JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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peachy871
When was that?
Posted in: Which side do you think looks more in the wrong following Wednesday's clash between Sea Shepherd and Japanese whalers?
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peachy871
I get both points of view. Japan hunts for scientific study (a thinly veiled justification) and the Sea Shepherd folks are against the killing of whales. I get where both are coming from. It is easy to see why both parties were out there.
Both vessels were at fault. The Shonan Maru did clearly turn toward the Ady Gil, although it looks like they were possibly trying to scare them into backing off. The Ady Gil seemed to sit there for a bit then when they realized the Shonan was getting bossy, they clearly shot forward. If you really watch the footage, it's obvious. It is also obvious that when they shot forward to get in front of the much larger ship, the Shonan then tried to veer away again but it was all too late.
(Yeah, yeah, I know the Sea Shepherd claimed they threw it in reverse, but if that's the case, whoever was manning the controls obviously can't differentiate between forward and back...)
I know the Ady Gil looks like a present from Batman, but that doesn't mean the crew are a bunch of superheros. The Japanese veered toward the Ady Gil, the Ady Gil propelled itself forward to try and make the Japanese look like big, mean boat ramming monsters. Both sides made crappy judgment calls that ended a lot less badly than it could have.
The Sea Shepherd vessels in the past have done a lot more to the Japanese vessels such as throwing stink bombs, boarding the Japanese ship, ramming the Japanese ships with their own, which in the past were matched in size. Not sure why they thought they could accomplish the same with their new, tiny boat. They are playing a reckless, reckless game very willingly. The sad thing is, someone is going to get killed and the Sea Shepherd folks will never see it as something they could have prevented; it will always be the big, bad Other Guy.
Posted in: Which side do you think looks more in the wrong following Wednesday's clash between Sea Shepherd and Japanese whalers?
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peachy871
LOL @ S7ro9kGm3aQ!! Well said!!
Posted in: Chiba man arrested for kicking 2-year-old son in head
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peachy871
Actually he lives with the ex-wife and their four children (that son included).
I used to be really shocked here at the amount of times that I would see mothers smack their kids on the head when they were being naughty. I have gotten used to it mainly because I soon came to realize it was usually just a gentle tap along with a scolding. There are lots of occasions though, when you can see a mom losing her cool and gives her child a true, painful smack. I usually just stop in my tracks and stare and they do everything they can to avoid eye contact, that's for sure.
But a man kicking a tiny child in the head???? He deserves a little of his own medicine.
I understand cultures vary with their discipline and all that but if a parent wants to be physical (a small tap on the head or a slap to little fingers that are reaching toward a hot stove), they really need to know how to draw the line between discipline and abuse, because it is a very thin one.
Maybe many Japanese are not exposed to what it is to take care of a child until they actually have one themselves. Maybe kids growing up need that experience or at the very least, an education about it in school for both girls AND the boys! Might help lower the number of baby-head-kickers.
Posted in: Chiba man arrested for kicking 2-year-old son in head
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peachy871
Yup...that is a beluga. Dolphins' flippers/fins (?) are more pointed and almost look like a wing shape. Belugas' flippers are more squared off like in the pic.
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peachy871
Numbskull...had more of a think to try and see your point on this. Sort of get what you are trying to say...just think the way that you project your message is not very clear. It seems you are trying to say there are guys out there who don't know how to read signals and probably need a lot more education on how to treat the opposite sex and how to handle their own urges.
BUT you do make it sound like she should put out or she doesn't qualify as his girlfriend. And that there are some guys out there who could be excused if they let frustration get the better of them if a girl doesn't put out. Perhaps that is not what you want to convey but that is how it is coming across to most on here.
Still don't agree with your definition of a girlfriend...at least not when she is still a kid. One more time...the victim in the story was a 17 year old high school girl. Almost grown but not quite there yet. Decided she didn't want what he was offering at that time. He lost it like an animal. She wasn't his enemy or to be looked down upon for thinking she was his girlfriend yet not giving him sex. She was a high school kid dating another high school kid. Sure, of course, high school kids are have sex but this one kid either wasn't ready or wasn't ready to do it right there in the field, so Prince Charming turned into a caveman on her. Nice.
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peachy871
Numbskull...bottom line, the girl is 17 and perhaps many feel that is a good age for sex, perhaps YOU think it is appropriate, but if that girl was not feeling that 17 was the right time for her to give it up, she didn't have to have sex with him. She was still his girlfriend. If she said no, the option is NOT to beat the crap out of her!!! If he was of the same mentality as you, that the only thing that makes a girlfriend is sex, otherwise she is not a girlfriend, he could have broken up with her right then and there (thus not a girlfriend anymore) and looked for the closest pink bar.
