Bungle comments

Only the upper-middle class and the pachinko class are in the position to fire out kids willy-nilly.

The rest of us are not wealthy enough to join the upper middle class; instead we must watch our taxes fund the pachinko class.

Suspended sentence.

@Nemo,

Your supposition rests on 2 assumptions; That the Russians don’t know that they’re dead too and if they do know it, that they’re ok with that.

At this juncture, Putin = Russia and Russia = Putin. The opinions of the man on the Moscow omnibus matter not a jot.

If Putin is okay with a nuclear exchange, then Russians are okay with a nuclear exchange, too.

@ Nemo

Putin nice remarked that a world without a Russia is not a world worth having. Or something very similar.

Such is the mark of the man’s narcissism.

I honestly believe he doesn’t give a flying ~ if the whole world burns.

The solution has to come from within Russia, but as I said, I cannot see it happening.

I hope I am wrong. :-(

@ Nemo

My money is on Russians deciding they’ve had enough of “winning”’and inviting mini-me to “retire.”

If he takes his head with him or not is up for debate.

That would be nice, but have we seen any evidence of this happening? Who would replace him? Another Russian supremacist, one supposes.

Putin is not a one man band; the whole elite are going walls-deep with him, and the Chinese and Indians seem to have given him the nod, too.

Putin would not be escalating if his support base genuinely disapproved.

*revanchists are removed.

@ Nemo

At this point, Russia can be likened to a runaway train.

They will keep escalating things until they either get what they want, or Putin and his fellow revanchists, or they do not get what they want and out of spite they light the world up.

My money is on the last.

When these provinces “vote” to become Russian, things will start getting very tasty indeed.

Kaboom.

This dude is going to be found comatose in a flophouse with a needle in his arm and a midget blowing coke up his rear if he is not careful.

Down with drugs!

As tedious as they are, I suggest listening to Putin’s speeches.

He speaks of a war against the West; that the border from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea is to be fought as a “defensive war” against Western aggression. He also plans to arrange referendums to effectively annex parts of Ukraine and call them mother Russia.

He will defend these territories with nukes, and the word is that the Russians are going straight into targeting European capitals.

Multiple B-52s have been doing laps of Scandinavia, and the USAF C on start Phoenix Nike sniffer has been seen active over Europe.

You can laugh that poor Ivan is being shanghaied into the military, but things are about to get a lot hotter for us, too.

Speaking of wallets, I found a wallet on the street once, had a look inside and found keys and a drivers’ license. No cash, of course.

Since the owner could be identified, and I figured returning his keys and license would save him the P.I.T.A. of getting his locks changed and license reissued, I took the wallet to a nearby koban. The cops were fine about it, but the dude himself (when he turned up later) looked at me like I had pilfered the cash for myself!

Some time later I lost my old clamshell phone in a shopping arcade. Thankfully, someone took it to a koban and it was returned to me. I figured it was a quid pro quo.

Do not be afraid of doing the right thing.

What's the issue exactly?

It’s called racial profiling, the treatment of individuals as potential criminals based on skin color or race.

Something you will never experience in Japan. Still, “I’m alright, Jack!”, eh?

State funeral for Abe appropriate given his achievements: Kishida

What a slap in the face of the taxpayer. Abe was a real see you next Tuesday.

children need a lot of energy, caring and caregivers need to be physically fit with an awareness of their surroundings.

most over 70s don’t fit this criteria.

Perhaps, but conducting a head count of your passengers is no more difficult whether they be children or adults.

In any case, this was a collective error. While it is the responsibility of the driver to oversee the (dis)embarkation of the passengers, why wasn't this child's absence flagged up at the beginning of school?

Defies belief, doesn’t it? How long does it take to walk to the back of the minibus and back again? Ten seconds?

There were, what, all of six kids on the bus? The driver probably knew them all by name, and yet apparently made no mental note of who he was carrying (not that it precludes him from checking).

What about the other adult on the bus? What the heck was s/he doing? Didn’t that person look around at the kids even once?

Was the class register not taken first thing? Even an 18 month-old will shout out and raise his hand if his name is called. This child was three. They really did not notice…?

I just can’t get my head around it.

