bishamonten comments

I find it strange that you American patriots are so proud of your snipers who kill from a distance while not living any credit to the French who really do get in close.

toguro at 04:10 PM JST - 13th April

They have so far killed one man out of all those that have been kidnapped & we really don’t know that happened. That is a very good record for not killing & doesn’t justify you calling them murderers does it? Whatever else they may be they did try to avoid killing, though may well change now.

sharky1 at 04:05 PM JST - 13th April “Wonder where I can make a donation to the anti-pirate fund???”

Are we to take it that as an act of kindness & generosity you want to make a blood donation to these pirates, perhaps in an effort to compensate for the over reaction of the US?

herzenstube at 03:58 AM

No!

please do tell.

The answer depends on a number of things, like where is the wife, is the date worth it, relative to the wife finding out?

Sorry, but let’s be honest,” promiscuity” (seed spreading) is hard wired into the male. Besides, fun’s fun.

TokyoHustla at 06:15 AM JST - 26th March

“No! What is want is the primacy of the US Dollar. Or, the Dollar. It is what we need in bonuses to ensure that the US remains in power. We do not need or want a buffer currency, as no one will benefit from this aside from maybe Aruba. What we need are bigger bonuses and better private jets.”

Your sarcasm is duly noted, but to be sure no one gets the wrong idea, what we no longer need is the currency of any single country holding so much power. If the US was a company it would be a bankrupt company & I for one would not be too keen to be holding stock in such a company. So the CEO (Obama) says all is going to be well again in time. No way would I believe this from any CEO of a failed company so why does any one expect any one else to believe Obama? The US lost it & unbalanced all the other economies around the world simply because they had put too much faith in the USD. No, this is not the time to sell up & dump the USD, the value’s too low & too much would be lost. But when it does become worth selling then I would want out so as to never again be at risk of US government laxity.

By the way, what is wrong with Aruba getting a bite of the cherry? Don’t be so mean.

““There has been for decades talk about creating an international reserve currency and it has never really progressed,” said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. Managing such a currency would require balancing the contradictory needs of countries with high and low growth or with trade surpluses or deficits, Pettis said. He said the 16 European nations that use the euro have faced “huge difficulties” in managing monetary policy even though their economies are similar.”

This man is being deliberately obtuse. A world reserve currency is not the same as a single world currency. What is wanted is a buffer currency with an exchange rate based on global trade very much along the lines of the old gold standard. I can well understand the US not wanting such an intrusion into their financial hegemony. The Europeans probably think the Euro is the currency in waiting that could take over if the Dollar ever did its favoured position & the British are so childishly obsessed with the Pound that their faith in it is almost religious & just as irrational.

Granted having said all that I have to add that anything that China may want I don’t want, even it sounds good, the very fact that China wants something is grounds to say no.

Whatever the religion the extremists more or less amount to the same thing, damaged people & damaged people see the world through a damaged mind, we should pity them or shoot them, putting them out of our misery.

gogogo at 07:40 PM JST - 19th March

I can’t see any victinhood in anything Japan has had to say, maybe you are seeing your prejudices rather than reality. After all the US are going to be just as happy to shoot that rocket down because it has the potential of (just) reaching the US. Are they (in you opinion) in victim mode too?

Well let’s now wait and see if China really has joined the international community. Because if they don’t start demanding the return of these women it is because they still hand in glove with North Korea.

Think about what was reported, “both Korean-American women”, so from the Korean side of the river these guards had no way of knowing that two women were not Chinese or any other Asian. China in particular needs to think about this & maybe become a little more supportive of the Japanese abduction issue.

After all the years that this fighting has been going on Sri Lanka is close to ending it, & though the end may suit anyone it is an end, & what do the idiot EU want? A period in which the Tigers can escape & regroup & restart this all over again “They are holding their own people hostage, the international community should recognize this,” he said. Now doesn’t this remind anyone of somewhere else? Though in this case the Sri Lankans are not Jewish so no one is going to write too much about it.

The British have a serious problem with drink, they simply can’t handle it, there is no moderation in the way that they drink & when drunk they become violent. Other nationalities get sad & maudlin or start singing, some just love everyone, but not the British, they just get nasty & fight, even the girls.

dennis0bauer <Move to russia for cheap Vodka?>

Don’t you mean cheap Ethylene glycol?

