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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jeancolmar
It does not matter what the American right wingers think. With the exit of Bush they are dead meat. Obama on his first day in office moved to end torture and illegal detention under international law. Good for him I say again.
Even before a week of the Obama presidency has passed I am breathing a cautious sigh of relief. American presidents are elected short term monarchs, and this time the Americans seem to have an enlightened and human ruler. Amazing how so much can change utterly in a matter of hours.
Posted in: Obama moves to reshape U.S. policy by closing Gitmo
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jeancolmar
Good for President Obama. At least one Bush nightmare now seems on the outs.
Obama's role for the next few years is going to be custodial, cleaning up the mess that Bush made.
Posted in: Obama moves to reshape U.S. policy by closing Gitmo
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jeancolmar
The refusal to reproduce is the Japanese working class revenge on Japan's loathsome companies whose collective philosophy is: Use 'em, abuse 'em and lose 'em. It has been a sellers market until the recession hit. If students are really as immature and mindless as the buyers think they have only the LDP-controlled educational system to blame. That system wanted pliant wage slaves and consumer addicts rather than the activists of the 1960s.
The day will come when these kids will realize the power gained by organizing unions with teeth.
Posted in: Companies angry over thoughtless students amid economic downturn
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jeancolmar
Israel is pulling out for now but the blockade is still on. As you read this people are dying in Gaza's hospitals for lack of blood. Jordan has sent blood by ship. The Israelis blocked it.
The genocide goes on, only right now not with bombs.
Posted in: Israeli troops begin withdrawal from Gaza
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jeancolmar
A human rights violation is a human rights violation, "culture" be damned. Excuse this outrage and you might as well excuse the outrages against freedom of speech and expression in every other authoritarian country.
The idea that Thailand does not look to the West, etc., etc. is bunk. A huge part of the national income depends upon tourism. That means a lot of tourists who come from "the West," which might as well include Japan. Thailand has covered huge areas of wilderness into tourists resorts and huge swaths of their populated areas into bordellos to get money out of "the West."
If the tourist trade suffered thanks to cases like this the Thai government and the Monarchy would think twice about abusing people like this poor naive author.
Posted in: Australian gets 3 years in jail for insulting Thai monarchy
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jeancolmar
"In Japan, by contrast, the automatic equation of nudity to sex is simply not there." Dear, innocent Melissa, have you got a lot to learn about Japan.
Posted in: How to beat the onsen blues
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jeancolmar
Happy birthday Muntadhar al-Zeidi. Your essentially non-violent protest spoke for millions.
Posted in: Iraqi guards throw party for shoe-thrower
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jeancolmar
The Protestant Reformation-like revolt by European Communist Parties against the Soviet and Chinese regimes started decades ago. The Japanese Communist Party is part of this development. The significance of this, of course, flies right past the typical brainwashed American nationalist.
One significant thing is that these Communist parties, in rejecting the Soviet and Chinese models as successful failures, embraced a earlier democratic model of socialism (the one that should have happened in Russian but didn't). The other is that they became social democratic in nature--reformist rather than revolutionary.
While I disagree with the Japanese CP's stance on the so-called Northern Territories (which rightfully belong to Russia) I think the rise of the CP is a good thing. It is genuinely for the rights of working people and far less prone to compromise. As a significant opposition party it will help keep the LDP and Democratic Party in check and more or less honest.
I do not see the CP as ever becoming the ruling party or even being part of a ruling Democratic Party led coalition, less capitalism takes a radical plunge.
Posted in: Red star rising: With global capitalism on ropes, communism gains in Japan
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jeancolmar
Imbedded in this article is the fact that Israel bombed the United Nations. This has made headlines everywhere but here at Japan Today.
Posted in: Israel kills senior Hamas leader as strikes set Gaza ablaze
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jeancolmar
First sentence should read; "Right but Israel did more than keep the borders closed."
Posted in: Fighting rages in Gaza as death toll nears 1,000
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jeancolmar
Right, but Israel did not than keep the borders closed. They bombed Gaza. Yeah, yeah, they bombed tunnels. Tunnels was how the people of Gaza got basic necessities because of the closed borders. Also Hamas offered a cease-fire in mid-December and Israel refused.
uses This is not about rockets but internal politics and Israel seizing more territory for itself.
To date ten Israeli soldiers, including at least one officer, have refused to be deployed to Gaza because of Israel's slaughter of innocent lives. They will at least get 14 days in the brig for this.
These brave soldiers know more about Hamas rockets than the posters supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza. They also happen to know first hand what their government is doing. It is the moral conscience of Jewish Israelis like this who are the best argument for Israel's right to exist, not the war makers.
I hope the posters supporting Israel's murders in Gaza are enjoying themselves as the number of Palestinian dead and wounded rise. Next time these creeps see bleeding Palestinian children let them remember that in no small way are they helping to make this happen through their support.
Posted in: Fighting rages in Gaza as death toll nears 1,000
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jeancolmar
Chrysler has been the idiot sibling in the big three for decades. The wonder is that the company is still alive after all these years of building crummy gas guzzlers. In the stylistics department Chrysler is certainly great, but putting style over performance belongs to the 1950s and 60s.
Chrysler is up to date in one thing and one thing only: It is saddled with overpaid and stupid CEOs who know as much about cars as Paris Hilton knows about nuclear physics.
