kiwiboy comments

Curse of the shrinking portions of chicken at KFC is more troubling.

And near bankrupting cost for the little you get

Once upon a time, the Japanese used to be the wealthy Asians sought by other Asian countries to come visit...

My thoughts exactly. How sad :(

I think airlines should make the reason for wearing the seatbelt done up the whole flight more well-known. But they don't want to make people feel scared. So they just say "please keep it fastened" and leave it at that. But most people never consider it, they think "we've taken off and we're not landing yet, no seatbelt needed!". I always have mine on unless im going to the toilet.

A lot of people who don't ski or snowboard making posts here.

I'm happy with snowboarding on the main slopes and have never been off-piste.

But all around the world there are back-country tours. People are free to do what they like. Sounds like this was a legit tour, so will be adhering to national rules etc. It's an accident. Sure, if you weren't out back-country, it wouldn't happen.

But if you think like that, then nobody should climb a mountain. Nobody should skydive. You shouldn't skateboard. Shouldn't swim in the sea or go surfing. Shouldn't race cars or fly planes for sport. How about we all just stay home and do nothing?

Live your life to the fullest doing what you love and if something bad happens, at least it happened while you were doing something you love!

RIP

I watched it back in August, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe Hiroshima was only mentioned twice? Once in a radio broadcast saying that the bomb had been dropped, during which the protagonist of the film looked horrified at what must have happened there, and once more in passing somewhere else.

It wasn't a film about Hiroshima at all. It was about the making of the bomb and his reputation afterwards. Any outrage is completely unnecessary.

If flying Cathay Pacific from Japan you'll almost always transit through HK.

If flying China Airlines or EVA to a far-off destination, you'll transit through Taipei.

If flying to Oceania with Singapore Airlines you'll transfer through Singapore.

But when would anyone have a long layover in Osaka unless they specifically planned it? Osaka isn't a hub for any airline that I can think of. Only Peach is based in Osaka, but even then, you fly into Osaka or fly out of it. Not through it.

They might have reduced since covid, but they're nowhere near 2019 airfares.

Lots of comments about JAL and ANA being a lot more expensive. They were always more expensive even pre-covid, but at least there were cheap alternatives.

Now everything's expensive.

With the weak yen you'll spend so much more on holiday than before as well. It really does make vacationing here more appealing. But how depressing that we're getting priced out and stuck here.

Luckily for the REALLY important things, it's not the President that matters. It was during the first Trump Presidency that America finally realized China is a serious threat to the free world and our way of life. We shifted from the "work with them and they'll become more like us" way of thinking to "oh dear what have we gotten ourselves into".

That would have happened regardless of who was President. And it'll continue - as we saw when Biden came in. China is a threat. The Uni-polar days are over and Great Power Politics is back.

Presidents come and go but the agenda is set by those in career positions.

Article 9 was imposed by the US after Japan's defeat of WWII. It was imposed with the horrors of Japan's war in immediate memory.

Nearly 100 years has passed since then. Japan is now a strong ally of the free world, a democracy with rule of law. By contrast, the US's WWII ally, China, has since become the US's number 1 competitor/enemy/challenge and Japan is now the US's number 1 friend/ally in the region.

Article 9 needs to be updated to reflect the times.

oh isn’t that lovely. They must want something. Perhaps money or more aid. Then once they get what they want they’ll find a reason to be angry with Japan again. It’s the same cycle over and over.

If they want to make positive steps they can….

1) Cooperate 100% with all abduction cases and give Japan what they want with those.

2) Treat their citizens like humans

That would be a START. Until that happens, Japan doesn’t need a friend like them and they can keep to themselves

It's also much better than what China does

But yeah, pigs and monkeys in labs destined for death...gruesome.

Better than having humans dying. As long as the animals are treated well while alive and killed in a painless and stressless way.

Russia definitely doesn't care about the melting ice. The arctic melting opens shipping routes and new land for exploitation for Russia. Global warming helps them.

That's before you consider wild weather, storms, displaced populations etc create world chaos, which authoritarian regimes thrive on.

We live in interesting times.

sheesh, it commemorates the date the first colony was created, January 26 1788.

Without that, you wouldn't have modern-day Australia. That was quite literally, the start of what would lead to modern Australia, which EVERYONE alive today enjoys - aboriginal, Australians of European decent, recent immigrants and refugees.

The first day convicts were brought to build the houses and roads

Then maybe prisoners should protest too? Acknowledge the past, but focus on the present and future.

