Equality comments

When you have been consistently attacked and under threat for 65 years, you get used to it.

I think a few posters missed the point of the nurse's criticism. It wasn't that she was quarantined, it was how she was quarantined.

Hickox, who was transferred from the airport to a hospital where she was placed in isolation, described a confusing and upsetting experience at the airport and worried the same treatment was in store for other American health workers trying to help combat the epidemic.

"I ... thought of many colleagues who will return home to America and face the same ordeal, Hickox wrote in an article published on Saturday by The Dallas Morning. 'Will they be made to feel like criminals and prisoners"?

"No good deed goes unpunished."

Not much different that those sad situations where a nightclub flouts safety standards and a fire ensues.

I will have to respectfully disagree with you here. In this case, the fans were repeatedly told to come off the grate, but chose to ignore those warnings. As tragic as this accident was, I'm afraid the responsibility lies partly with them.

It's interesting how a couple of people are discounting psychiatrists' understanding of the human mind and behavior when the very definition of a psychiatrist proves them wrong.

Psychiatrist --> "a medical practitioner specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness."

Since most people would agree that stalkers engage in abnormal behavior and that they lack compassion for the feelings of others, who would be better able to analyze that behavior than psychiatrists?!

The title should read that he 'died', not that he was 'killed', since this suggests that it was done by a Sherpa, not because of a fall.

Shortly after the tax increase was implemented, Abe and his cronies announces a several hundred billion yen 'incentive package' for businesses to 'increase investment and hiring', even though some of those businesses are riding on their largest cash reserves in history. It has been proven that these monetary gifts have very little direct effect on hiring and capital investments (within large corporations at least). The massive debt problem isn't due to under-taxation or flat wages. The main problem is the same as it has always been in Japan - government corruption and waste.

Any actual news about whether or not the recent earthquake affected the extremely delicate procedure of removing the spent fuel rods/assemblies at the Daichi reactor (as opposed to the official 'nothing to see here folks' line taken by TEPCO/the government)? http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-tepco-is-risking-the-removal-of-fukushima-fuel-rods-the-dangers-of-uncontrolled-global-nuclear-radiation/5359188

@sillygirl - If any Japanese politicians own shares of Tsutaya, the answer is never. :-(

I agree with AKBfan. The Simpsons jumped the shark a long time ago but was quite clever in its heyday.

How long can the civilised world allow this ... Israeli regime to exist? Hopefully not much longer.

@BurakuminDes - It sounds like you and Hamas share the same ethos. They are always looking for more 'martyrs', so maybe this is your big chance to join the cause?

As for people who make the ridiculous and highly offensive comparison between Israelis and Nazis, it simply shows their ignorance of the scale of atrocities committed during WW2 and how these atrocities were systematically carried out.

Israel bombing blindly, I mean, mortar in a UN school, really!?

It would help if the UN didn't let Hamas store rockets and other weapons in UN schools.

http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-rockets-found-second-united-nations-school-224830922.html

Do you know of any other army that drops thousands of leaflets (written in Arabic) warning residents to evacuate targeted sites that contain rockets in an effort to minimize civilian casualties? If Hamas didn't store its rockets, missiles, and other weapons in mosques, schools, and hospitals, civilians would be able to safely evacuate there.

http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/07/23/un-acknowledges-facilities-gaza-used-store-hamas-rockets/

http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/07/hamas-rockets-found-in-second-united-nations-school/374874/

Spa! (July 22-29) invites us to a baka challenge. Baka means stupid, but it seems intelligent enough to this reader. The idea is to see how long you can go without spending a single yen.

'Baka' is right, since nothing the article mentions can be done without spending money on train fare (and thus being disqualified from the contest). Or should we sneak in and out of the train stations and risk arrest?

@gogogo - The only reason for Israel's incursion into Gaza was to stop Hamas' incessantly firing of rockets/missiles at its cities and citizens. While people may argue that there are reasons for Hamas doing this, the crux of it is that going into Gaza was the last resort for the Israeli Defense Forces and they would be more than happy to end the battle and withdraw from Gaza as soon as Hamas agrees to stop firing rockets at its citizens.

@Yongyang - There's a small hint that the story may be distressing in the headline:

15-year-old girl arrested for beheading classmate in Sasebo

Finally, a somewhat balanced article about the incursion by the IDF into Gaza. Although it didn't mention the tens of thousands of Israelis who are forced to spend most of their days in bomb shelters due to the relentless rocket fire from Hamas, it did expose some of Hamas' tactics that lead to a disproportionately (and unfortunately) high rate of civilian casualties among the Palestinians.

