Posted in: 61 arrested over banned Paris Muslim veil protest See in context
If Muslim men feel that they have so little control over their sex drive that they need to have their women covered that must surely be their failing, not France’s. The French government have the right to create laws for their own country, as does any country and if anybody dislikes those laws they can either not go to that country or leave that country. Muslim countries have their laws and if you dislike them and feel that you couldn’t live by them you would not go there. You wouldn’t demand that they be changed to suit you. Well, you could but you wouldn’t get very far with it.
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Posted in: Praying man See in context
I can’t see what good he is doing but then I am not Japanese and don’t believe in here after type things. But I am sure that for those that do believe in such things it means a lot, and I wouldn’t feel I have the right to judge him or them.
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Posted in: Australia proposes tough cigarette packaging rules See in context
I have just this moment realised where my future is going to take me. I am packing to move to the wonderful land of Australia to make a fortune. I’m going into the old business of making cigarette cases. There can be nothing illegal about a person buying their cigarettes in a ugly pact and transferring them into a beautifully designed cigarette case (made by me). Money!
I have to admit to a degree of disappointment though in the Australian man, after all these years thinking of him as the crocodile wrestler type we now find that it was the Australian women that were the real power in the country. Nicola Roxon sounds like a real hard case and knows how to keep those outback lads in their place. Maybe that was the big mistake the Australian men made, when they only had sheep and crocodiles they were THE man, they just couldn’t handle women and should have kept them out of the country.
First she takes your fags and next she will take your tinnies.
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Posted in: Do you think coastal towns and villages destroyed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami should be rebuilt in the same places? See in context
The towns and villages may be in ruins at the moment but they are still home to the people that survived. They will rebuild because it is their home and for most of them it is also where they earn their living. Losing family, friends and homes if anything just makes these places that much more important to the people who survived.
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Posted in: Dog days See in context
That’s it. Now we can sure that Tepco have been withholding the real details, high-speed replication of clones.
More seriously though, I just hope somebody is feeding them. I know some of the animal charities have been trying.
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Posted in: Man arrested over wife's murder in Hokkaido See in context
Fadamor
“describing what happened to the woman whose head was found in the garage.”
“another woman’s body was found in Nagai’s garage. The woman’s head had been wrapped in a polyethylene bag”
Fadamor, I think you could probably reason from the above that the woman’s head was still attached to her body.
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Posted in: Philippine dad convicted of rape gets 14,400 years See in context
smithinjapan at 05:36 PM JST - 24th September
“but realistically speaking humanity may not even be around in 14,000 years”
Well I’m sure they can always fit an automatic lock on his cell door given that there would be nobody left around to let him out.
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Posted in: U.S. walks out on Ahmadinejad U.N. speech after 9/11 remark See in context
JT being very American centred failed to mention that almost all the European counties also walked out, not just the US. Israel wasn’t there because today is a religious holiday and they wouldn’t have been there anyway.
One thing you have to keep in mind about Ahmadinejad is that he is quite mad, but he is not stupid, adding a few half truths and commonly held doubts into his nonsense creates all this comment, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the man is dangerous and never be have been given power. And that is not an attack on the people of Iran who, far more than anybody else, have to suffer this man leading their country.
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Posted in: Twitter hack: Made in Japan? See in context
The rest of the world’s media seem to believe that the hacker is a teenage Australian. The fact that he might also be a manga freak using a Japanese name really shouldn’t be that surprising.
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Posted in: A farewell to bullfights in northeastern Spain See in context
How pointless trying to make comparisons between how a meat cow dies and how a “fighting” bull is killed. The killing of meat cows may not be that good, but at least it isn’t on TV as entertainment. It is the sickness of the cruel and pointless killing an animal for entertainment that is the issue.
And don’t get too clever about Catalonia only doing this as a means of acting against Madrid. That will have played a part yes, but that wasn’t what it was all about, besides some of you might be interested to know that Catalonia was not the first province to ban bull fighting, the Canneries were. And they are not nor even want to be a semiautonomous region.
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Posted in: A farewell to bullfights in northeastern Spain See in context
It’s reassuring to see that nobody is holding the whole of the Spanish people responsible for bull fighting. Very few Spanish people want anything to do with this so-called tradition. Yes there is a vocal minority and there is an even smaller group that actually are aficionados who will go every chance they get. They are the throwbacks that exist in all countries and not people that should be taken seriously. Sadly in Spain they tend to come from the old power block and in some cases do still have some power. Privilege is not entirely dead in Spain and some names do still wow the simple minded.
For anybody to talk about tradition or culture in respect to bull fighting they need to be total idiots. Tradition and culture are both organics and should change with time. Civilisation should be trying to move towards an empathy with the world we live in, not holding on to our ignorance. Just because our ancestors were ignorant doesn’t mean we need to continue being so.I am not a Catalan and it is almost innate in me to reject almost anything that is Catalan, but this banning of bull butchering for public “entertainment” is a seed that I hope grows throughout the whole county and through France (yes there is a part that still has bull fighting) and Latin America too.
