dbung10 comments

nice picture, makes you feel happy for them both.

.............What doe's a person's appearance have to do with their particular skill or whatever they do...?? I mean seriously ...is having a shirt tucked in going to improve his performance......will wearing an uncomfortable tie make him do better tricks.....will high riding above the belly button pants make him snowboard faster......will it??? Not everyone wears dress shirts and slacks....not everyone is comfortable wearing certain types of clothing...I am a jeans and T-shirt kinda guy...I know we live in a society that tries to dictate what is appropriate and what is not but whatever happened to one's own personal preference ....are we even allowed to be individuals anymore or are we all required to submit and conform to the wills of society????

He doesnt have to conform to the wills of society. Unless he is representing his country at an official event (getting on the plane at Narita to the olympics), in which case he does have to conform to the will of the organisation that paid for his ticket. If he doesnt, it shows him up as a spoilt little brat.

stevecpfc - I agree with everything you said. Real sportsmen will behave with respect to the people that support them, watch them, play with them and play against them. A little rich boy that wants to prove how 'cool' he is will untuch his shirt, losen his tie and think he's fighting the system.

@scotch

Errr not once did I say snowboarding was considered cool or rebel. I said it had it's origins with punk music. Which is did and the punk influence is still there. The best snowboarders out there still love this free style the sport has and it has also developed into free style skiing. Do your homework or read posts in future dbung.

Please tell me where I was addressing you? Im talking about snowboarders here, not you. Snowboarding aint an 'alternative' sport or hobby anymore. Its in the Olympics! It couldnt be any LESS alternative. If you are going to enter the Olympics, accept that you are mainstream and go along with the protocol. If you dont want to, give up your spot for someone that does.

@hoserfella

Scotch - what a crock of poo. This isn't 1993 and snowboarding is about as "bad-ass" or "punk" as playing marbles. Go on any mountain today and snowboarders outnumber skiers. I love snowboarding but don't need an inflated and outdated opinion of it to think it's cool. I guess now you'll quit?

Thank you thank you thank you. So glad someone said this. If you want to snowboard because you like it / are good at it then great, good luck to you. But to think its in some way cool, and that you are a rebel cos you dont tuck your shirt in? seriously sort it out. You know what, the 'coolest' guys and girls on the slopes nowadays are the skiers. They arent doing it because its fashionable, they are doing cos its fun. They usually havent spent thousand of mummy's yen on designer gear, they just do what they wanna do.

I may be wrong here - but dont uniqlo usually make a point of using sort of 'normal' looking models - i.e. not super hot or extra kawaiii...? It sort of fits with their image and is a decent marketing strategy methinks.

Cute kid, funny expression, terrible shirt.

He is putting the girl back down on the floor, its an action shot. Maybe he doesnt know how to hold a child, but you cannot infer that from this photo. Its not a photo of him holding a child, its a photo of him carefully putting one down, you can tell by the way he is looking at the floor so that her feet have a safe place to go, and the fact that he is in between kneeling and crouching.

Or, if you are a particuarly miserable person, you could attack the guy as 'not being able to hold a child' and then extrapolate to all japanese salarymen not knowing how to hold children even if they have their own and then turn this into complaining about J guys. Also, I can see a woman in the background, she is probably pretty so if you like we can complain about how vapid and vain all japanese women talentos are. Oh, and look at the lack of ethnic diversity in the picture. man, this guy is just a big racist baby hater. He is the leader of japan so that means japan is racist and hates kids.

Lets just be nice about the picture.

For many Japanese diners, “tabehodai” (buffet) is a chance to sample a wide variety of flavors and tastes;

Tabehodai doesnt mean buffet.

It is very difficult for companies in Japan to fire an employee when they are full time and permanent. Employment laws heavily favour the employee. Thats why you cannot fire someone for not doing their job properly. I used to work in an office of mostly japanese staff and their fear of answering the phone when the receptionist was away was comical.

Let the bankers bleed along with the rest of us for a change!

Im pretty sure that Lehmann brothers staff, and many others - did bleed along with the rest of us. I agree that there is a lot of greed in the bansk and there are many there that deserve punishment that they will never receive. Its not just the bankers though, 'the rest of us' spending more money than we have on credit helped bring about the sub-prime crisis which started all of this off. We ALL need to be a bit more responsible.

It is just me, can everyone else see that the people promoting the 'sportswear' are not in very good shape? ie obviously not sportspeople? Just skinny women?

no, it isnt just you. Give me the imperial palace or gaienmae jogging set any day over these 'models'.

The report concludes a project launched in 2006 to promote mutual understanding on parts of the history that have often strained ties between the two neighbors.

Haha, thats a nice way of putting it.

Japan: So China, we raped and murdered thousands of people in your country and would rather not apologise and kind of deny it happened to the extent it did if thats ok?

China: No, we hate you. Also, the general population's hatred of you as a people helps us keep everyone in line.

Japan: So we should or shouldnt apologise?

China: Publicly we will demand an apology, but really, as long as you dont apologise and the government and people have a common hate figure, that works well for us.

Japan: Cool, we can also kind of 'save face' here too, right, by not really apologizing?

China: Yep! Works well for everyone doesnt it. If its ok with you, we will keep bringing this up every couple of years or so.

Japan: ok - should keep some journalists in a job as well, and they can pretty much just copy and paste....

@seppinho. - none of 4 adjectives used in your sentence apply to this picture.