A better day would be the date of federation.

You're right. But it's Jan 26th. So everyone can cry about it or celebrate what Australia is today. The latter is far better for everyone.

People these days just want to play victim whenever they can. I'm gay but I'm not asking for apologies for the past. It was what it was back then - people believed what they believed and acted how they acted. We progressed. Let's all enjoy our life!

Australia is a great country, as is NZ, America, the UK, Japan etc. We're all so lucky.

Happy Australia Day! Happy being alive day! (everyday)

In my job I deal with a lot of young people. The number of mental issues they have - anxiety, panic attacks, bi-polar etc is way more than it was 10-15 years ago. It's very a worrying trend.

These kids have it all, except mental health.

For goodness sake. Race race race, all anyone wants to do is talk about race.

We're all just humans!

As far as history goes, we live in the least racist time in the history of the world. (the word racist gets thrown around, but who actually believes that a whole race of people are lesser just because of their race. Not many! "Racist" thoughts are usually more to do with financial inequality leading to higher instances of crime in some communities etc. Not because people believe their race is lesser.

Any large land mass with a small native population was going to be taken over by someone at some point.

If the English didn't, the French or Dutch or the Japanese or the Chinese would.

Let's not forget, native tribal populations fought amongst themselves, raping, killing, taking slaves. EVERYONE was as barbaric as each other, it's just that some had better technology and weapons than others.

When the Maori, for example, went to the Chatham Islands off NZ's coast, they all but wiped out the Maori-Ori who were there.

It is what it is. What happened, happened. Let's celebrate that in 2024 we're all alive and living in the great countries we live in.

We are all so lucky

It's all very tragic, but look how precise their data is.

How many people died in police custody? Oh wait, they don't want to tell us that one.

I've never met a foreigner who drives. I've met some western university professors who were very old and also do not drive. I understand if you live in Nagoya or a rural place that you want a car, but not in a place as dense as Tokyo.

If you live in the middle of Tokyo, you might not/want a car. But Tochigi the countryside. Car ownership will be much more common out there.

I'm 37 living in Kobe, which is much more "city" than Tochigi. Of my 10 closest foreign friends (my age or slightly older), only 2 don't own a car.

50% of my students come to school by car. The others are within walking distance, but most of their parents have cars.

Anyway, chances are this poor guy was driving a work car, possibly pressured into driving it even though he didn't have a Japanese license.

My point is, you can't say a foreigner driving is strange.

The voting age should be at the age of twenty as is the norm in Japanese culture.

In Japan it's 18.

Is it normal to drive in Tochigi prefecture?

Are you serious!? It's normal to drive anywhere.

Usually foreigners do not drive in Japan and Tokyoites also do not drive.

Are you kidding me? Most of the foreigners I know all have cars and drive here. And there are a LOT of people in Tokyo with cars.

I've rarely heard of Indonesians committing crimes, but they also tend to work in very low income industries such as maids or cleaning.

If you're suggesting not many of the "trainee" workers from South East Asia have cars, you're probably right. The fact they're young and have low income would reduce car ownership.

However if they're working on farms or in the countryside they may have access to work vehicles.

For example, perhaps a trainee was asked to go and get something in a work kei-truck, for example, but didn't have a license. Maybe they felt pressured to go, regardless of not having a license. Now we're guessing, but it's certainly weird to suggest that a foreigner driving in Tochigi is not normal.

I've rarely heard of Indonesians committing crimes

As far as crimes go, driving without a license is pretty minor. Chances are they had a license back home and know how to drive, so it's essentially missing paperwork. It's not like robbing a bank, theft, or assault.

Nobody should have the right to take another persons life. Not an individual, nor the government.

He murderer committed murder, which he shouldn't have, so he must be punished. Life in jail without parole would do the trick.

Just because he committed a wrong doesn't give the state justification to either.

Others have said it already, but someone arrested on a simple driving without a license charge in October, should not still be in custody in late January. Questions need answering and all these deaths need to stop.

If foreigners dying in custody makes the news because they're foreigners, how many Japanese are dying in custody? Oh that's right, they don't release the data anymore! The media should be all over this and senior government officials (ie, the PM) should be answering the hard questions.

Length of time in custody aside, when you're in the care of the state, it's their duty to care for you. You shouldn't die.

Thank goodness for that!

I actually like Taiwan's age for voting - 20. Everything else from 18, but voting alone, 20.

