JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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jeancolmar
Moral of this story is drink at home. If you want to socialize try Starbucks. I've yet to hear of the capachino being spiked.
Posted in: U.S. Embassy warns Americans to avoid Roppongi bars due to drink-spiking increase
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jeancolmar
Once again the Catholic Church is helping to spread AIDS, this time thanks to the Pope himself.
Simply telling people to pray rather than have sex does not work. Condoms do work. Africa does not need the Pope; it does need better sex education and tons and tons of free condoms.
The condoms, not the cross.
Posted in: Pope, in Africa, says condoms won't solve AIDS problem
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jeancolmar
The price is right, though I wonder about the resolution and extras like ICE. Perfectly idiotic that they did not make it Mac-compatible. I doubt very much that it will be as good as the higher-priced dedicated scanners. Anyway, glad to see that someone still takes film seriously.
Posted in: Low-price film scanner
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jeancolmar
Well, the fact is that the Japanese government isn't warning foreigners to be careful of Roppongi. Interesting all of this--I am quite out of the bar loop. Prefer my wine at home.
Interesting that this is not something that the Japanese government or media care about. The Police and the politicians and the media do make a big deal out of "foreign crime in Japan" but almost never about crimes against foreigners in Japan. I wonder if anyone knows which is greater.
Posted in: U.S. Embassy warns Americans to avoid Roppongi bars due to drink-spiking increase
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jeancolmar
Good morning, the party is over as far as unregulated "free market" economics go. Remember that is what got us into this mess; and it all started in the US. Now whatever you think of deficit spending try to imagine where American capitalism would be right now without it. Letting free market forces solve all problems is an old tired idea that does not work. The US being the US, the party is not quite over for the CEOs and the ruling class who have gotten richer as the working class has gotten poorer over the last 30 years.
In times of crisis the not smart free marketers insulate themselves with cliches while the smart one morph and cheerfully go for the bailouts.
"We have forgotten the value of hard work, thrift and savings," says one poster above. Well, in fact over the past few decades working people have been overworking. If they haven't been saving it is because they have nothing to save. I am primarily talking about the US where medical expenses for one thing eat up family savings.
The Soviet Union and China were and are successful failures. That is they did not establish real socialism, their propaganda notwithstanding. You may wonder how the Soviet Union survived at all given what it went through in World War II and it "failed" largely because the world ganged up on it. China as we know is an economic success, in spite of the recession. It is seldom referred to as Communist, though that is what it still is.
The socialists who have succeeded in this past century were the social democrats, reform socialists, in making capitalism a little less horrid than it could be. Welcome to Sweden, Canada, Norway, France and even Japan.
In France even a conservative like Sarkozy knows that the "free market" nonsense is dead. Though this may be like the person with the hangover who vows never to drink again.
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water"? Hi ho, there is no baby, just bath water. Wherever this crisis will go, one thing is clear: we can no longer afford capitalism. The Earth's ecology cannot sustain unlimited growth (waste). This economic crisis is a sign of worse things to come.
We indeed need innovation, but it is not going to come out of the corporate feudal system. We really do need to create a system that is regulated, conservative with regard to the world's resources, liberal in creating prosperity and equality and democratic in terms of managing the work place and the government. This cannot be done under corporate capitalism. It can be done under democratic socialism.
Posted in: The world is floundering
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jeancolmar
It's the American way: welfare for the rich and "free markets" for the poor.
Posted in: Outrage grows over millions in AIG bonuses
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jeancolmar
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative, recently said, "Laissez-faire, c'est fini." When Sarkozy says something like this you that capitalism as we know it is in its last days.
Obama put an American sugar coating on exactly the same thing when he said that we can no longer tolerate an economy that goes from bubble to bust. That has been the essence of so-called free market capitalism.
It is no longer a question of whether so-called free market economics--that has paved the road to corporate serfdom and mass misery--can survive but what will take its place.
Capitalism has so far been able to morph and to attach itself to any system that will keep it alive. Witness Communist China. The question is whether a form of "state capitalism" will eventually take over. The US is actually a model for that with its vast "military-industrial complex" (in President Eisenhower's words). The prospect of military capitalism dominating the world more than it has been is frightening.
The current meltdown is not the worst but a precursor to the worst that will happen to capitalism.
We who believe in democratic socialism are indeed telling you we told you so. And if the defenders of capitalism are mute it is because they have nothing to say in capitalism's defense.
Posted in: The world is floundering
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jeancolmar
Blast it, I hit the submit button.
Okay to continue.
When you meet the pirates say: "Hardie-har-har! [showing you mean business] Please drop your cutlasses and tell me where the buried treasure is or I'll make you walk the plank!" Phenetically that would be: "Haldie-halu-halu! Pleazu dlopo yuru cutlassesu ando tellu mi ouereu za bellied tlejuru isu oru ailu mayku yu ouaku za planku."
This will strike terror into the hearts of those pirates and they'll stop their evil ways and open up investment banks will all of their buried treaure.