As Suzu1 mentions above there is plenty of coke coming from Mexico now too.

Yes legalizing coke and taxing it may solve these problems, but right now that isnt the case. So if you buy coke, you are funding cartels that machine gun down groups of children. It isnt a victimless crime.

@johnnyreb. I would agree with you if this was some bizarre local law that they had broken, but Im pretty sure that taking a group of kids out of the country without documentation and therefore no real way to trace them is pretty much frowned upon in every country in the world.

Ive just seen an interview with the lady that is the apparent spokeswoman for the Christian group. Arrogant and creepy as hell.

Foreigners, Japanese, I dont care - I hope they live out the rest of their lives in pain, the majority of it spent in prison. scum.

So here we have a group of people believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God, visiting a country that has just had a couple of hundred thousand people suffer a horrible and needless death.

As if this wasnt annoying enough, this group then decides to steal some of their children and plans on sending them to a country where there is a good chance that they will become involved in underage prostitution, with a client base of dudes from the states, that probably go to church every week.

Anyone else annoyed with Christians right mow? Come on guys, if you wanna do your little church club thing every week where you sing about some made up stuff to make you feel like you have some meaning in your life then go ahead. But please stop foisting your beliefs on others and acting like you have moral superiority to others that gives you the right to do stuff like this.

Taking an 'intoxicated' girl up to your apartment is one thing. dragging a girl that was too drunk to stand up into your apartment is a whole different thing entirely... Although Im sure he just gave her a glass of water and slept on the couch.

Still think that your Friday night line of coke is a harmless and 'victimless' crime? This is where it comes from.

Im with KyokoSmile on this one. We all have a duty to look after those who cannot fend for themselves.

In fact, the whole reason for this was more than likely because of the father.

Really? what are you basing this on?

For the male, preventing pregnancy is a piece of cake.

I agree. Its also pretty easy for the female too...

Its a fair bet he caused one he didn't want and then did not stick around to either pay for an abortion or help with pregnancy he caused.

A 'fair bet'. So you assume that most guys would leave girls that they got pregnant to fend for themselves? You must really hate guys.

I would also be willing the bet the mother was scared, confused and alone and had no desire for the baby to die.

Agreed that she was probably scared and alone. Confused? not sure why she would be confused. No desire for the baby to die? Well she didnt seem to have much desire for the baby to live either. It would have been a 'piece of cake' for her to call an ambulance, or get someone from the supermarket to do so.

The death of the baby might well have been an accident caused by her confused state and a lack of options.

again, what is this 'confusion'? where are the 'lack of options' she had options, and she chose to leave her baby alone, in a toilet, to die.

They look happy, its a happy picture, Im happy, lets all be happy and smile at the happy people. This is nice. Its Friday too.

I have a computer. I have an iphone. when would I use this?

In fairness to the wedding dress designer, I dont thinks its meant to be showing a lot of leg, I think Aya is pulling it up a bit, which is fair enough really. She's 24 and not married yet.... she must be getting worried and is looking to ensnare a helpless young man in there before she is 'past-it' (which in her industry, in Japan, is around about now).

You let fear and the fallacy of security encourage you to give up your right not to be on camera all day. And there is a greater danger here that people are also not talking about in this thread. And that is the danger of having the state able to watch over your shoulder. This discourages dissent and it enables the state to monitor the movements and activities of its citizens without warrant or cause. Totalitarianism historically begins from often simple misteps by socieites. This Orwellian world of universal cameras and monitoring is a potentially very dangerous mistep.

or you could just take it at face value, understand that the government / police thinks this will help them catch criminals and not assume that everyone in a position of power is in some way evil and wants to take over the world.

Its not all a big conspiracy mate.

Also please answer the original question that two people have raised - how is someone looking at you through a camera any different to someone looking at you directly. Do you feel violated if someone looks at you walking down the street? Does this take away some of your rights? Or do you assume that any one of them could be a State operative, reporting back to Big Brother on your every move?

Dont know much about baseball but reading those in the know, looks like she doesnt have much of a chance and its a bit of a publicity stunt.

I hope she proves a few people wrong.

All our rights are just as valid. I just dont see why anyone has the right to not be filmed if it is for the greater good of society. I think it would be wrong for me to follow you around with a video camera, but I dont think its wrong for a trained professional to sit in an office looking at video feed from cctv cameras. I cannot understand why there is the desire for this 'privacy' in public places. People are looking at you, why cant there be a guy in an office looking at you through a camera lense too? seriously are the two any different?

Sorry but I just cant get that worked up about the idea of someone filming me as I walk around. You can honestly film me as much as you like. I think cameras are a good idea, they wont prevent much crime but hopefully they can help us catch people that do break the law.

Also, Ive seen cctv used in the UK to prevent drunk drivers. The cctv camera sees a clearly drunk person staggering toward their car and getting in, police are on the scene before the dd gets the chance to pull away. Ill give up some of my privacy to have even just one less drunk behind a wheel. cctv has also been used to alert police to potential fights breaking out etc.

Whay are people so bothered about cameras in public places? If you aint doing anything wrong, whats the fuss about? Im happy to have them around.

Good luck to her.

Does she have her own locker room?

Very sad, I wonder why he thought debt was so important? Was money the only way he contributed to the family? No such thing as attempted suicide. If you fail, you werent really that into it. He is now eligible for the death penalty no though right? As you have to kill 2+ people for that in Japan I think.

Poor Irish girl is probably having the talent sucked right out of her by osmosis.