Well now we all know (for sure) which side Pakistan really is on. I just wonder long it will be before the Taliban are given access to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Wottock_Hunt at 05:52 PM JST - 23rd February

I agree with you almost 100%, making money for the children I can accept, but that is all I can accept. The rest of your post I back you on.

Not very long ago this woman was detested by most of the UK (& Indian) population, now because she is dying she has been “transformed”. Sorry just I don’t buy into this paranoid or superstitious rubbish that is wrong to speak ill of the (nearly) dead. Death ends a person’s life, it doesn’t change it.

hoserfella at 10:26 PM JST - 17th February

“I don't think the Princess's facial expression has changed since 1983”

Do you mean “Empress”?

Cat5

I am British (sort of) & I have never blamed America or Europe for the stupidity that is Britain today. I do however have no choice but to hold the government responsible for a great deal of what is happening. The current government have created laws that can have a person sent to prison for stating the obvious, if the obvious just happens to involve the word “Muslin”. Immigration is killing the country but is defended by that same government. Benefits were originally designed to help people through difficult times in their lives, they were never meant to be life style choices. Nor were they meant to be so large & so easy to get & keep getting. “If you give a person a crutch the will limp” was that Bertolt Brecht? Who ever, it’s true of the British under class. There is every good reason to blame the British government.

Geert Wilders was near enough unknown in the UK until this week & his film was wholly unknown. Now the entire country, & the rest of Europe, know about the man & his film. The British government have done an excellent job of promoting this film while at the same time making themselves look like utter cowards.

I have not seen the film & don’t feel there is any need for me to see it, to most English people the concept alone is enough, some will agree, some will not, but that is not the point. Love him, hate him or know & care nothing about him, Wilders should not have been refused entry to the UK.

Britain has become something of a black comedy over the last 8 to 10 years, the Muslin community have been given more & more freedoms that are denied to the general population. A British Christian today can lose their job for displaying their religion (cross) while at the same time legal battles are fought & won to allow Muslims to dress as Muslims even in the most inappropriate of settings.

I suspect that there is an element of racism within all of us, but a sense of society & civilisation will control that, at least up until the point that we are treated unfairly for no other reason than our race. What happens when that “unfairness” is levelled at the indigenous population should be obvious. The extreme right in Britain gains support not from its reasoned arguments (it has none) but from the utter stupidity of a socialist government that creates laws to protect everyone except the indigenous population.

Geert Wilders being refused entry into the country is only one of many such acts of stupidity enacted by the current government. The 5th column is not only known but given financial support while any voice raised against the growing influence of Islam in the country is crushed, sometimes by a prison sentence.

Am I being racist? No, but when I see Frankenstein’s monster being created I can see a monster. A conflict is being created & maybe it is already too late to avoid it.

"Of course we acknowledge that right,[Freedom of speech] but we do not agree with the way it is being exercised in this case."

Then they are hypocrites & liars that do not in fact have free speech.

Use women.

Sorry that should have been.

"too much time on the internet"

rajakumar at 04:23 AM JST - 2nd February

Tonight (yes night) I am in Spain, so not bogging away in the early morning hours. I travel a great deal & it can get a bit tedious, hence my sometimes sarcastic posts, I sometimes just see the humorous side of things & feel a compulsive need to say something. There is no offence intended & I hope none is taken.

Though what I said about criminals having their place in the scheme of things is almost true, they have come to play such a major part in our societies & the way things are today we really do need them, they create the fear that creates the need for insurance & all that collected insurance money is used for investments.

That does not mean we should condone criminality, but to find a way of removing it wholesale for our societies would create chaos. And guess what, chaos would re-create greater forms of criminality.

Given the figures in the above article (assuming them to be true) I would have to go along with Grafton, this really looks more like an insurance job of the other kind, claiming the insurance when the goods haven’t been stolen at all.

Nice to meet you, now get some sleep, it’s not good for the brain to spend too much tome on the internet, just look at the state of some of the other posters here. You wouldn’t want to end up like that would you?

