
So true. But have you noticed how it also works the other way around when you go to "western" countries? You will find many people who believe foreigners may have certain different habits, but basically share the same "universal" values - same shock when they find it's not the case. As a side note, it seems to me that the more educated people are the more they have such kind of prejudices.
At the time when the books came out, my wife showed me some episodes and I found them pretty funny as well. Now since a couple of years my wife writes a blog herself about the, umm, special, experiences she has with me. Many people seem to have fun with it. I hope this won't end up some day in an embarrassing film called "my darling's gonemad"...
Posted in: My Darling Is a Foreigner
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gonemad
Without a doubt, it is quite an improvement over DVD - but it could be better still... Then there is still the silly region code. The majority of discs seem not to use it as of today, but I don't want to check such kind of thing before buying any discs. I didn't invest into DVD until high quality region code free players were available and I won't change this attitude for BD. But the biggest problem with BD is the AACS copy protection, which allows to revoke keys of discs or players at a later time. That means you can never be sure that your player or previously bought discs will continue to work whenever you play a new disc. My answer as a consumer: no, thanks. Or make it so dirt cheap that I don't have to care about potential losses.
Posted in: What do you think about the Blu-ray disc format?
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gonemad
It's interesting to see such statement from a Japanese writer. I've never met a Japanese person who would hang on to any controversial discussion and not quickly terminate it in one or the other way, whether in private or public. This is one of the things which I'm really missing in Japan. If the people can't handle it, how can you expect the media - or politicians - to be different?
Posted in: The Japanese media and its Orwellian nature
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gonemad
Branded, I don't know whether you were suggesting the literal meaning of gas pedals moving down by themselves. I have read such reports. The funny thing is that none of the modern Toyotas do have any mechanics which could move the gas pedal. Perhaps the problem with their cars is actually evil spirits and Toyota should employ some exorcists :-)
Posted in: Toyota apologizes to Canadian car owners
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gonemad
Wow. Effectively this means they are constantly using new chemicals with unknown effects in their products. Thanks for letting us know...
Posted in: Green tea maker Ito En bans all animal tests
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gonemad
sfjp330, be careful with simplifications. The report from Exponent, which was posted on the Toyota website, just focuses on the cabling from the pedal to the engine control unit, forgetting the small board inside the pedal and forgetting the board inside the ECU. The layout in there may look completely different. It is not unusual to get shorts with relatively high resistance when dirt and/or moisture are creeping into your system. At the risk of Branded reading this speculation again as some sort of evidence - wasn't Toyota talking about moisture being a problem with the sticky pedals? They referred to it as causing mechanical problems, but it shows that there can be relatively high levels of moisture in general. There are a couple of other potential failure sources as well, like all the electrical components connected to these wires. Probably not even Toyota has enough information about the inside of the components to judge the possible failure modes. While Gilbert's experiment was not really convincing, neither is Exponent's rebuttal.
Posted in: Toyota apologizes to Canadian car owners
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gonemad
kinniku, you will probably find some similar problematic attitude on Israel's side. Think about Lieberman and the likes. Nobody said negotiations would be easy. On the other hand, you can sometimes see that in negotiations you can find a compromise easier between the hardliners than the more moderate people. What I wanted to say that any negotiations without Hamas won't bring any lasting results. With Hamas it may well be the same, but at least there is a chance.
Posted in: U.S.-Israel row highlights quandary over settlements
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gonemad
You can try. I read somewhere these days that the class action suit against Audi due to loss of value after the Audi 5000 witch hunting in the 80s is still ongoing. So I can see that Toyota's lawyers will be busy for the rest of their lives...
Posted in: Class-action lawsuits could cost Toyota $3 bil-plus
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gonemad
Why is it that there is so much choice, but then you can only select between black and terribly sweet, but nothing in between? I'd like to get some coffee which is just lightly sweet or a milk coffee without sugar/sweetener. With taste, so real sugar, fat and calories, please.
Posted in: Canned coffee with zero sugar, fat, calories
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gonemad
kinniku, I completely agree with you that any negotiations without Hamas are indeed meaningless. But it is not Hamas refusing to join the negotiations, it is Israel and the West who are excluding Hamas, the point being that Hamas should recognize the existence of the state of Israel beforehand. Yes, Hamas should finally recognize the existence of the state of Israel, but that must be a result of the negotiations and not a prerequisite. If we ask any party to make major concessions beforehand, negotiations will never start.
He should understand that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a constant threat to the talks with Iran and that hardliners in Israel may even use it to actively sabotage any progress.
Posted in: U.S.-Israel row highlights quandary over settlements