JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- 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
You don't have to agree with it. You merely have to accept that more than enough Democrats and Republicans will vote to approve Sotomayor.
Huh? Enlightened as in "infallible?"
Posted in: Sotomayor says she chose word poorly in 2001 speech
0
yabits
I bet a great many Republicans vote to approve her too.
Does that mean Republicans are opposed to free speech?
Posted in: Sotomayor says she chose word poorly in 2001 speech
0
yabits
Trent Lott chose his words -- WORDS -- very carefully. The person he was giving credit to was an arch-white supremacist and segregationist.
Now, it's very funny how not only paying a compliment to a segregationist gets a pass from right-wingers, but telling people that if the segregationist won, that we wouldn't be having these "problems" -- "problems" such as a proud, wise Latino woman being considered for the highest court in the land.
The right-wingers, hypocrites that they are, profess that things should be color-blind in their slimy attack on Sotomayor. And yet they fully admit that Trent Lott's words -- anything but color blind -- shouldn't have been held up for criticism. Which is why they attribute the "attacks" to "left-wingers."
Lott was not removed from the Senate, just his position as Majority Leader. If we are to treat Sotomayor equally, she should be a Justice, but not Chief Justice. Fine by me.
Posted in: Sotomayor says she chose word poorly in 2001 speech
0
yabits
Republicans favor tens of millions of Americans to be without health care.
Let's get ACORN out there and make sure those uninsured are registered to vote.
Posted in: Obama says health care a must this year -- or never
0
yabits
Well, she certainly chose better words than the right-wingers who call her "racist" and "bigot."
Posted in: Sotomayor says she chose word poorly in 2001 speech
0
yabits
Judging by which party is now wearing what Bush was kicking, his aim was about as good as Cheney's.
Posted in: Bush says he misses soldiers, White House food
0
yabits
smithinjapan:
You know when folks like teleprompter start quoting The New Republic in an attempt to influence the rejection of Sotomayor -- when the TNR writer Rosen is saying that she might not be a strong enough liberal (!) to counteract the conservatives on the court -- you know they are getting very desperate.
Just as a conservative like TP will quote a liberal when it suits their purposes, they will, as you said, cherry-pick the constitution to achieve the same. Of course, they have to make a show of caring about it. But that is all it is: a show.
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
"The New Republic" did not voice its reservations; one writer -- Jeffrey Rosen did. There have been voices of support coming from TNR, a magazine which I've subscribed to for nearly two decades.
Here is what Rosen said as a follow up to the piece about Sotomayor that so many mindless conservatives have apparently siezed upon:
Many people have mischaracterized my argument, and I can understand why. The headline--"The Case Against Sotomayor"--promised something much stronger than I intended to deliver. As soon as the piece was published, I regretted the headline, which I hadn't seen in advance. The piece was not meant to be a definitive "case against" Judge Sotomayor's candidacy. It was intended to convey questions about her judicial temperament that sources had expressed to me in the preceding weeks. That's why I concluded the piece not by suggesting that Sotomayor was unqualified for the Supreme Court, but by suggesting that "given the stakes, the president should obviously satisfy himself that he has a complete picture before taking a gamble."
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
Is this the same "La Raza" that George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and John McCain have supported by making appearances before them?
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
I can't be too down on former President Bush.
Look at all he did for the Republican Party.
Posted in: Bush says he misses soldiers, White House food
0
yabits
I prefer the term "scaredy-cats" to "racists." Scaredy-cats feel comfortable around people they feel are most like them, and feel uncomfortable around those they feel are "different." Sotomayor makes those who emphasize their "Anglo-ness" very uncomfortable.
Thomas is there to provide cover for scaredy-cat white conservatives who use him to fend off arguments like this one. It is called a "token." There is no way in God's green Earth that the conservatives would ever have recommended a Thurgood Marshall. Conservatives at the time were opposed to Justice Marshall, just as they are opposed to Sotomayor today.
That said, Clarence Thomas is a white conservative's wet dream.
I have never felt guilty about being white. I once considered myself a conservative, but then eventually felt guilty about being among such petty and fearful people.
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
This must be the fog of hatred and cynicism so many hardline conservatives are caught up in. We read in the very next sentence that everthing should be viewed with "jaundiced eyes."
No. Things should be viewed clearly. A certain amount of skeptism is healthy, but going so far as to view everything through jaundiced eyes is definitely UNhealthy. Unhealthy people can not keep the US safe.
