Alphaape comments

Why doesn't our genius in chief call his buddy Vladimir and ask him? Russia is opening new sea passages around the arctic circle and building a fleet of the world's biggest icebeakers.

There is a picture of a US Nuclear sub surfacing at the Artic Circle taken back in the late 1950's/early 1960's showing it coming up and pretty much surrounded by water and not much ice.  A decade later, another sub was in the same location and it had to break through ice.  My point is, there is a natural ebb/flow of ice in both polar regions and it has been occurring well before the industrial revolution.  Unless the Vikings were being sarcastic when they chose to name Greenland that since at that time the land was pretty green and not as icy.

Putting less pollution in the air is a good thing, but forcing wealthy countries to pay for poor countries to develop, when they should be doing that by themselves is something different.

My question, why are there two Family Marts within 500 meters of each other?

Having worked fast food when I was a youngster, the main thing to do in the event of a robbery was to just give it to them.  The money can be replaced, but not one's life.

Police said the 18-year-old suspect told them he helped his acquaintance get some work, but since he didn’t take his job seriously, some trouble ensued between them.

So an unemployed 18 year old gets another 18 year old a job and he is supposedly not taking the job seriously.  That tells me that the suspect is in to more than what is being told and was probably up to no good.  Why get someone else a job and you have none?  There is more to this story.

Since March, there have been at least eight cases in the Kanto region in which accused gropers jumped onto the tracks to escape, police said.

I wonder have these numbers fallen since this guy got hit by the train.  If they have, then they have found their perp in those cases.

If the money is that lucrative, should have just hired a boat and made the long trip back.  Odds are he would not have been stopped by any customs officials coming in or going out.

How many prince and princesses are left in Japan?  It would seem that in this day and age, without the royal courts of old that pretty soon they will all die out or marry out unless they begin to do as in olden times and marry within the family the way they have the laws written now.

I've had the meniscus surgery done on my back I 2005 and still having issues with my knees.  Though my personal opinion is I would rather see them recommend treatments other than pain killers.

The Akihiro dude, at least he tried but got sick so I would think that some safety net of disability would be there for him. Also, with the increasing aging population there would be a market for home health care, provided those who are being seen don't treat the workers like dirt as often times is the case.

For Hiromi, she played herself all wrong and this is the end result. She lived the highlife and probably had a great time, but alas time has a way of catching up.

Another aspect to this story should be the ones who had to take care of an parent or relative and didn't have the time to have a life of their own. I have seen that a few times where a child is fully devoted and they never took the time for themselves to form any relationship and soon wind up alone. There must be a way for these people to find each other for lonley singles, but if they do, what will they use to pay for the dates?

Hawaii’s lawsuit challenging the travel ban focuses heavily on damage to the state’s economy and mainly tourism.

I'd like to see the data of travelers from these 6 countries on how many visited Hawaii in 2016. Most American's can't afford to vacation in Hawaii, which is a state and we are to believe from this lawsuit that people from places like Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iran are flying to Hawaii daily and impacting tourism that much? Maybe Iran, but I would imagine the ones that have that kind of money live in Beverly Hills and are part of the "Shah's of Beverly Hills" crowd and not the average Iranian.

No Saudi Arabia, probably because of business interests. If you follow the Republican line about the dangers of terrorism then it means we're willing to accept terrorists from Saudi Arabia if there is a net financial gain.

What do all 6 of these countries have in common? Hint: it isn't a religion. The one thing in common is that none of them have a US Embassy. So you expect the USA to just let anyone from those countries in on a US visa, then who issued the visa and how do we know if they are out to do harm to the USA. As for Saudi Arabia, yeah many terrorist come from there, but they have a US embassy there, and there is an effort to try to vet them. And, Saudi has more of a record of beheading those who are against the house of Saud a lot quicker than any USA due process.

If the US doesn't want to take in refugees, it should probably stop breaking countries.

The USA didn't "break" Somalia, Sudan, or Syria. Not even Libya even though they gave up their WMDs and came clean and Momar was starting to see the light, but someone who ran for President in 2016 was famously quoted for saying "We Came, we saw, he died."

Waste of time. Waste of money. Provides no additional security. Harms tourism.

@ CrazyJoe: How many tourist do you think come to the USA from those countries listed? Is it really going to be so many that tourism is harmed? If so, then why are we going to accept refugees from Syria, Somalia, etc. I mean if people have enough money to travel from those countries to the USA to do tourist activities, then shouldn't they look inward to their own country and take care of those who need it instead of allowing them to get into rafts, and other unsafe means to go travel to other parts of the world to live vice in their own countries.

What are the women going to bring to the table with the expectations that they have?

“USA should respond to this incident. American President and people of America, they should come out openly to condemn such actions… and then take strongest action,” Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying.

