Akula comments

Sensible. Singapore has thrived due to being so connected to the rest of the world. Time for Japan to open up.

Numbers continuing to fall. Good to see. Where are our doom and gloom merchants now?

Bye bye corona!

Good. Time to get on with life. Next step, open the country back up to tourism.

Taiwan is one of my favorite countries as well.

Bye bye Corona.

Bye bye Corona.

Lukashenko is a Russian puppet. Will be interesting to see what the conversation was between him and Putin - allow us to use Belarus as a staging area, or you are gone, or something similar.

Nice to see cases falling, albeit slowly.

Recoveries are outpacing new cases, so overall the situation is getting better. Might take a few more weeks for things to really settle down.

Young people these days are so boring compared to our generation.

Too many social justice warriors, and not enough imbibers. Too few proactively trying to find suitable romantic partners. Too few out there playing sports.

Russia may win this war, but it will be a pyrrhic victory. The cost to the economy and international relations will easily outweigh any benefit from this conflict.

Vladimir Putin has frequently talked about demographic challenges being the biggest issue facing his country. Tanking the economy, which will happen, through sanctions is one sure way to suppress any birthrate.

Russian share market went down by a third overnight.

This makes no sense to me. Unfortunately Russia has had a very long history of pushing the self-destruct button on itself. Russia's biggest issue is that of demographic decline, and a sanctions hit economy is not going to encourage Russians to have more children. This is dumb from Putin and the cost of annexing Russian speaking parts of East Ukraine is not worth the cost of doing so.

We've hit the peak and things are on the way down. Bye bye COVID.

The wave has peaked and things will get a lot better from here. Nice to see case numbers falling.

A drop from last week. The virus has peaked, and watch numbers drop considerably over the next week or two.

Looks like we have hit the peak and are on the way down.

Sensible move from the Australians. Get on with things, and get on with living life normally.

Anyway - good luck to all the athletes from the independent country of Taiwan.

China says Taiwan should not declare independence.

Taiwan has its own laws, currency, electoral system, military, border controls, government and so on.

Looks independent enough to me.

Near the peak - no doubt many more asymptomatic people out there. COVID almost at the end of its run, thankfully.

My wife and I have talked about moving back to Japan once my son finishes high school - and she is keen on Tokyo, mostly given travel connections and job opportunities.

I'm actually half thinking we move back to where she's from. Near new houses for between 20-25 million yen which we could buy for cash, and I work remotely. Mountains not so far away, and not too far to the beach either. We shall see.

RIP Shintaro Ishihara.

I don't agree with everything he said, but he was unashamedly Japanese and happy to upset China if needs be. Always appreciated his support of the independent country of Taiwan.

Weekend numbers so lower, but the peak of this wave is almost here if it hasn't arrived already. Omicron is COVID's last gasp - will be great to see a return to normality soon.

While I know what you mean, there is not necessarily only two genders. A quick net search finds this:

If I had a dollar for every gender that exists, I would have two dollars, and a bunch of counterfeits.

A top place Kochi - like much of Shikoku. Would have to work remotely though, not a lot of local employment for non-natives.

Why is this article not inclusive of other genders. 

There are only two genders.

Hardly worth worrying about based on those hospitalization stats. Omicron proving to be very mild.

Idiot. NEC were dumb for hiring a rugby league player though.

There are only two genders. If I had a dollar for every gender that is in existence, I would have $2 and a bunch of counterfeits.

Having coached junior sports for many years, the kids are often unfailingly polite, and thankful that I took the time to coach them. Certainly my son's generation engages in things like bullying a lot less than my generation did.

Was in Wellington today and there were certainly some interesting types in that protest.

Although I don't support the current administration, I do support vaccination.

What seems to have triggered these people to protest is vaccine mandates for certain occupations, teachers for example. I just wonder how far we can go to compel people to get the vaccine to be honest.