Battle Royale 1 & 2.

I hate kids & so few survive in these films.

Moderator: Readers, please answer the question in the spirit in which it was asked.

rajakumar at 04:02 PM JST - 30th January

“people need to come up with new ways, ideas to make the system work and prevent stealing.”

Rajakumar, if people (the other ones, not the ones that steal) were to come up with really goods ways to stop stealing then the insurance companies would go out of business & when the insurance companies went out of business there would be that much less money being invested on the stock market & other companies wouldn’t be able to get the capital they need & they would have to lay people off or not employ people & with more unemployment more people (this time the kind that steal) would steal even cheaper things just to get by, because even cheap things would too dear for unemployed people. So, you see, stopping people (any people this time) from stealing really isn’t such a good idea. Society & the economy need these people.

The man on the bench was a burglar that was released from prison about six weeks ago. The crimes he committed were extremely violent, he has also been extremely violent towards his own family, possibly because he is a heavy drinker & drug user. Help has been offered in the past & been abused &/or refused. It can of course be reasoned that this man has some very serious mental health problems, but under the law he cannot be forced to accept treatment & when offered help & treatment he has always reacted aggressively & rejected any help. If you really believe that you can help man & feel that you can get through to him I would warn you to be careful about trying to talk with him, he has an irrational temper & can be dangerous.

How do I know all this? I don’t. None of the above is true. But it equally fits with all the other above posts that have this man a poor unemployed soul deserving of our empathy. It is just as likely to be true.

Some people live in a very black & white world.

Yes, there but for the grace of what-not go any one of us. But let us not get carried away to the point of seeing a social revolution on the horizon because there are some people that sleep on park benches, because there will always be some people that sleep on park benches. They are social misfits that society does not want & cannot accommodate.

tkoind2

The picture is really so much bigger than the one you want to blackmail us with. The CEO on 150mil a year should be a thing of the past, but not because of this man on the bench, but because such people have brought our economy to the edge of ruin & brought us all that much closer to that bench. THAT we agree on. What we cannot ever agree on is this naïve idea of a safety net for the poor, safety nets create more “victims” than they rescue & somebody (you, tmarie & I) has to pay for them. Ask the wise old Alf (above) for some of his wisdom about how the UK is doing with its safety net. I think he will give you a very depressing picture of what happens when the state starts to take care of everyone.

All of it, I hate airports & anything to do with them.

Flying I like, its just the getting off the ground & back on the ground that I hate.

Is it airport policy to make it all as painful as possible?

This is the World we live in, get used to it now, there will be more before there is less.

I’m looking forward to the day I come across a few bankers I know sleeping (uncomfortably) on benches.

Bushlover.

Trust me, I am waiting with baited breath, & a giggle or two.

“Mitchell said the crossings should be opened on the basis of a 2005 agreement brokered by the U.S. that put the main crossing—the passage between Egypt and Gaza—under the management of Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, with European monitors deployed to prevent smuggling.

However, Hamas, which routed Abbas loyalists when it took over Gaza, has said it, too, wants a role at the crossings in recognition of its power in the territory. Israel and Abbas do not want Hamas there.”

Hamas are the weapons smugglers & they also want to monitor the crossings. And they wonder why nobody wants them there.

“Olmert said crossings between Israel and Gaza “will only open permanently” after the freeing of Sgt Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier Gaza militants captured in June 2006, the aide said. In Qatar on Wednesday, Hamas’ supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, said the group would not link the opening of crossings to the release of the Israeli soldier. “We reject these Israeli conditions. We will not accept them,” Mashaal said. Hamas wants Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Schalit.”

As we can all see Hamas are working extremely hard at NOT coming to an agreement.

I cannot imagine two more irreverent people than Takeshi & Tokoro, I look forward to seeing what they do to Okinawa.

TheMarion

Wow! I haven’t seen you post in a long time, given your age I assumed you were either dead or in an old folks home. Nice to see that you are still banging the same old drum. Though I have to wonder about this idea of friendship you perceive. Friendship really wasn’t the feeling I perceived. Maybe we just know different people.

So where are all the usual suspects today?

Because somebody really needs to say they told you so.

Hamas are killers & know & understand nothing else.