Posted in: Do you think the two Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers will be able to do much in fighting piracy off Somalia?
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jeancolmar
Avast me heartie! To catch those pirates first the Maritime Self-Defense Force have study up pirates by reading Treasure Island. Then they have to learn pirate talk.
Repeat after me:u
Jolly Roger (Jolli loja)
Walk the plank (ouaku za planku)
Cutlass (kuturasu)
Hardie-har-har (haldi-halu-haiu)
buried treasure. (bellied tulejuru)
When you meet the pirates say: Please drop your cutlasses and tell me where the buried treasure is or I'll make you walk the
Posted in: Do you think the two Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers will be able to do much in fighting piracy off Somalia?
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jeancolmar
People held without charges may not even be POWs. They may simply be innocent victims. Good for Obama.
The Bush gang ought to be put on trial for crimes against humanity.
Posted in: Obama abandons term 'enemy combatant'
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jeancolmar
Throw shoes at the US suck-up judges. Free Muntadhar.
Posted in: Iraqi who threw shoes at Bush jailed for 3 years
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jeancolmar
I am all for gun control. I am glad that only yaks and cops have guns in Japan. Neither groups, whatever you think of them, is known to run amok and randomly decimate total strangers. Even the gangs of Mexico kill people who are in their way and, therefore, fair game, to use a Scientological expression.
Could the outrage in Alabama been prevented through stricter gun control? Maybe. But strict gun control would probably more effective in preventing shootings in relation to crimes like robbery. It is not a comforting thought, but mass murders carried out by psychotics are more often than not predictable and not easy to forestall.
I am in a minority who believes that violent psychotic crime is helped along by violent romances on TV and in Hollywood movies. I am sure that Rambo, a glorified psychotic mass killer, has inspired any number of mass killings.
For anyone who thinks the US is soft on criminals ought to remember that that country has more of its people in prison, on probation and parole than any nation on Earth.
But as far Alabama goes, the police officer who said "We don't know what triggered this" summed it all up. Probably we'll never know. Too bad the guy killed himself. He should have been put in a laboratory for the rest of his life and studied.
Posted in: 10 killed in Alabama shooting rampage
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jeancolmar
Kim Hyon Hui is a master con artist. Who can help blow up a passenger plane and walk free. As I recall this cold-blooded mass murderer became something of a heartthrob at the time. Her dumbbell accomplice at least had the decency to die with the other passengers. Kim got off en route.
Now she is telling the Japanese what they want to hear. The missing abductees are still alive.
Here is an elementary question. When the North Koreans revealed that they had in fact abducted people and allowed a group of them to return to Japan, why would they hold back on the others if they were still alive?
I can think of only two reasons. They did not want to go back. They were in sensitive positions that would seriously compromise North Korean security.
But I really wonder how Kim would know a fraction of any of this. And if she knew anything why is she so late in coming forward?
Posted in: Ex-N Korean agent says she believes abductees Taguchi, Yokota still alive
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jeancolmar
Welcome to Canada which has had a strong influence from socialism and social democracy via Saskatchewan and is a better place to live than the US and was smart enough not to get involved with sub-prime loans. Hate Canada all you want until you get sick and need socialized medicine or want a safe place for your money.
Posted in: Canada to emerge from economic crisis first: PM
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jeancolmar
Venus de Sanders?
Posted in: Colonel Sanders statue and his curse lifted from Dotonbori River in Osaka
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jeancolmar
Good solid advice, but I am wondering about the writer's historical sense. The Great Depression happened 80 not 100 years ago. The last line about the 1890s is a bit confusing. I hope the writer doesn't think the Great Depression happened then, though there were a series of depressions after the Civil War.
Posted in: Sales staff can learn new tricks from old dogs
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jeancolmar
The guards out to be the inmates. We haven't heard the worst, guaranteed.
Posted in: Guantanamo worse since Obama's election: ex-detainee
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jeancolmar
Hard Messages--Overthrowing Capitalism
If may be a matter of time before the workers decide to take over the their places of employment and lock out the bosses.
Remember, be kind to the capitalists you have locked out. Remember now that you have socialism all their vast holdings are now public property and they are now your fellow workers. Do not humiliate them when they show up for work and have no practical skills to offer a society that produces things for use rather than profit. You must be patient and retrain them. You will also have to reeducate them to understand the virtues of the public ownership and workplace democracy. It is not nice to have former capitalists unemployed and eating out of recycling bins or suffering post traumatic stress because they no longer have their private jets.
Remember how kind these capitalists were when they fired you. Show them the same kindness in return when you overthrow them.
Remember
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jeancolmar
I've lived in Japan long enough to think that the T-shirt is cute.
Posted in: TBS turns viewers off with its topless T-shirt project
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jeancolmar
Just what Tokyo needs, a money losing mess to clean up.
Posted in: Singer Chage joins Tokyo Olympic citizens' movement