This is certainly how things appear through totally jaundiced eyes. The US was being attacked (embassy bombings, Khobar Towers, USS Cole) and the Republicans kept the nation focused on Monica Lewinski and "wag the dog." When they took power, the Republican leadership refused the FBI's request to inspect the computer of the one hijacker they caught a month before 9/11.
Had Gore been president, I firmly believe the Twin Towers would still be standing. Thousands of Americans would not have lost their lives. Thank goodness, the US is finally now safer under President Obama.
Posted in: National security adviser: U.S. safer under Obama
0
yabits
So when a white person looks at a corporate board or a panel like the Supreme Court and sees nothing but white men, we can safely assume that they are all there because they are inherently better than anyone else. Uh-huh.
What if I was president, and I wanted to nominate someone especially because I wanted their expertise and perspectives of the Latin-American -- as opposed to Anglo-American -- point of view?
Are you denying that the United States is made up of several different sub-cultures, and that the Latin community is one of those very important ones in terms of sheer numbers? And that anyone who comes from that community who acknowledges its values and wisdom should be excluded from a position historically granted mainly to white males?
I don't "hate" narrow-minded and fearful whites; I've lived around them most of my life. It is especially fun to watch them on the occasion when they try to dress it up, as they are doing with the Sotomayor battle.
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
You are right on.
The Sotomayor nomination hits home that the party is over for the time being for the Republicans, and they are forced to confront that they are being marginalized by Americans in general.
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
I happen to find people of color to be very beautiful. Especially when added to the group with white folks like myself. (Does that make me a racist?) Since people of color make up a certain percentage of American society, I have to wonder about settings like the Supreme Court where they have never had representation in proportion to their numbers.
These are nothing less than code words. Sotomayor understands "the law" just fine. She wouldn't have gotten to where she has under Democratic and Republican administrations otherwise. The problem Sotomayor's critics have with her is that she refuses to interpret the law from the perspective of narrow-minded, angry and fearful white males.
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms
0
yabits
Let the ever-cynical Republicans speak for their own appointees and bosses. We are well aware that this certainly was the method and practice under the Bush regime. (Just ask Scott McClellan.)
Obama is clearly the type of boss who desires his appointees to speak their own mind, rather than regurgitate the party line.
Posted in: National security adviser: U.S. safer under Obama
0
yabits
I have little doubt that dissention is starting to form within "Kim's clique," and the process of getting a successor in place is underway.
Whenever factions of a regime want to control events within their borders, they will do things which escalate tensions coming from outside. You know, unify the country in the face of a common threat and all that.
Every nation that likes to think of itself as a military power does this. North Korea only shows what it's like when taken to the extreme.
Posted in: S Korean, U.S. troops on alert after North's threats
0
yabits
Adding to previous:
I guess since General Jones (ret.) is deviating from the party line, the conservatives can start calling him a liar and dupe, and attempt to "swift boat" him. I sure hope so.
Working as the military assistant to former Defense Secretary (as wells as former Republican senator from Maine, William Cohen, put it in an interview back in January: "Jones knew where all the bodies are buried."
Posted in: National security adviser: U.S. safer under Obama
0
yabits
Marine general (ret.) James L. Jones is no dove. Not by a long shot. Those on the left criticized Obama for picking him for his current post, and refer to him as "Obama's hawk."
He has been friends with John McCain for years, and appeared with the senator at least once on the campaign trail last year.
Posted in: National security adviser: U.S. safer under Obama
0
yabits
Judges, in theory, are supposed to be able to rise above human nature. In reality, human nature always plays a part.
For most of US history, the courts have elevated whites, especially white males, above all others -- regardless of the words of the 14th.
When the vast majority of white folks in the US can feel a similar pride to Sotomayor's Latina heritage as she herself does, it will mean that the dominant, non-Latino society is respecting her as the individual she is. Speaking as one whose ancestry is entirely northern European, I am delighted that President Obama cast his net to include representation on the highest court of the land from qualified judges who are female and non-Anglo.
The great pretense and hypocrisy on the part of conservatives is their delusion that the dominant white society is always right in the exercise of its judgments, especially the more those judgments match what they believe are those of the founding white fathers. Judge Sotomayor will be there to ensure that such a delusion can not take too great a hold.
Posted in: No filibuster, but Sotomayor battle still looms