It is a tragedy that the two were killed by a nut case. But, I want to know where was the outrage from the Indian government when foreign women have been raped in India by men who have the belief that it is their right to do so. I seem to remember a few years back some female Japanese tourists were raped in such a manner as well ad women from other countries. Yet all we hear from India is move along it is an internal matter and they will take care of it.

Well, this guy is an internal matter, and he will get dealt with according to US law.

Meanwhile in Buy American, Hire American Dystrumpia, two Indian engineers were shot, one fatally

@ SenseNotSoCommon: Well if you are going to put that up, may as well start linking to all of the deaths that occur due to illegal aliens killing people in the USA that goes on daily.

Why is it America's responsibility to take on a country like Mexico's poor? A tax on imports would seem to be fair. One of the things that used to marvel me while living in Japan, is that I could go into any base exchange, and an item such as a Coach bag, which was sold at a no tax rate, was at least 50% cheaper than buying the same bag outside the gate, which is subject to an import tax. Same thing that happened outside Atsugi years back, when they allowed non-sponsored people to come on base and buy pizzas from one of the eatery locations, but had to stop after complaints from local business that because they weren't subject to taxation, they were losing business to the base stores. taxes are necessary I agree, but if you are trading and you are not going to require me to tax your imports, but you turn around and tax mine, then that's not fair trade.

The real issue with taxes, is the internal sales taxes that some states impose on goods bought, whether foreign or domestic. That is where the real issue is on over taxation and spending.

They could save a lot of money if they just opened up to the men outside the host club and be themselves, and the men could do the same to the women outside the hostess clubs, and there probably would be less of a need for these types of places, and you would probably have a better dynamic going on between men and women in Japan. Yet, something so obvious and in your face will not get acted on, but this round about way will be the way ahead for some.

I hope you remember to say they were slaves as well. This place should never have been given UNESCO status.

They should be, as a reminder of what happened in the past in regards to the conditions that some of the people had to go through so that we remember and hopefully don't do it again.

Between these women and the guys who are unattractive and want to end Valentine's Day as posted here on JT, I weep for Japan's future.

Although the Musashino store has told part-time employees that it is their responsibility to find a replacement if they are unable to work their shifts

That's why managers get paid the extra bucks to handle these types of issues. If a person calls in sick you don't want them in to possibly expose the rest of the work force, so you call around and see who can cover her shift. That's what being a leader means. If people have personal leave plans, then it is on them to make sure that they try to plan out as far in advance as possible, to allow management the time to work the schedule so one can go. If you can work out an exchange of work hours between employees and then notify the manager for final approval, I can live with that since I have done that before. But never when I was sick did I have to call around and ask if someone could cover for me.

Looks like the management needs to go back to training to learn what they can do within the law and better management skills.

CBC and Toronto Star report that witnesses heard the attackers shout "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire. The first media reports were quick to suggest an anti-Muslim hate crime. Sounds like it was instead an intra-faith act of barbarity.

I read this and the reports of condolences sent out by Canadian leaders. I hope that they will continue to denounce this type of behavior if it comes out that those who did it were extremist Muslims. I noticed that they have captured two, and since they have not been shown my guess is that they may be Islmaists themselves, who probably were at odds against the Mosque. They picked a bad time to do this, since immigration has been in the news lately. My guess, they wanted to do this and have the world think that some Americans or right wingers drove up to Canada to do this. Since they spoke with a local accent, they probably became radicalized over the years.

"We believe America is exceptional because of our historic role — first as refuge, then as defender, and now as exemplar of liberty for the world to see."

Funny how when someone from the Dems says this, it's ok and America can be exceptional. But if a Republican says the same thing, in a manner that says 'make America Great" or "Put America First" they get called a xenophobe or a Nationalist and hell-bent on taking over the world. Which is it? You want America to be an exceptional country, then you have to realize that we are because of the way our laws work in allowing those whom other countries tend to step over or mistreat, and also just because we take refugees, doesn't mean that we can't look out for our own interest and try to solve the issues inside our country first, without it being said that we are turning away from the international community.

He's not backing off, but simply doing what he said he would do. Never did he say that he would start mass deportations, that was only a talking point from his detractors. He refined his views during the election by saying that first he would go after the criminal illegal aliens who are in US jails, and send them back to their home countries.

That alone is roughly about 1.9 million according to ICE. So start there and then see what happens. But what will happen, is we will get the sob story, of how a families loved one who was in jail, was deported away and because they are illegal they can't go and visit them in jail back in their home country, and this will be viewed as cruel and unusual punishment and an injunction by the ACLU will be in the works.

offered to return half of his retirement money — approximately 300,000 yen

Is this what he gets per month or is that all of it? If that is all he gets to retire and live off of, that's not much. If that is a per month amount then that's fine.

