House Atreides comments

Posted in: U.S. vows to defend Japan against China See in context

The United States entered the Korean War to defend Japan, not South Korea.

"The recognition that the security of Japan required a non-hostile Korea led directly to President Truman's decision to intervene... The essential point... is that the American response to the North Korean attack stemmed from considerations of US policy toward Japan."

The US suffered over 33,000 battle deaths fighting North Korean and Chinese forces. It would be absurd to believe the United States would not continue to defend its interest in Asia given the sacrifices made securing those interests.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Posted in: G.I. Joe, the world's first action figure, turns 50 See in context

It's only the first action figure because Hasbro invented the term "action figure."

The term "action figure" was first coined by Hasbro in 1964, to market their G.I. Joe figure to boys who wouldn't play with dolls ...

Otherwise they would just be plastic dolls.

Dolls with movable limbs and removable clothing date back to at least 200 BCE. Greek dolls were made of clay and articulated at the hips and shoulders.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: U.S. hits Iceland on whaling; looks at sanctions See in context

Iceland consumes little whale meat but supplies the Japanese market. It increased its 2014 quotas to 383 whales, despite not making the hunt level the previous year.

That will change. Icelanders are in fact looking for new uses for whale meat.

Icelandic brewery Steoji has teamed up with whaling company Hvalur to launch the beer, which is said to contain whale meal.

The 5.2% beer, produced in time for the Icelandic mid-winter festival, is described by the brewery as healthy because whale meal is full of protein and is very low fat, while the drink has no added sugar.

The brewery's website claims people who drink it become "true Vikings".

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Posted in: Russia rejects China's offer to help with Japan dispute See in context

Russia doesn't need China. But it's very clear that China needs Russia's support because China's claim is bogus and can't stand on its own.

20 ( +23 / -3 )

Posted in: If this were the Middle East, the tug-of-war [over the Osaka metropolis plan] would lead us to taking up arms and killing each other. We have no choice but to hold an election, even though it will fea See in context

The Osaka Metropolis plan is a plan to transform Osaka Prefecture from a fu, an urban prefecture, into a to, a metropolitan prefecture in which Osaka city, Sakai city, and possibly other surrounding cities of Osaka are dissolved and subdivided into special wards that have a status as municipalities but leave some municipal tasks and revenues to the prefectural administration.

Hashimoto obviously wants to transform Osaka into the city on par with Tokyo. If something should happen to Tokyo, Osaka would take over.

In January 2012, the respected Earthquake Research Institute, at the University of Tokyo, reported there's a 70% chance a 7.0-magnitude or higher quake will strike Japan's capital by 2016. Such an event, the scientists said, could mean a death toll of up to 11,000 people and $1 trillion in damages on the world's third-largest economy.

Honestly, does anyone want a guy like Hashimoto running Osaka when a crisis like that develops?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Driver arrested after colliding into 10 cars while under influence of herb See in context

He should have said nope to dope.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Celebrities want to tie TPP trade pact with Japan to dolphin hunt See in context

aussie-musashi said: If these celebrities succeed on getting Obama to agree, then one of two things will happen.

Except that it won't happen because the TPP is being spearheaded by companies like Halliburton and Monsanto. There's a reason why the TPP is being negotiated in secret. And what's Obama's angle in all this?

But the TPP agreement is a key feature of the Obama administration's "Asia-Pivot," which is essentially an economic and military rebalancing to East Asia intended to threaten and therefore contain a rising China.

The TPP is about containing China and furthering corporate interests. The Taiji hunts are about selling dolphins to dolphinariums in China. So really, it all revolves around China.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Posted in: Celebrities want to tie TPP trade pact with Japan to dolphin hunt See in context

Simmons' letter said those signing don't oppose the TPP but seek to make stopping the dolphin hunt a key factor in negotiations.

This will never happen. Just look at the list of trade advisers involved in the TPP.

Much of the treaty's text is secret. Congress is almost completely shut out of the negotiations. But, as the WikiLeaks press release explained, "600 'trade advisers' - lobbyists guarding the interests of large U.S. corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto, and Walmart - are granted privileged access to crucial sections of the treaty text."

Do they look like tree hugging environmental activist types? Are these companies known for affording human compassion "the same privilege as business interests?"

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Posted in: No guns See in context

Message: When you see a man with a gun, wrestle it away from him. Then call the number at the bottom.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Posted in: Celebrities want to tie TPP trade pact with Japan to dolphin hunt See in context

ssenipah said: and they had hoards of Honda powered canoes to catch baby dolphins to sell to the Flintstones Aquariums

Honda powered? Look at the photo. They're using Mercury engines.

Mercury Marine, founded in 1939, is a division of Brunswick of Lake Forest, Illinois, in the United States.

It looks like we found a town in Japan that buys American. How ironic.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Posted in: Celebrities want to tie TPP trade pact with Japan to dolphin hunt See in context

This definately needs doing, as it isn't tradition at all, how can something that didn't start until 1969 be a tradition.

1969? People in Japan have been eating whale and dolphin meat in Japan since the Jomon era (14,500 B.C. to 3000 B.C.).