After noticing that some of her underwear was missing, the woman filed a complaint with police

The mistake the phantom sniffer made was to get carried away and run off with the laundry basket. If he had acted with some self-restraint and restricted his haul of purloined panties to one, the missus would have blamed her husband…

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state. Then, how would the government coordinate this sublime aim with its plan to build up arms and increase the budget thereof?

Call it a "special military operation"?

The problem for Raducanu and Osaka is that for both women, their hearts are not really that into tennis. Spectacularly so in the case of Raducanu, but at least she does not whine like Naomi Osaka.

“lack of capacity due to their inferior culture, race and socioeconomics level.” Maybe not the best wording there on his part. Not entirely untrue though.

Er, wot? One cannot choose one’s parents, Gaijinland, and making a value judgement based upon someone’s race or skin color is the textbook definition of racism.

Culture and socioeconomic conditions are, of course, not immutable, and with education and leadership can be changed. Dr Kasai obviously thought it was beneath him to step up to the task.

Presumably it never occurred to Dr Kasai to keep his opinions to himself.

He needs to learn to stow his tools of the trade away better, not least because they are frightfully expensive.

Judging from the image it looks to me these businesses failed to invest in automated processes and are thus now at a competitive disadvantage.

It is a byproduct of the vertical integration that characterizes Japanese manufacturing. Lop of the head (Sharp, Toshiba, et al), and the suppliers also go bust. That is unless they can find a “step parent” or diversify into other things.

This phenomenon came to my attention during the Lehman crash when Sharp found itself in all sorts of difficulties. I knew a board member of one of their suppliers of semiconductor components - so dependent upon Sharp’s largess as it were their order book crashed almost overnight. Last I heard the company had given up on semiconductors and was manufacturing water pumps instead.

If they are defined as ungrounded assumptions and prejudice, then it folows they are not true, pretending otherwise is not a valid argument.

Have you provided anything to refute that that the MSM community is vastly, and disproportionately afflicted by MP (politically correct dogma doesn’t count)?

Completely incorrect, and it would lead to higher spreading because of a false sense of being immune to the disease.

Cases in the hetero community do not seem to be bearing your conclusions out.

That is the thing, straight men are also being infected, so are women and children.

Yes, likely from bisexual or closeted men; as for children, the possibility of abuse needs to be discussed.

All four confirmed patients reported in Japan thus far are male. But a lack of in-depth explanation of the disease or how it is transmitted has allowed ungrounded assumptions and prejudice to spread online.

They are not assumptions or prejudice if they are true, now are they? Merely “politically inconvenient”.

On a YouTube video about an overseas monkeypox patient published by a major broadcaster, one comment erroneously states, "I'm relieved (I can't get the disease), because it's only limited to gays."

Technically incorrect, of course, but monkey pox has largely limited itself to the MSM community do you can see where people might get that idea. The question should be, given that MP is spread by close contact, what are gays doing that straight men aren’t?

It's obscene profiteering, which is why the movement to nationalize the energy sector is gaining strength day by day.

Good point. Britain's "energy crisis" is not as a result of Putin, though he hasn't helped: it is the consequence of privatization of former state held assets. Utility companies are no longer British owned, and as private entities, can sell their services to anyone they like - usually those cough up the most. European companies are now buying up British energy resources leaving less for their British customers.

Still, keeps net zero on target, no?

Or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.

Not if you happen to be a God fearing Christian.

The high offices of state are not your common-or-garden positions of employment; they come with expectations of a certain standard of behavior and decorum.

Getting drunk while on duty (she had cancelled her scheduled leave yet chose to party) and in the company of morally questionable individuals “the (Colombian marching) powder gang” would be gross misconduct in just about every profession, but because she is a woman she gets a pass.

Malfeasance in public office.

But, diesel fuel is not normally flammable.

Vaporized and in contact with a hot exhaust, then yes, it will go up like July 4th.

Possible impact damage at the front of the bus. If the bus had mounted the divider, it would have had its belly ripped - along with the diesel tanks.

Very odd. I can imagine the kid letting himself out but not getting far - kids that age get fixated on things around them: drains, parked cars, trees, a leaf on the ground; you name it and they will point and jabber away at it. I would have expected the parents to knocking on the neighbour's wall or peering into a puddle.

But, what are the odds on him being scooped away by a pervert at that exact time he lets himself out? It just seems too random, too coincidental.