At 18 you become an adult and are free to make mistakes and learn. By 20 you've at least had 2 years of adult experience and can make better, more informed decisions in shaping the countries future through votes.

Actually 30 would probably be a better age (so you have 10 years of adult experience), but I don't think you'd get away with that :P

Bad charges? We don't know without more information

Every time someone clings to a car driving off, the driver is done with attempted murder. You can't tell me they're all really intending to kill someone?

The police are arresting them on trumped-up charges they know wont stick, but they're going for the biggest charges they can go for, even though they're a load of c r first-letter-of-the-alphabet p.

Find me a single case of the driver actually being committed for it. Won't happen, because there was no intent to kill. They're just over-blown charges that shouldn't have been brought in the first place.

Kazuki:

First, you are confusing "motive" with "intent". All the driver needs here for an colorable case is that he was cognizant of a significant probability the hanger-on will die if he continues to drive, and he was indifferent to the outcome (he doesn't have to want it). Which seems likely since most people will stop once the idea they may be responsible for a death crosses their mind.

The driver is not intentionally running the person over. They are not driving towards them at great speed. They are simply driving forwards, likely at a slow-ish speed (at least to begin with) in a direction AWAY from the person who's trying to hang on.

So they are simply trying to escape, in a direction AWAY from the person hanging on. It's not attempted murder at all. As i said before, it's attempted escape. The policeman should be charged with "intentional stupidity".

In fact, I'd bet a few beers that if you look back at similar cases, although the person is "charged" with attempted murder, they're never actually convicted of it. I'll bet a few beers that the prosecution drops the case because they're not confident in winning - proof enough that it's NOT attempted murder. In which case, they should never even be charged with it! It's just wasting police time and tax payer dollars (yen)

Another one of these!

Attempted murder is pushing someone into the path of an oncoming train, but the train stops in time - or hits them but doesn't kill them.

Attempted murder is stabbing someone in the chest with a knife, but it doesn't kill them.

Attempted murder is burning down a house with people inside, and they manage to escape.

It's TRYING to kill someone, but failing to do so.

How on earth is driving your car for SEVEN meters while someone hangs onto the side of it, attempted murder? It's "attempting to get away".

Arrest him for failing to stop / failing to comply with a police officer and causing injury. Not attempted murder.

I'm sure the charges won't stick, nor do the police expect them to. But I have a problem with charging people with these crazy charges just because they "can".

Probably even that is too cheap if we were to factor in the cost of a novel, deadly flu pandemic arising from this industrial agriculture. But then the farmers or consumers of eggs won't be the only one paying those costs. 248 yen certainly is not paying the costs the chickens incur because they are irrelevant to the system, as is life in general.

While you have a point that there are costs to the environment that aren't being covered by the 248yen we pay, how about the companies use their massive profits to offset some of those environmental costs, or at least pay their workers decent salaries, before raising the cost of eggs for us.

If you just say "eggs should be more expensive to cover the costs to the environment", the companies will happily put up the price - but where will that extra money really go? Probably just to their pockets.

As much as I despise this guy and all of what he'd done, I also don't like the "disrupting business" law, as anything can be "disrupting business". Although it worked out in this case against again him, I don't like the idea of a law so wide in scope.

Loud music? Disrupting business. Arrest him. Why not trespass the guy instead?

The number of times I hear of this law being used is scary.

rainman1

You're right, and the 90 second evacuation time is likely using all exits and slides, in daylight, which in this case wasn't possible, and wasn't the case.

You can't just throw open the doors and evacuate into fire.

The reason they ask you to keep your window shades open on take off and landing is so that in the event of a fire, people can see out, and rescuers can see in.

The pilot needs to stop the plane, stop the engines and assess the situation before giving the all-clear to start the evacuation. There are times when it's safer to stay on the plane than flee, so the situation needs to be assessed first.

Due to the fire only a few exits could be used. That's a lot of people to evacuate through a couple of exits in such a situation. Then the pilot and crew will search the plane for any remaining passengers.

18mins is from touch-down until the last person (the pilot) was off, after performing checks for any remaining passengers. Given it would have been a couple of mins until the doors were opened, and a couple of mins just the crew on the plane, I'd say it wasn't too bad.

Lessons were learned, it'll be studied and anything that can be done better will be next time. That's how aviation gets safer and safer. But no human lives on the JAL plane were lost. So great job JAL crew and first responders!