Even in stylistics Chrysler isn't up to the old masters whose designs were made for all time and not just until next year. The last of the great stylists was Raymond Lowey, who gave us the Studebaker Avanti.
Alas, it is time to finally put Chrysler out of its misery.
Posted in: Is Chrysler a lost cause?
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jeancolmar
By committing this latest war crime on top of the others Israel has created in new generation of Hamas supporters, suicide bombers and rocket makers. The joke is that Israel once poured money into Hamas thinking a religious organization would be a antidote to the PLO.
About "Palestinians and Liberals." Defense Minister Barak is a member of the Labor Party. Amos Oz and other liberal Israeli are supporting the war. Liberal Democrats in the US Senate voted unanimously to support Israel. The British Labour Party government is hardly objecting to Israel's Gaza slaughter. Follow Arab state Egypt is keeping its fellow Arabs, the Palestinians, out. Hamas, as essentially a religion-based organization is technically conservative. This invasion is not a liberal vs conservative issue.
It is a issue of people with a consistent moral conscience opposing this slaughter.
Posted in: Israeli forces advance deep into Gaza urban areas, accused of using white phosphorus
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jeancolmar
Hi di hi di ho. Wish some people would face facts. I've given two sources that say that Hamas for whatever reason wanted a cease-fire. Israel turned it down for whatever reason. It happened. Go to News Voice of America.com if you don't like my first source.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation
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jeancolmar
Hi, ho, some people don't like the truth and get personal when it is freely offered to them. Yes, Super Lib, etc. Israel did indeed reject a cease fire offer from Hamas in mid Dec, If you don't like my first source, how about Voice of America (News VOA.com)? Here is the source: "Israel Rejects Hamas Truce Offer" by Robert Berger (Jerusalem), 19 December 2007. You"ll be happy that unlike the first source, this one has a distinct pro-Israel twist.
Fact remains that Israel could have sat down with Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, and at least attempted to broker a cease fire.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation
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jeancolmar
To restate: Hamas was willing to negotiate a truce with Israel that Israel broke in November by bombing a tunnel it claimed Hamas was digging to kidnap Israeli soldiers, killing several people, supposedly Hamas "militants." In was then that Hamas blundered into shooting off its ineffectual rockets. In December Hamas was willing to continue the truce but Israel refused.
Please note that rockets were fired from Lebanon at Israel but Israel did not launch a full=scale invasion of Lebanon this time. It did not have to. As it did not have to invade Gaza.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation
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jeancolmar
Let us try making that quotation again.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation
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jeancolmar
Israel has a policy of promiscuous bombing. The UN convey may have a victim of this or it might have been an intended target by some lower ranked person. The fact is that Israel's main victims have been noncombatants.
Israel had and has other options other than military action. In turned down a peace overture from Hamas in December. As I said, Gaza has less to do with rockets and more to do with internal politics.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation
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jeancolmar
Israel has a policy of promiscuous bombing. The UN convey may have a victim of this or it might have been an intended target by some lower ranked person. The fact is that Israel's main victims have been noncombatants.
Israel had and has other options other than military action. In turned down a peace overture from Hamas in December. As I said, Gaza has less to do with rockets and more to do with internal politics.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation
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jeancolmar
With over 800 Palestinians slaughtered in Gaza--many of them women and children--something more needs to be said other than "yawn!!!"
One thing you ought to know is that this is not simply a war on Hamas but collective punishment of the sort the Nazis used to unsuccessfully quash resistance movements. The number of dead innocent civilians makes this truth self-evident.
Here is another fact. Israel rejected a Hamas proposal for a cease fire in December. (Go to http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=14031 for the article about this by Gordon Pather.) Another thing is that Israel violated the cease fire in November by bombing a tunnel in Gaza it said was being made by Hamas for aggressive purposes.
Hamas took the bait, stupidly and retaliated by firing its largely ineffective rockets into Israel.
Whatever the sins of Hamas (which Israel heavily funded once as a counter to the PLO), there can be no question that the Israeli occupation of Gaza and its blockade of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians has been criminal. Rocket attacks notwithstanding, the Israeli rape of Gaza has been an inappropriate response. In fact, as Israeli writer Ran ha Cohen has pointed out in his latest column on Gaza, the slaughter has more to do with politics than rockets. Writing in December 2008 he joked that the rape of Gaza has won five parliament seats for defense minister Barak's Labor Party, making it about 20 dead Palestinians for each seat. To carry the joke further, today the numbers are over 160 dead Palestinians per seat. You can also average two dead UN humanitarian workers killed by Israelis as they were delivering aid to the Palestinians.
Foreign journalists are barred by Israel and Israel has launched a propaganda blitz justifying its Nazi-like actions in Gaza. The US government enthusiastically supports Israel's crimes in Gaza. There is something you can do if the pictures coming out of Gaza of dead and maimed children disgust you. Boycott Israel.
Writing in the Guardian of 10 January 2008, Naomi Klein states: "It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa." This consists of Boycotts, Disinventment and Sanctions (BDS).
Klein notes: "Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause - even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle."
If you want to know what products and companies to boycott, find "Boycott Israel" with your search engine.
I leave you by emphasizing this fact. There are Israeli Jews who oppose their government's rape of Gaza. They are the voices that the Israeli government especially wants to you not to hear.
Posted in: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation