JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
1
To be healthy, live in the big city
-
2
Japan's nuclear safety standards flawed, says commission chief
-
3
Teacher nabbed for using miror to peek up girl's skirt
-
4
From carnivores to herbivores: how men are defined in Japan
-
5
Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
-
- 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
-
- 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*
-
- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
0
yabits
Of course, he might be referring to the thousands upon thousands killed by American-backed dictators in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.
In a recent interview, a question was asked of Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa. The nature of the question and the response reveals something that, unfortunately, too few Americans are aware of:
Q: You recently threw out a U.S. diplomat, Armando Astorga, calling him "insolent and foolish" and saying he treated Ecuador "like a colony."
Correa: "The U.S. Embassy kept funding certain police and intelligence units. Well, this itself is sufficiently serious. But it wasn't even unconditional assistance. Rather, they would choose the directors of those police units. They had them take lie-detector tests at the U.S. Embassy. So those units answered more to the U.S. Embassy than to the Ecuadorian state.
"And we, in the exercise of our sovereignty, wanted to change the directors of one of those units. Mr. Astorga, in a totally arrogant manner, sent a letter syaing that we need to give back everything that the United States has given us -- computers, automobiles, and so on. Well, they should take it all back then. But Mr. Astorga would also have to leave the country because we are no one's colony."
So it would appear that the price for U.S. "generosity" to other nations is for them to accept terms that would be completely unacceptable to Americans.
Posted in: At U.N., Venezuela's Chavez smells hope, not sulfur
0
yabits
I really like Mrs. Hatoyama's warm smile, and I hope that the Prime Minister and our president will develop a great personal, working relationship.
As to the cheap carping comments, it just goes to prove the title of that old book (recently revised): Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, and right-wingers are from Uranus.
Article Unavailable
0
yabits
Yeah, and here I thought that conservatives didn't like it when American political figures criticize America when they are on foreign soil.
The London Times reported that "several audience members ... walked out of Ms Palin's speech 30 minutes before the end, citing 'more important things to do' or describing the talk as 'too partisan and too much like a speech at the Republican convention.'"
Posted in: Palin resurfaces in Hong Kong for speech on U.S.-China relations
0
yabits
As the message on the truck implies, Tokyo is going all out to win the Special Olympics.
Article Unavailable
0
yabits
Not true. No media was allowed into the private venue where Palin gave her speech.
The New York Times only reported the reactions of a few people who observed it. A quote from their article: "A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling."
Posted in: Palin resurfaces in Hong Kong for speech on U.S.-China relations
0
yabits
...yawn...
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
Yes, and black is white.
If there was only some way to turn the awesome force that is conservative delusion into a source of useful energy. We in the US would give up our dependence on oil in a matter of weeks -- replaced with something that appears to be literally inexhaustible.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
This serves to emphasize the vastly superior composure of the Democrats being exposed of eight years of mind-bending, delusional whoppers* told by the previous administration. How Joe could spot a speck in Obama's eye when he has a beam in his own I'll never know.
*Keep in mind, folks, the Republicans who claim to purport Obama's numbers aren't what they should be are the same ones who claimed the Iraq War would pay for itself!
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
Yes, of course.... (Conducting the negotiations to end the Russo-Japan war.)
I totally respect your views on Jimmy Carter. I was stationed in Japan during the transition from Ford to Carter. There were some tense times in Japan-US relations at the end of the Vietnam war. I will always recall how proud I felt when, on the Keihin line from Yokosuka-chuo to Shinagawa, I held the latest copy of Newsweek with the picture of Ambassador Andrew Young prominently on the cover, casting a vote at the United Nations. Having served under three presidents, I was never prouder of the United States than I was during President Carter's term.
I am saying this to defend the wisdom and judgment of Mr. Carter, which reflect in his comments on Rep. Wilson. I fully agree that history will regard him as a leader who put before the American people the opportunity to become truly great and decent again.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
And here I totally agree with you.
So when the son of Representative Wilson rushes in to defend his father by claiming that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body, I think we can both agree that this is just a son being loyal to his father.
What I do not agree with is this notion that it is the Democrats who are currently using race to further their political ends. The emphasis on the word "currently." For most of the 20th century, the Democratic Party did make something of a devil's deal with the Jim Crow South. (White southerners hated what they considered "the party of Lincoln.)
To the Democrats' great credit, they started to shed their ties to the white, southern, segregationist Dixiecrats back during FDR's time. They did this on principle, even though it was far from policitally expedient for them. What the Republicans did, much to their discredit, was to form specific tactics to woo white southern racists into their fold.
Part of me deplores the fact that any action directed towards Obama will be scrutinized for any racial component. But that is the price that must be paid for a nation that has set so much in store by its racist past.
Any non-Democrat who genuinely wants to put this racist past behind them could do no better than to treat America's first black president with the greatest of deference and respect. And there is definitely a way to strongly disagree with the man's positions while still respecting the man.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
So, when Jimmy Carter opined that Wilson's outburst was based on racist impulses, this was Carter's calculated attempt to use Wilson's racism as a "political tool" to further Democratic Party needs?
If your goal is a world where no one cares about race, why do you appear to care so much about it? It would seem to me that the rational approach by someone who truly felt that way would be to accept that, if racism is truly dying out, that any party which attempted to further its needs by playing to it would be in danger of dying out as well, and -- if it was the opposing party that was doing this -- you just might not want to say too much about it to them.
Yes, living in the South, I can attest that there are some "evil racist fools" down here, the vast majority of that category being white. I believe the honest approach is to look at one's self and admit that racism, however latent, plays a role in many decisions -- such as Wilson's disrespectful outburst where he failed to see his president as a person deserving of respect. (And the arrogance he displayed in his lack of contriteness.)
Lastly, a person could only believe that Carter's remarks are a successful political tool designed, as one poster put it "to pimp" minorities is revealing a healthy disrespect for the minorities being pimped. It is as if you are saying if blacks weren't so dumb the Democrats wouldn't be so successful. In fact, it is just the opposite that is true: If so many conservative whites weren't so defensive about and oblivious to their own racist tendencies, the Republicans might be more successful.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
Carter's key words:
“There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”
And we have seen the real lies spouted against President Obama: that he's really not an American citizen, that he's a Muslim, that he "pals around" with terrorists. And on and on.
If visceral racism was not such a major factor involved with this issue, topics like this would draw relatively few comments. Look up the word "visceral" if you don't know it's meaning. I've lived a fair number of years -- and nearly half of them in Georgia. When someone says, as his son said of Wilson, that he "doesn't have a racist bone in his body," he's either lying or ignorant.
Black or white, you can't grow up in the USA at any time in the past 100 years and not be impacted by racial identity and association.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
Oh yeah? Say, Alan, how many close friends does your father have who are not white? Just where are these "distasteful jokes" that you claim that your father doesn't laugh at being told? Coming from where you do, you must be witness to lots of them.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
It never fails to amuse how, when people want to point out examples of racism from the "Democrat" side of the aisle, they always confuse it with the Dixiecrats of over 50 years ago, while failing to note the Republicans who were opposed to civil rights legislation. (Including their standard-bearer in '64, Barry Goldwater.)
Yeah, folks remember Philadelphia, Mississippi. That's were Reagan chose to give his very first speech after being nominated at the '80 convention, at the urging of Trent "Strom-was-right" Lott. His speech emphasized the importance of "state's rights."
Jimmy Carter knows all about the racism of southern whites like Wilson, having grown up and seen it first hand in rural Georgia.
Posted in: Carter: Wilson comments toward Obama 'based on racism'
0
yabits
Wilson was rebuked by Congress today. Good on that.
Posted in: Obama urges Congress for action on health care; Rep Wilson calls him a liar
0
yabits
Oh, the lies conservatives have to tell themselves in order to face the man in the mirror.
As if someone forced Lehman to create a mountain of collateralized debt on mortgages that were written that vastly exceeded the actual price of homes. Nobody forced Lehman, Bear Stearns, AIG, and Goldman Sachs, but the Republicans sure enabled them.
Posted in: Obama warns Wall Street not to block tighter regulations
0
yabits
A detail that only the less intelligent can not distinguish from what Wilson did.
Posted in: Obama urges Congress for action on health care; Rep Wilson calls him a liar
0
yabits
This is an important distiction, and one that is lost on none but the most hard core extremists. We might disagree with a policy or position, and boo or hiss to show that disagreement, but yelling out a personal epithet is nothing less than disrespect of the presidency.
These extremists are busy whipping themselves up into a lather about how evil and Hitler-like President Obama is. After all, to them, he's a black guy who refused to show his ID (birth certificate) to the "proper authorities."
Posted in: Obama urges Congress for action on health care; Rep Wilson calls him a liar
0
yabits
Regarding health care and public option, we've heard how this will remove all choice from the system, and how "death panels" will "pull the plug" on grandma. Nothing but lies.
And so it seems silly to take someone seriously whose side lies all the time, that it's the other side that is lying and that the most egregious liars are somehow actually "saints."
The moderate-liberal position is one of wanting all Americans to have access to effective, affordable health care without these wasteful middlemen (the insurance industry) taking their fat cut via denying Americans care when they need it most. Moderates and liberals are not motivated by the hatred for the president and his party. Nor are we driven by irrational fears that greater government involvement through a public option will mean that socialism has taken over.
The self-delusion and irrational fear that mark the debate from the right side on this issue only serve to underscore the need for better access to mental health services that will surely come as a result of the passage of the health care bill.
Posted in: Obama, Congress easing debate on public health care option
0
yabits
LOL! As just indicated, the frequency of inaccuracies in journals right-wingers don't like are measured in years. Right-wingers tell the truth just about as often.
The Five Lies about health care being spread by opponents of health care reform are proof enough.
Posted in: Obama, Congress easing debate on public health care option