The rule is NOT if you don't put out, you should be punched out. You managed to degrade both sexes in one sweep here. When you say that a 17 year old kid isn't willing to let some 18 year old idiot get down and dirty with her in the park, that she is not girlfriend material. Your statements also basically say that if a woman doesn't put out, they run the risk of being assaulted and nearly killed so if they want to avoid being beaten senseless by the man they are dating, the best solution for them is to put out. And through this statement, you also imply that men are some sort of subhumans too weak to control themselves so are to be forgiven for resorting to violence when they can't get what they want.
Wow. If you have daughters, I hope you care about them at least a little more than this.
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peachy871
OMG, numbskull, please say you were kidding there...
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peachy871
lol...good point Bizarro! Perhaps it is time to start referring to them as a "singing" group or just group...ahem... After all, the youngest of them is 32.
Btw...anyone know what musical that Shingo took part in? Was he actually in it or was he a part of it because he was an audience member??
Posted in: All five SMAP members attend PR event for new commercial
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peachy871
Provocation? From a 6 year old? To warrant physical violence inflicted by a full grown man on a small child? Huh????? If a kid says something annoying, there are plenty of options...like ignoring the kid, for starters! Or let her teachers at her school know (I was told that notifying schools rather than parents is the appropriate course of action in Japan)
But to punch a little kid??!!?? And to do it so hard it damages her internal organs??? Did someone not inform this guy that he hasn't been 6 years old in quite some time? Just because he has the same mentality, doesn't mean he is the same size or strength.
If the cops nabbed the right guy or not...whomever is guilty is one sick nutjob!
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peachy871
LFR...great post! Well said!
Yes, whatsgoinon, nearly all schools in Japan need to rethink their building safety. But that costs a lot and it isn't going to happen soon, but I sure wish it would!
While I agree that the first thought might be, "where was the teacher?", I just need to think about that for about 3 seconds and I come up with all kinds of scenarios like LFR described above. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how overworked teachers here are. And yes, they are indeed the ones who seem to be held far more responsible for a child's...sorry, an entire room full of children's upbringing every year. Parents just don't seem to be up to the task for some odd reason. They often just leave it to the underpaid babysitters that are otherwise known as teachers.
Posted in: Woman catches 10-year-old boy who falls from 3rd-floor window
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peachy871
She may have felt desperate for money...who knows, maybe they were on the brink of homelessness. But don't pimp out an innocent child!!!! She was the adult fully capable of making the decision of how to get some more money. There are lots of things one can do to get that money but sexually abusing your child??!!!???? She deserves to rot. If she really needed to turn to prostitution, it should have been her, NOT her child!!!!
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peachy871
daoster...no one here said it was solely the cause of humans. People stated that it is happening, some of us went so far as to speculate that we are contributing to it. SteelWOLF, although a skeptic about humankind's contribution, did rightfully point out that climate change happens...often. Many might agree with him. I do. However, there is a possibility that humans are contributing to it. I certainly think we are. Even if we are not, climate change is happening and always happens. Honestly, when on Earth will the real issue for both sides be about dealing with it (i.e. adapting in a more sustainable fashion to changes in climate) and dealing with a whole myriad of other problems that we DID cause????
Seriously, who cares about what pieces of data were pieced together; who hacked whose computer to uncover (gasp) this horrible, evil, unfathomable, I-am-scarred-for-life fraudulent information; if humans contribute 1% or 98% to global warming (did you know that 67.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot?); and on and on and on...
If it is nature, not nature, aliens, cows farting...again...not the point. The real point should be to pay attention to your little corner of the world, take care of it and change with it not against it. Plain. Simple. But apparently not mentally attainable for many nor financially lucrative for big businesses. More satisfying for most to whinge on and on about nothing that is going to accomplish anything.
Posted in: Climategate: The fix is in
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peachy871
That is HILARIOUS!! They already have a movie due out in late January? She just got arrested! How long will the movie be? About 30 minutes??
Posted in: Movie on Noriko Sakai gets new lead
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peachy871
Why is everyone arguing over whether the data was manipulated or not? Who cares? Are you really that mindless that you need someone else to tell you what to think or how to observe the world around you? We are at a point where climate change is blantantly obvious! We don't need science to tell us that. Just open your own eyes and see the changes that have occurred in your lifetime! Yes, there are massive climatic changes happening and no, we cannot stop them. Did we cause them? Nope. Are we a contributing factor in them? Possibly.