The other historical evidence can be found among the objects excavated from shell mounds. Shell mounds have been found all over Japan and provide much information about ancient people's diets. They contain bones of deer, wild boars, whales, dolphins, sea lions, fur seals and so on. This indicates that the people of the Jomon period ate whales.

The Jomon Japanese were hunting sea mammals with toggle-head harpoons.

Toggle-head harpoons, a later innovation, facilitated the hunting of sea mammals. Attaching a line to the toggle allowed the hunter to draw in his prey once the toggle had broken away from the harpoon shaft.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1975.268.333-345

2 ( +13 / -10 )

Posted in: U.S. warns airlines flying to Russia about explosives in toothpaste tubes See in context

In 2001 we had the shoe bomber. 2009 gave us the underwear bomber. And now in 2014 we have ... [drumroll] ... the toothpaste bomber.

Most people won't be brushing their teeth anyway when they see the sort of water that comes out of the tap.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552200/Welcome-Sochi-Journalists-horror-finding-hotels-awash-stray-dogs-brown-water-bugs-no-lightbulbs-days-ahead-Games.html

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Posted in: 'Japan's Beethoven' admits using ghost composer See in context

When a corporation does this it's called outsourcing.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Posted in: U.S. criticizes Chinese maritime claims See in context

"There is a growing concern that this pattern of behavior in the South China Sea reflects an incremental effort by China to assert control over the area contained in the so-called 'nine-dash line,' despite the objections of its neighbors," ...

President Benigno S. Aquino III was less subtle likening China to Germany under Hitler.

"If we say yes to something we believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong will not be further exacerbated down the line?" he said. "At what point do you say, 'Enough is enough'? Well, the world has to say it - remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II."

The lesson from WWII is that appeasement doesn't work.

"There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace." - General Douglas MacArthur

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Posted in: U.S. intelligence chief: Sense of destiny drives China's aggression See in context

nostromo said: Substitute the words "China" with USA in this comment and there is little difference in the result....

China is a signatory of UNCLOS, the United States isn't. Unfortunately, China is currently acting in a manner contrary to the spirit of UNCLOS which it in fact has an obligation to uphold.

Where customary international law has protected the traditionally expansive understanding of freedom of the seas - allowing open access to all but narrow bands of territorial waters along national coastlines - China is trying to curtail that access, fence off its peripheral waters, and deny to other maritime nations the freedom of navigation they have long and lawfully enjoyed.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: Asia fuels rise in global defense spending See in context

Spending by superpower China last year was $139 billion dollars, with only the United States expending more defense. In 2015, the study said military spending in China will outweigh that of Britain, France and Germany combined.

If you want to know what China is up to, just follow the money.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: U.S. intelligence chief: Sense of destiny drives China's aggression See in context

"No one can justifiably, in compliance with international law, simply assert the right to exercise control over great swaths of the sea," Russel told reporters.

That's why China doesn't bother justifying its aggression. China simply ignores international law when it doesn't support their aggression. It's all rather simple. No show at the UN International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea = China's claim is bogus.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Posted in: Health minister down with flu See in context

Health Minister Norihisa Tamura missed the Diet session on Tuesday due to having the flu.

He might be vitamin D deficient. Several studies have shown that high levels of vitamin D may prevent or lower the risk of influenza. Vitamin D may also reduce symptoms of influenza and reduce the risk of developing pneumonia following influenza.

In a study of Japanese schoolchildren, vitamin D supplements taken during the winter and early spring helped prevent seasonal flu and asthma attacks. ... The vitamin D group was 58 percent less likely to catch influenza A, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

See Randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20219962?dopt=Citation

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: Vatican trove shows Catholic persecution in samurai-era Japan See in context

In 1596 a Spanish galleon, the San Felipe, was shipwrecked off the providence of Tosa. Hideyoshi ordered the ship and its goods confiscated. The angry Spanish captain, wishing to impress or intimidate the Japanese officials, indulged in some boasting how Spain had acquired a great world empire. For proof the captain showed the Japanese officials a map of all the great Spanish dominions. His astonished hearers asked how it had been possible for a nation to subjugate so many lands.

The Spanish captain boasted that the Japanese would never be able to imitate Spain, simply because they had no Catholic missionaries. He confirmed that all Spanish dominions had been acquired by first sending in missionaries to convert their people, then the Spanish troops to coordinate the final conquest.

When this conversation was reported, Hideyoshi's anger knew no bounds. His suspicions about the use of missionaries as a first stepping-stone for conquest was confirmed. He recognized this pattern of cunning conquest at work within his own empire.

Seriously, if Japan hadn't kicked the Catholics out, Japan would have ended up like the Inca Empire. Japan wasn't called the "Silver Isles" for nothing. The Spaniards had every intention of seizing the Iwami Ginzan silver mine, just like they seized the Potosi silver mine after subjugating the Inca.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Posted in: Anti-whalers claim aggressive ramming by Japanese fleet See in context

SwissToni: House Atreides, the 9th US Circuit Court has no jurisdiction over Australia or the high seas.