The Cove, Hearts and Minds, Waste Land, Forks over Knives (oops ... that's 4)

@FizzBit - The missiles are coming from the Gaza strip into Israel (and have been for years). The only thing that's new is that Hamas now has longer range missiles - courtesy of Iran - that are capable of reaching major Israeli cities.

@Stuart - You are incorrect. I do care for the lives of all innocent victims of violence; equally in fact, and thus my moniker. For you to assume otherwise is just that, an assumption. I simply find it curious, and honestly a bit dubious, that hundreds of Japanese would have a silent protest to observe the deaths of Palestinians while I have never heard nor read of them protesting - silent or otherwise - against the deaths of more than one hundred thousand innocent Syrians, countless Sudanese in Darfur, hundreds of thousands of innocent Tutsi's and moderate Hutus massacred in Rawanda (yes, I have been in Japan for a long time), or countless other peoples massacred by governments and militias around the world.

Your post actually says more about you than it does about me, which is interesting as well.

I wonder what makes the lives of Palestinians so much more sacred than those of others, such as the Syrians (over 28,000 dead in 2014), Nigerians (over 5,000 dead in 2014), Pakistanis (2,300), etc., etc. Interesting ...

But a weak economy beset by deflation over the past two decades has ushered in a growing number of low-paid contract positions, largely filled by women.

While the latter half of this sentence is correct, I don't think the first part holds much weight. The real culprit is all of the 'dispatch' / 'temporary staffing companies', which were ushered in by Koizumi's government (if memory serves). They created the era of the working poor by taking such a large percentage of - what used to be - decent, full-time salaries. Not only does this army of workers make about 1/2 ~ 2/3 of what their predecessors did, but they have higher medical and other expenses as well. Such a shame really, and the increase in the consumption tax didn't help!!

My first-year university students who do presentations on the topic of Japan's low birth rate / aging society know so much more about this issue than politicians that it's scary. Affordable child-care, improved maternity leave, gender equality in the workplace, immigration law reform, etc. etc. It seems that these relics in government either have no idea what's at the core of this issue or their chauvinistic attitude is holding them back. Probably both.

I was all ready to check out Little Texas until I read about the music charge of 2,200 yen (or thereabouts). I don't mind paying a little extra for a good band, but since I'd be bringing my g/f and paying the bill, ichi-mahn plus for burgers and country music seems a tad expensive.

What Hamas should do is evacuate the civilians.

That will never happen, since it would run contrary to Hamas' propaganda war against Israel.

When the images of a desperate people fleeing with just their most meager possessions on their backs are aired around the world, just imagine the public reaction.

Oh ... I see. Just like Hamas, your motive is to use imagery to turn public opinion against Israel. Do I see a future career as a Hamas public relations officer in the making ?

... and Hamas came in with their ineffectual rockets that at best disrupted Israeli cocktail hour.

That statement is both erroneous and unfair. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis continue to be terrorized by the constant barrage of incoming Hamas missiles. Red alerts and missile warnings go off almost constantly, confining most of these people to bomb shelters for hours on end. Not exactly "cocktail hour", is it?

The stricken Fukushima Daiichi and two other nuclear power plants, along with other nuclear facilities along the coast, found no abnormalities, and their reactors and fuel storage pools are being cooled safely, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but the above is what I'm most worried about, especially since Abe's new appointment to the head of the NRA is a lackey 'yes-man' who is pro-nuclear.

How do I volunteer for the next experiment? :-)

One problem with the Jewish state is they have and will accept the worlds Jews.

How is that a problem?

Except the ones from Ethiopia.

Israel was home to about 121,000 citizens of Ethiopian descent as of 2009.

I see the Israeli's as the arrogant side and Palestinians as the desperate struggling side.

That's an incredibly simplistic view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which shows no knowledge of the history of the region nor of the complexity of the issues involved.

His behavior, though harassing, was never threatening or malicious. We can infer something of his emotional condition from the fact that for the past 10 years he has been singlehandedly caring for his invalid mother.

Oh, so this makes the fact that he was stalking a female teacher okay? Stalking is NEVER okay, no matter if a person is a handsome and powerfully-built man or whatever else. Who are we trying to empower here, the victim or the stalker?!