Let's pretend for a second, that the temperatures aren't changing at all, that they world is going to stay climactically exactly as it is. Ok, now look at all the other crap we are doing. More and more often drinkable water gets tainted by e-coli or other bacteria. Sea levels are rising (having absolutely nothing to do with climate change of course...it is normal for islands to "sink" apparently), elevated PCBs in the breast milk of mothers in the arctic, mercury in our fish, a hole in the ozone, smog in most cities that has gotten so bad it now warrants its own advisory scale, soil stripped of its nutrients from single crop farming (thereby giving us fewer nutrients in our food)...and on and on and on...you can argue what you want about them but bottom line is, if you really sit down and look at what we are doing...we have a huge mess to clean up. Is any of it affecting the rate of our climate change? I think it sure does! Even if you want to argue that it doesn't, you still have to concede that we are hurting ourselves and are not exactly laying a smooth path for our future.
We have a mess to clean up and a climate change (yes, it is happening, which is a natural thing but very possibly at an artificially accelerated rate) to contend with. We need to learn to adapt to it NOW, not after things are worse than they already are.
I for one, would prefer a better quality life that would come from a major change in the way we are doing things.
Posted in: Climategate: The fix is in
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peachy871
Perhaps something fraudulent was afoot but I still find the article just as biased as the people he is "outing". You all can argue as much as you want about stats, science and numbers, but there is all kinds of evidence all around us. Yes, global warming is happening. No, we are not causing it, it happens naturally in a cycle. However, humans are speeding up the process somewhat, which is making it hard for many species to adapt as they would have if things were going at a natural rate.
And you think global warming is not happening and the sunshine, flowers and lollipops in your world are just going to stay as they are? Lucky you. Tell that to the people in Tuvalu or those in the Maldives. Or perhaps you can take a look at the incredible decline of corals all over the world. How about the melting of the ice caps that went a long way to regulating temperatures on our planet? Sure these things are probably meant to happen...just not this fast.
Instead of arguing back and forth about whether we are to blame for global warming or if it is a natural occurrence, why don't we work a little harder on adapting to it? It is happening whether we like it or not, whether we are causing it or not, and we are going to have to sink or swim. (Ha! Pun was not intended, but there it is!) Whether or not we are actually making global temperatures rise faster that nature intended or whether it is happening at all, the fact remains we have made a horrible mess of our home.
Oh, and no matter what side of the fence you sit on...we are definitely NOT killing the Earth. We are making it sick, that is for sure. But we are a species and like many species, one day, we are going to be gone and the planet will heave a huge sigh of relief and bounce back.
And I don't need to be an activist, politician or scientist to figure that stuff out.
Posted in: Climategate: The fix is in
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peachy871
Yes, perhaps her saying something to him distracted him, perhaps not. None of us posting on here so far were actually there to witness it so stop throwing stones.
What she did was amazing and thank goodness there is someone like her in this society were the vast majority prefer to pretend they didn't see. Without her, he might have fallen just the same and the outcome would have been far worse. Kudos to her!!!
As for the teachers, yes, I agree with irishhighlander...those who hold the school at fault obviously never taught in one here. Far too much is demanded and expected of the teachers. This little brat was going to find a way to get out there and be an idiot one way or another...not the teachers' fault for his stupidity. irishhighlander also made another good point; that maybe the parents should be criticized with teaching their own children right from wrong...unfortunately, nowadays, most parents don't seem to feel that to be their responsibility. They have the kids then appear to expect the schools to do the majority of the upbringing.
Anyway, it was so wonderful and refreshing to see such a great story on here! So much crap going on in the news, it is nice to read a happy ending for a change!
Posted in: Woman catches 10-year-old boy who falls from 3rd-floor window
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peachy871
LOL @ nemoflow...nah, actually, some of us who don't like it are the ones who ensure that we are hotties by the time we leave home, so we are already hot BEFORE we step onto the train, not stepping onto the train looking like hell then desperately trying achieve hotness after the train starts moving! hee hee! The really hot gals are the ones who know how to start out hot and stay hot.
Posted in: Do it at home: Train manners in Japan
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peachy871
LOL @ Miyaratmosphere....I had been looking at that pic over and over trying to figure out who on Earth was the second hot stud in the pic...thought I was losing my mind!
I love the random awards that they have here every frikking waking moment, it seems. But shouldn't this be called "Best dressists" btw?
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peachy871
and right....almost forgot, those who feel the need to "share the love" by sneezing and/or coughing all over all those around them!
Posted in: Do it at home: Train manners in Japan