knews comments

Agreed!

This private certainly wasn't using his head, his head was telling him to use his privates!

repentjapan

True, there will always be some who need to believe in a higher being and life after death etc., but the number of active practitioners will decrease. Not sure what you meant regarding the Soviet Union etc. but as people become more able to get information (i.e. by using the Internet), they will learn, ask more questions, and then realize that religion is all about power, money and control.

Columhcille

But do you really need to be a "member" of the LDS church in order to be "more kind and service-filled"? Religion is the bane of the world today. Violence and death all in the name of Gods who some hope exist. Pathetic really. Some people feel the need to "belong" and religion feeds on this. As humans slowly become more and more educated with more and more information at their fingertips, religions will become weaker and weaker. It has already started...thank God! (I mean thank goodness).

He was born Lawrence Zeiger.

Tripling the fees seems rather extreme. Why does it have to be such a big hike at once? A gradual increase would make more sense.

Exactly right sarahsuz25.

mikehuntez - It's difficult for us to imagine conditions so bad that we would risk everything to get away, but if the choice is between a long voyage on a rickety boat or death for you and your family, which would you choose?

They were apparently people from Iraq and Iran. Very sad news but people will always continue to be willing to take huge risks in order to make a better life for themselves and their families...

BurakuminDes

Read it again. Twenty out of the forty-two crew on board were actually rescued...

Raymasaki

Hmm, not many people these days would be brave enough to slice their own belly open.....only crazy people. But samurai who did it were, for the most part, intelligent and educated in various arts. It would take a hell of a lot of commitment and a strong will to do it. I admire them but am also glad that we aren't expected to do it today!

TheRat is spot on.

I think these days that many videos like this one (showing evidence of crimes) will make their way to the Internet. This is the age we live in now. People can decide for themselves. Personally, I prefer to have some visual idea of what happened. Think of the abuses at the prisons in Iraq. They provided important evidence of wrongdoing. In one part of the current video, the Chinese vessel clearly hits the Japanese one and, as far as one could tell, it could have been avoided by the Chinese ship. My question now is why the Chinese haven't started apologizing yet. The Chinese government would be very worried if this video made its way to the Chinese Internet but, due to the censorship there, it most likely won't. There is always the risk of videos being faked but I don't believe this video is a fake. The Chinese captain of that vessel should still be in custody.

....with care.

aedfed

Very good point. If these kids who were in classes that had a JET participant are more comfortable dealing with foreigners because of it, that is a good thing.

apple407

She might just be blinking...

Maehara: Did you notice the bit of whale meat in your bento?

methinks Bin Laden has Bin Drinkin and Bin Smokin' again...

A question about Republicans and Democrats. Is it fundamentally true that the Democrats tend to come from the East and West Coasts which have the better schools, colleges, economies and, therefore, standard of living, whereas the Republicans tend to be from the states where the quality of education is lower with economies in worse shape? And then does that match the actual population statistics (i.e. that about 50% live on the coasts and 50% live inland) and the voting results each time (i.e. about 50%Dem/50% Rep?) I have been told this before but was hoping for some confirmation and clarification.

tkoind2

I agree. People have short memories and quickly get bored. There is no way Obama and his team could turn around the USA in just one term. It is a long-term commitment and it is obvious that more time is needed. The Democrats have made serious inroads into getting healthcare for all Americans, they have openly said they are willing to engage with all countries (even Iran, North Korea and Cuba) and they have gotten Russia to agree to mutual reductions in nuclear weapon stockpiles. These are very big issues and deserve credit. Job creation and boosted exports are the next steps to help the economy slowly recover and there are no quick fixes. Slow and steady is the key. Although not mentioned in this article, if Palin ever becomes President....., it will be a very sad day for the USA and the rest of the world.

We're usually not too far away from a convenience store and they actually are required to have garbage bins provided as a public service according to what I heard.

You won't find me on any Garuda flights. I'll take safety over service anyday and many other airlines offer both...

DRogers

Nice to see you, the author of the article, responding to people here regardless of whether they left positive or negative comments. It would be a much more interesting forum if that happened more often.

I totally disagree with the article. In my experience there are far more grumpier and inflexible people at McDonalds in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia than in Japan. The first two "big" examples that he mentions are "a local burger shop" and "McDonalds". I wouldn't expect too much from them. I don't think we go to these kind of places expecting to have our expectations exceeded service-wise. Customer service in Japan is, generally, by far the best in the world. Of course it helps to speak Japanese. I am sure non-English speakers have a far tougher time in Western countries than non-Japanese speakers in Japan.

I agree. Seven years in a Cambodian prison would not be much fun. I wonder what the average life expectancy is in a Cambodian prison. It may not be much more than seven years...and will give him time to reflect on his disgusting crime.

Pachinko parlours are taxed and the government would never shut them down because the owners pay vast sums in tax. The machines record all money put through them so it is difficult to under-declare the revenue. But so much money goes through the machines, the owners still make enough after taxes. But the owners' costs are high too. One machine costs up to 500,000 yen and they have to change all the machines every 3 months or so in order to have the latest models to attract customers. Most parlours have hundreds of machines. Do the math there. It's big bickies. My good friend, who is Korean-Japanese and whose father runs a parlour, remembers young tattooed yakuza guys washing his father's back at the local bathhouse.

Not interested in trying it and not interested in posting online what I have done recently or am doing now, even for family and friends. Email is fine for that. Definitely not interested in putting up pictures of myself either. If I want to show family members photos, I'd rather just email them. I also spend too much time on ebay so that may have something to do with it!

northlondon

I recall you were waffling on about the "White Family" thing before. I personally know three African-Americans with the family name "White", just as there are thousands of Caucasians around the world with the family name "Black".

It isn't a big deal at all.

It isn't strange at all that Japan has detained the captain of the ship for supposedly ramming a Japanese vessel. Seem to recall China has done the same thing before with ships and even with US aircraft. China is embarrassing herself by using this currently minor incident as an excuse to pull out of other talks that are totally unrelated. Typical.

I read this interesting quote today:

"When the leaders express condemnation, it means that you're allowed to express condemnation," wrote Han Han, perhaps the world's most popular blogger, in a post that was mostly deleted from the internet. "When the leaders express regret, it means your time for expressing condemnation is over."

northlondon

I couldn't help but chortle after reading your well thought out post!

The companies were ordered to do so by the mitiary government so, as Tenney mentions, it is basically the government of the time who are to blame.