Another employee noticed that the number of printed tickets did not match the recorded number of visitors to the park in the database.

What's this guys excuse? How long had he noticed this discrepancy and why did it take him so long to say something. I would imagine that at the end of the day, you count the numbers of tickets issued to the amounts of revenue collected and after about 1 day you should be able to see a trend of them not matching. Must have been not only a fear of foreigners, but an overall hostile work environment also.

As for the foreign visitor, shame on him for being obnoxious.

@ Simon Foston: Rushing to "sign it so we can see what's in it" got us to the point that we are at now. Trump even told the Congress to think hard on a replacement before going forward. You are right there has been a lot of time to come up with a replacement, but you seem to forget that even if a detailed plan was generated, it would not have had any chance in getting passed under Obama. Congress had other issues to govern on, sad but true. Also, if this had been a dream of Democrats since Hillary was First Lady while Bill Clinton was President back in the 90s, wouldn't they have come up with a much better plan when they gave us this law back in 2010? Blame to go around on both sides rushing to get their ideology passed without thinking through this thing and making real changes.

well this plan is useless but i Have to have Some Plan or PAY a $650.00 Penalty! God Help America-

@ Bartholomew Harte: I would think that if Obamacare is repealed or replaced, the provision to have mandatory health care and if not pay a tax penalty would also go away. Keeping something like that kind of goes against Trump's plan to redo the US tax code and make it easier. It's ok if you don't like him or the GOP plan to repeal it, but use a little reasoning before making comments.

The problem with the US health system is that for any one hospital, the same procedure can cost different prices. If your insurance is part of their healthcare group, then you get one price for a procedure, out of network, you get another price. On Medicaid or Medicare, yet another price. Hospitals in the US are running at about a 60% occupancy rate now. To fix the health care system what needs to be done is a one set of prices needs to be made for procedures. Once you have a set price, then we need to treat health insurance just like any other insurance. If you have home owners and something happens to your house, when you go and get repairs done, you are not limited to going only to Lowe's, or Home Depot, or any other store based on your insurance plan, you get set amount, and you find the materials within your price and you get the work done. Same needs to be done with health insurance.

At one time before the onset of the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Admin) there were various industry safety standards and not one unified set of standards. When the law passed in 1973, it set up a codified set of standards for safety for all industries to adhere to, and has been modified over the years. The same can be done for healthcare costs, if the healthcare industry and governments really put their minds to it.

Level the prices, make the insurance mobile (if your car is insured in one state and while driving in another state you have an accident, you are still covered without paying some penalty) so that plans like auto insurance can be offered nationwide and you may see a decrease in the costs and coverage more affordable.

Get his blood type out and see what patients need organs donated to them and send this guy to the gallows to be harvested. There is no need for him to go and stab innocent children, and frankly doesn't deserve to be on this earth.

Actually it was a well written article. Though I didn't really like all of the policies of Obama, I at least had hoped back I n2009 when he was sworn in that the GOP could work with him and the Dems. But all we got was more partisan bickering, and when the GOP took over the House and Senate, even the Dems in the Senate wouldn't want to work with them, thus leaving the GOP with really no viable option but to try to veto anything that Obama put forth. Some on merits of the cases but a lot on just plain political spite.

You don't know how bad it was. Humiliation in front his peers? Sticking his head in toilet full of crap? It must have bad IMO.

Yes it must have been pretty bad. But I have had some things occur to me over the years that are pretty embarrassing. But, I was able to move on. One of the best ways to do that I found was to simply move on physically from those same people. Not saying he should just pack up and move across the country, but it would seem to me that if he is still able to find these guys after all that time, that he probably hasn't broadened his life circle too much, and is in the same area, with the same friends, going to the same reunions, etc.

I would have recommended to branch out more, get off the same path and try something different. And if you are not speaking with these people why bother with them.

A couple of comments on this. He must really have had a hard time letting things go to the point that he did this. But what I find more interesting is that he knew the addresses of the people that he despised. If I don't like someone, I put them out of my life and don't go and try to find their address later in life over what happened 30 years ago. I could see with trolling them of FB or social media after finding them, but actually getting their mailing address is a bit too far.

Overall, when we hear the comments on how Japan, China, Korea, etc need to get over the past acts of aggression against each other, keep in mind this guy. He won't let bygones be bygones and went this far, yet how many times do we see and hear about how the rest of Asia is still worrisome of Japan because of what happened in the 1940s. This story kind of puts that into perspective.

According to police, the incident occurred at an elevator maintenance company in Seya Ward at around 8 p.m.

Why on earth would you conduct an interview at 8 pm? I could see if they wanted to see him perform on the job for an evaluation and do so after a business has closed to watch him do maintenance work, but a sit down at 8 pm? That should tell the guy to stand by to be worked unmercifully.