We're not talking about Australia or the high seas. Just Sea Shepherd. See International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945). The Court held that a party may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has "minimum contacts" with that state. Court finds "minimum contacts", court issues ruling.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Posted in: Anti-whalers claim aggressive ramming by Japanese fleet See in context

Sea Shepherd has never been good at following orders, especially court orders.

... the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Watson and anyone acting "in concert" with them to keep 500 yards away from the whaling vessels.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

Posted in: Anti-whalers claim aggressive ramming by Japanese fleet See in context

Sea Shepherd said the Japanese had attempted to damage the fleet's propellers with steel cables, had thrown projectiles including grappling hooks at the Steve Irwin and fired water cannon on the Bob Barker's crew as they tried to cut the cables from a small boat.

And what tactics does Sea Shepherd use? Let's see...

In its Antarctic campaigns, Sea Shepherd employs a wide range of direct action tactics aimed at disrupting whaling operations, which have included throwing canisters of butyric acid (stink bombs, which contaminate whale meat and make decks unworkable), throwing cellulose powder (a white powdery substance which makes decks slippery), attempting to disable whaling vessels by entangling prop fouling lines in their propellers, and boarding whaling ships.

I guess it's no fun when you're on the receiving end of a prop fouling line. But then you know what they say, it's better to give than to receive.

10 ( +19 / -10 )

Posted in: Happy New Year See in context

Call me crazy but that doesn't look like any lion I've ever seen. Not even Kimba the white lion.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Posted in: UK nuclear plant gets all-clear after radioactivity levels rise See in context

... monitoring system picked up higher-than-normal radiation readings overnight.

Radioactivity just happens to increase at a nuclear power plant but we're suppose to believe that it's "naturally occurring background radon".

I guess this would be good news if your name is Ann Coulter.

...the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer. This only seems counterintuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad. There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Posted in: China considering new Air Defense Identification Zone over South China Sea: report See in context

globalwatcher said: I believe it is time for the world to get together to deliver a strong message of "NO" to China.

That's precisely what the UN Arbitral Tribunal will do when they rule against China this year. (Mr. Reichler says that if China doesn't take part, the case could wrap up by the end of 2014.) The Philippines will show just how bogus China's territorial claims are.

It's the first time that Beijing has been taken to a U.N. tribunal and China is furious. It showed its displeasure by making clear that Philippine President Benigno Aquino III wouldn't be welcome at a trade event in southern China in August. Beijing has said it will ignore the legal proceedings, without giving any reasons.

What happened to "maintaining the principles and purposes of the charter of the United Nations?"

7 ( +9 / -2 )

Posted in: China considering new Air Defense Identification Zone over South China Sea: report See in context

aussie-musashi said: So, the onus is on Japan to take the wind out of China`s sails by sitting down and negotiating the future of the Diaoyu islands with China

There's nothing to discuss. There's not one map published between 1949 and 1970 that has any reference to Diaoyu. You even have The People's Daily referring to the Senkaku Islands as being part of the Ryukyu Islands.

The article published on January 8, 1953 titled "Battle of people in the Ryukyu Islands against the U.S. occupation" wrote "The Ryukyu Islands lie scattered on the sea between the Northeast of Taiwan of China and the Southwest of Kyushu, Japan. They consist of 7 groups of islands; the Senkaku Islands, the Sakishima Islands, the Daito Islands, the Okinawa Islands, the Oshima Islands, the Tokara Islands and the Osumi Islands."

The Chinese claim to the South China Sea is equally ridiculous. There's no better example of just how nonsensical Chinese claims are than James Shoal, which sits just 80 km from Malaysia but 1800 km from China.

Some Chinese officials have justified Chinese claims to large parts of the sea by citing a map known as the "nine dashes" or "cow's tongue" that was drawn up in the early 20th century by the Kuomintang government, which the Communists overthrew in 1949.

17 ( +19 / -2 )

Posted in: Attacks by extremists kill at least 99 in Nigeria See in context

Suspected Islamic extremists used explosives and heavy guns to attack a village and worshippers during a Christian church service in Nigeria's northeast, killing at least 99 people and razing hundreds of homes, officials and witnesses said Monday.

So much for turning the other cheek. These Christians would likely still be alive if they had been properly armed. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Elite universities no longer mean as much to students See in context

Young people nowadays, their elders note with some dismay, don't seem to want anything - not wealth or its symbols, not love and its emotional turbulence, not career advancement with its struggles and rewards.

Sounds like a certain group of people described in The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. Where's a time traveler when you need one?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: China visa woes for New York Times as government ups pressure See in context

What happened to "maintaining the principles and purposes of the charter of the United Nations?" China needs to be reminded of Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

It also wouldn't hurt to look at Article 13.

Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Every Uyghur and Tibetan should be given a copy of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Posted in: Japan revises teaching manuals, says disputed islands its territory See in context

It's about time. Devote an entire chapter to Chinese territorial expansion, from Arunachal Pradesh to the South China Sea to the Senkaku Islands. It's all about context.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Recent Comments

Popular

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites


©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.