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Posted in: Bake my day See in context
Pukey2
My Japanese is a little tacky or some such word to that effect and I am still at war with the Kanji memory battle, little by little. I will however ask the cake and pie eater of the family to get me some details and get back to you. When it comes to shopping she is the expert.
Cleo,
My mum once told me that the art of pastry is added to by the temperature of a the bakers hands, how true this is I don’t know, but if true then I seem to have been born lucky. What might help is not blind baking the base, putting the filling in and the top on and then baking for a little less time. What might also help is folding the dough to four or eight as you would if making puff pastry. Margarine that contains salt is always the better too. And yes it does make great meat pies, even if you can’t eat them.
“The expense makes it a bit of a special-occasion luxury, but then so do the calories.”
If things work out well you will never get a chance at getting any calories, good pies are always magic, they just disappear seemingly all by themselves, or so I am told.
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Posted in: Bake my day See in context
Cleo and Nick
Having lived in the UK I got to love what can be done in the name of a pie. Sorry Nick, not a potential customer because I make my own and I don’t use either butter or animal fats. I use margarine, no, not that stuff in the tubs, but block margarine which is not that easy to fine but can be found, just don’t assume all those blocks in the supermarkets are butter, they can sometimes be margarine. My prime veggie pie is cheese and onion and usually I need to fight people off with a stick to even get a little of my own pie. My Japanese wife refuses to learn to make pies (or any of my other weird and wonderful dishes) but then eats everything in sight, so I suspect that it is isn’t that the Japanese avoid strange foreign foods I think it might be they just want somebody else to do the cooking.
Nick, I like what you are doing and can understand the joy of making something special and getting paid for it. Best wishes.
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Posted in: U.S. Embassy tops list of unpaid London traffic toll fees See in context
Klein2 at 11:18 PM JST - 29th June
“Did anybody read the article? 13 comments and everyone thinks that the dispute is about parking tickets?”
Did you read all the posts? I never said a word abut parking tickets because I read the article. I wanted the cars impounded at the gates to London. And it is not a tax, it is a charge for being allowed to drive in central London, much like a toll charge, or do the Americans not pay those either?
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Posted in: Bake my day See in context
Sarge at 08:30 PM JST - 29th June
Sorry but we seem to be losing something in the translation. I have no idea what a beef pot pie is, but I get the general impression it is one of those pies that only has crust on the top while the contents sit inside a pot. If so then sorry, that’s not we are dealing with here. This is a pastry case the same as you would think of using for apple pies, content goes in there with a pastry lid and then baked. Sounds simple but a good pie of this kind is a work of art and that means you never (never) buy one of these wrapt in cellophane, those mass produced things are a crime against piedom. By the way, as much as I hate to admit this, the British do make the best pies, meat and fruit. Granted they can’t compete with the Irish when it comes to sausages. Germans for beer, French for cheese, Austrians for deadly chocolate cake. Sorry all the Spanish can offer is beautiful women.
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Posted in: Bake my day See in context
Sarge at 10:33 PM JST - 28th June
<Meat pie! Good grief, meat does not belong in a pie! Apples, cherries, blueberries, sugar, flour and shortening belong in pies! But not meat!>
You have simply never lived in a civilised pie country. But don’t worry re-education is possible, and enjoyable. Lots of meat pies.
I can only wish the man lots of luck, food is always a difficult business to make work and the Japanese are so crazy about their own food.
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Posted in: U.S. Embassy tops list of unpaid London traffic toll fees See in context
Diplomats have immunity and diplomatic cars are covered by the same immunity. The first cannot be arrested the second cannot be impounded. But the British do have license plate recognition systems all over the UK and most especially in London. So, simple solution that doesn’t break the diplomatic rules. Ban any car that has outstanding charges against it from entering London. Once the diplomats find that they have to get out and take a taxi or bus (a bus! No way) then maybe the charges will get paid.
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Posted in: Obama accuses BP of recklessness in national TV address See in context
<We will fight this spill with everything we’ve (that is BP have) got for as long it takes,>
<he declared to his prime-time television audience, “We will make BP pay.”>
BP secured the rights to the seabed for drilling for oil. They then contracted three (or more) American companies to do the actual work. One, Cameron International designed and built the failsafe valve that should have but didn’t stop the blow out. An other was Halliburton that did the foundation work for the rig on the seabed and finally there is Transocean who were contracted to do the actual drilling and extraction. BP had 8 administration people on the rig out of a crew of 126. Yes BP are the owners and therefore the liable party when something goes wrong. But they are not the company that made a useless blow out valve, they are not the company that was actually doing the drilling. So why are the America people both in the US and here on this site only talking about BP’s guilt? I accept that given that BP are the owners they should be held responsible in law, but the American press and Obama are not the law and have avoided in every way possible looking at who actually was responsible for the original accident. We have seen the other oil companies being made to face some serious questions about what they are doing. But we have not seen any of the 3 companies involved being put before the American people to answer for their actions and their failures. If I fault BP for anything at this time it is that they are still using Transocean in the effort to stop the oil. My own hope is that BP sues all three of these companies for every penny they have (in the American courts) and destroys them. Them the wonderful Obama can try and explain why all these poor oilmen have lost their jobs.
It is really wonderful reading how so many Americans are pointing the finger at BP and asking why they are taking so long to stop the oil. Why are they not asking why BP, Transocean, Halliburton and Cameron International are taking so long to stop the oil? Why does Obama only talk about BP, why is only BP being made to sit and listen to this talking head?
BP is 40% owned by US shareholders and we have above a silly person talking about America not doing business with BP again, would this not seem like many people have no idea what they are talking about? Galileo proved that the Earth was not the centre of the universe so why do the Americans still believe they are?
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Posted in: BP deploys deepsea sensors to better measure spill See in context
<I would really like to know the motivation for these new sensors. Taka>
Vulture states need to determine how just how big their greed will be. The more oil the more money, no matter the actual level of clean up.
For those that seem to think that the British are complaining about BP having to pay compensation, no, you are wrong. The Brits are complaining that the Americans are hiding from both sharing the responsibility and paying their share of the compensation. And your newish leader for lack of a better description is working very hard to keep the heat off the American companies while demanding unequal arrangements to protect only Americans in the Gulf. This oil well might not have been very tight but wait until you see what all future contracts with American companies look like. All the expresident’s men got to keep their money this time but I cannot help but wonder who is ever going to do business with the Americans that currently hiding to avoid their guilt? I also note that no Americans have tried to defend their own. Perhaps it’s not possible.
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Posted in: BP deploys deepsea sensors to better measure spill See in context
We see a lot about how much money the State vultures are demanding from BP but we never see anything about Cameron International the company that made the blow out preventer that didn’t prevent anything. Nor are we hearing anything about GWBush’s friends Halliburton who did the cement work on the sea floor or Transocean who are the people who were actually operating the rig at the time of the accident. BP own the rights to the oil and leased it to Transocean. Of the three companies 3 are American and one used to be British but is now global. And maybe because BP is both global with more money and not American this may account for why the vultures are looking to rip it apart. How much can we expect the others to pay? When can we expect the American media to present a balanced story? Oh, sorry, I forgot, the American press don’t do balance do they?
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Posted in: Actor-director Kevin Smith ejected from plane for being oversized See in context
The real issue for any airline is fuel costs. Safety and staff costs will be cut wherever they believe they can get away with it, but fuel they have no flexibility with, if they don’t have it they don’t fly. And as a passenger it is the only thing that will lead to getting lower air fares, so, sorry fatties but your past self indulgence got you the way you are, not me, and so you cost more fuel per flight than I do so you should pay for it, not me.
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Posted in: Seattle police kill suspect in officer slayings See in context
The guns are good team that normally post here seem to be away on holiday. I thought their logic was that if people are allowed to have guns ready to hand (legally) then they could act to stop crimes. Strange then that four police officers all presumably with guns (and trained to use them) fail to protect themselves. What use then allowing untrained civilians to carry guns?
Killer killed by police, is anybody surprised?
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Posted in: Irish bishops covered up priests' child abuse for decades, report shows See in context
The Catholic church has always had it’s “eccentrics” and they have always protected their own no matter how evil those people have shown themselves to be.
Skipthesong is 100% correct, there is no place in the world today for religion. But more than that there is certainly no place for a Catholic church that believes it has rights beyond the law.
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Posted in: Restored machine to explore mysteries of Big Bang See in context
Maybe Dick you are confusing dark matter with the dark ages, as for your idea of better spending the money on a cure for cancer I will amplify MrRoadrage’s reasoning and ask why your god ever created cancer in the first place, surely a loving god wouldn’t do such a thing to his children? Granted I do have problems with the LHC in that I haven’t yet heard anybody give me an example of a real, practical product that is likely to come from this machine, lots of wonderful possibilities that come close to science fiction, but nothing that is going to make my life better. I know. I’m being so very selfish.
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Posted in: Erika Sawajiri gives up studying for Spanish nightlife See in context
Spanishwoman at 09:35 AM JST - 19th November
“I've been to Barcelona and I rarely heard Catalan spoken”
Really? That sounds very strange, granted if you speak Spanish to a Catalan they do tend to speak Spanish back assuming that you don’t speak their language. Normally Catalans only speak Catalan.
As for learning Spanish in Barcelona, it’s normal; there are a number of academies because believe it or not Catalans do need to learn the language if they plan on working outside Catalonia. The two languages ARE VERY different. Catalan owes as much to French as it does Spanish. And there is no way of mistaking one for the other of any of these three languages. And I cannot for one moment imagine Erika even trying to learn Catalan, they have even more accents to master than either the French or Spanish.
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Posted in: Should the Japanese government stick to the 2006 agreement over the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, which the previous government and the U.S. agreed upon? See in context
The people of Japan voted in a new government because they wanted change and in a lot of ways they are getting it. The DJP have not been in power for something like 50 years, so they are not going to undermine the reputation of Japan by knocking this agreement back and no matter how much the Americans dislike it they need Japan just as much as Japan needs them. It’s about time the US stopped demanding and whining like a spoilt child and faced up to the fact that they have lost credibility in the world. Americans are only special to other Americans, the rest of the world are tired of this self righteous crying bully.
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Posted in: Blame game erupts over Fort Hood shooting suspect See in context
The fact that this killer is a Muslim is really beside the point. He is insane, how he got to be insane really isn’t all that important. That is what is going to come out in court, the poor man is sick and in need of medical help, maybe a few years in a mental hospital. He is not going to go to prison and no way will he be executed. Besides the military don’t execute the guilty after court marshals, well not for a very long time they haven’t.
The blame game will go on and the people who really should have seen something wrong with this lunatic will shift responsibility elsewhere, as is normal and life will go on until some other lunatic shoots somewhere else up. Nothing is going to change so I can’t see any point in getting yourselves all worked up over it, nobody except JT readers are going to react to anything you have to say. Do you think maybe somebody at the embassy is reading your views and taking note of what you believe is important?
Get yourselves ready for an insanity plea which will be accepted so that everybody can get back to avoiding responsibility.
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Posted in: Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life See in context
TheQuestion at 01:28 AM JST - 12th November
Is this José Miguel Domingo Fernández related to Domingo Fernández Navarrete the man that wrote Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China? If so they are going to very disappointed that you failed to put the accent in the family name. What worries me more is that we might actually be related.
You do also come close to making a very good point in respect to who has a real claim to be Catholic and who Protestant because in the Bible it clearly states that Jesus told his team to ONLY convert the Jews and not to even try and convert anybody else, which if you think about it would suggest that to be a Christian one would first need to have been a Jew. I am paraphrasing as I’m sure you will appreciate, but I have had this talk with a young priest a long time ago and he just ran away without giving an answer. So, what if these aliens do arrive and they turn out to be Jewish, will they have more right to be Catholic than the Catholics?
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Posted in: Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life See in context
“Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom.”
What is this, Opus Dei trying to get in first to set up one of its twisted missions?
I’m sure that the South American Indians thought of themselves as intelligent beings too, the Catholic Church however didn’t see them that way, so what hope have any poor aliens got?
One thing I learned at a very young age was never to trust a Catholic priest especially when he seems to be talking sense, because then you know he is lying.
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Posted in: Lawyer asks investigators not to question Hasan See in context
There is a gamble looming on the horizon here, one that has to some degree already been decided. What will this lunatic say in court in his defence? We might all be very lucky and he might just be a total raving madman and that is not going to be seen as a propaganda victory to the extremists, on the other hand he might just use his day(s) in court to put across an argument that could lead to more such shootings.
Had the police woman not been already injured she might have got off a better shot and avoided this, but then as some have said this would have left the conspiracy nuts free to ramble on. Perhaps the best direction for the US to take is to prove that this man is simply insane, no, that would not sit well with those that want blood for blood, but it could protect the US from accusations that it failed to give this man a fair trial.
There is also the point that nobody here seems too keen to look at, what if he is a totally insane freak and his connection to Islam is merely coincidental? No, he isn’t going to get to walk away from this, but an insanity plea will help him avoid a death sentence. And then how long before the doctors say he well enough to be freed?
One difficulty here is that his being a Muslim is clouding the issue, and I am sure that his lawyers are going to reason just that, if he were an insane Christian it would be acceptable, however being an insane Muslim might not be as acceptable, and is that justice?
Whatever way you look at this it is a can of worms for the US government and the military.
One final point that some will not wish to think about and certainly not want to admit to, how many of the 13 dead died from “friendly fire”. I genuinely hope none, but I am sure his lawyers are already looking at that too.
Maybe giving the conspiracy nuts their dead killer would have been best.
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Posted in: Trump pushes for plastic straws as he declares paper ones 'don’t work'
Posted in: Explosion at Taiwan department store kills 4; 8 others hospitalized
Posted in: New 'Captain America' film flies into Trumpian headwinds
Posted in: Explosion at Taiwan department store kills 4; 8 others hospitalized