KobeKid comments

Nandakandamanda is right, this is too good to be true.

The Kanagawa Prefectural Animal Protection Center is a municipal, gov't run center, which means by all accounts they should be open admission. That means that can't refuse anyone who wants to give up an animal. But they are. KPAPC refuses requests from the public. What that means is the person either dumps the unwanted animal on the street or takes it to one of these news 'businesses' that have sprung up with the 0処分 or 0 Culling campaigns that are all the rage. These hellholes are isolated abandoned buildings where for around ¥5000 some unscrupulous person will take your unwanted dog or cat and stick them in a cage till they expire. The animal may get sold to a laboratory or if it's a pure breed that's in fashion sold to a breeder. Instead of conducting aggressive spay/neuter campaigns which is the only viable solution to the problem, KPAPC simply turns people and animals away and hey what you know we've stopped the killing! They should be commended for their adoption activities but this alone is not enough. And turning people away who wish to relinquish animals is irresponsible and cruel. So this 0 Culling proclamation is just smoke and mirrors or a shell game. Shame on KPAPC.

I heard Japanese commentators on some of the Sunday morning panel shows laugh about "Westerners's obsession and overreaction when it comes to whales and dolphins". One of the explanations to which everyone in the studio nodded approvingly was that this is nothing more than an emotional reaction because dolphins are presumably "cute and smart".

Oh that the Japanese general public knew the truth about the drive hunts. Show "The Cove" in all secondary schools. Let all mothers see the documentary and watch the bottom fall out of the captive dolphin industry audience in Japan. Ignorance is bliss as they say and the bias with which the Japanese media cover this issue could be likened to a chastity belt over the general public's eyes.

so many confused comments, re-posting this clarification in the interest of the facts,

****Can I make the point that this is not UNESCO world heritage recognition. This is a different program, "Memories of the World", which seeks to preserve documentation of historic passages in the world's history, such as the Battle of the Somme, or the Auschwitz camp. Both of the latter are included in the program.

Also, this is not Japan making the application - it is the local community (Minamikyushu). Professor Sheftall yesterday made the very strong point that the application would be withdrawn if the central government attempted to put any spin on it which led to glorification or fetishizing of the tokkō strategy or its practitioners.****

if the national vet association will get behind an aggressive spay/neuter campaign then it will be a success. Vets need to be more emphatic about the benefits of neutering and to lower the costs of the operation. The article mentions "strays" but what about animals relinquished by their owners at hokenjo's? This is a separate category.

In 1990 it was 1,000,000 a year, in 2000 it was down to 500,000 and now it's at 210,000. Zero is a very realistic goal, but there has got to be more leadership for the veterinary community on spay/neuter.

I got stoned with Obama once. He said "Man, I am going to be the President of the United States" I was like, whatever. We don't see each other so much these days.

You sir win the internets for the day! This thread is done.

Dolphin hunting in Taiji has not been long at all.

so the "It's our tradition." argument was false all along. Nothing to do with anyone's culture.

One 76 year old man with 30 dogs? There's the problem in a nut shell. Ibaraki prefecture is number one in number of homeless animals destroyed by local authorities. Breeders supplying pet shops in Tokyo is my guess. Look at the breeds mentioned in this article, labs, Chihuahuas, and Cleo mentioned poodles.

another poor attempt at using a title to gain an emotional response, the correct word is euthanize, and the title should read 500 cats & dogs are legally euthanized in Japan each day.

Sorry Yubaru but the title is correct. You can't euthanize a healthy animal. Check the dictionary

the act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die, as by withholding extreme medical measures, a person or animal suffering from an incurable, especially a painful, disease or condition.

euthanize would be wrong on two levels as the majority of animals destroyed in Japan are healthy and they are gassed which is not only not painless but a very cruel death.

a response from the Muslim community in London,

"This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family. We understand the victim is a serving member of the armed forces. Muslims have long served in this country’s armed forces, proudly and with honour. This attack on a member of the armed forces is dishonourable, and no cause justifies this murder."

direct quote from one of the suspects,

"We swear by the Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. The only reason we have killed this man this is because Muslims are dying daily. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth... We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. I apologize that women had to witness this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you."

from the article

The court heard that police had received complaints in the past about the dog from local residents, NTV reported.

Cleo wrote

And I wonder what happened in the past when Nakazawa's neighbours complained about his dogs?

I would encourage the family of the victim to take the police/houkensho to court for failing to do their jobs. They have partial responsibility for this death.

wow JT troll for hits much? Reading the title you might get the idea that Bangladesh had a problem with Doraemon when in fact it has a problem with any program dubbed in Hindi and Doraemon just happens to be one such program...

In the debate over marine mammals in captivity, the public display industry maintains that marine mammal exhibits serve a valuable conservation function, people learn important information from seeing live animals, and captive marine mammals live a good life. However, animal protection groups and a growing number of scientists counter that the lives of captive marine mammals are impoverished, people do not receive an accurate picture of a species from captive representatives, and the trade in live marine mammals negatively impacts populations and habitats. The more we learn of marine mammals, the more evidence there is that the latter views are correct.

this seems to be a recurring problem in Mie...

On Aug. 6 a baby's corpse with the umbilical cord still attached was discovered in a plastic bag at a refuse collection station in Mie Prefecture. A 24-year-old woman who lived nearby was later arrested. She had given birth to the baby about a week earlier.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fd20120902pb.html

good for Ichi! He 's more than earned his shot at a ring... yours for the taking Ichiro

The pro-nuclear camp is so certain the technology is safe they must sleep at ease at night and not notice this whole lotta shaking going on.

you're behind dude, try to keep up

http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/diet-to-publish-fukushima-disaster-probe

Police issued an alert for people to be on the lookout for a bear.

which one?

good news for the DPJ, bad news for the citizens of a country in dire need of leadership. Oh and I guess this is good news for Hashimoto in Osaka.

nepotism and Japanese politics.... beer and edamame

Indeed it doesn't but it certainly detracts from the quality of the article. Any time you use him as an expert creates questions of the impartiality of an article. Though it could be claimed that he is the only 'expert' prepared to give a critical statement.

Exactly, not a very deep bench for the "experts" on the anti side. There are valid points to be made by those against the use of nuclear energy but many of those who have been quoted in the media, Gunderson and Cladicott come to mind first, have been discredited time and again.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/04/05/measuring-our-monsters/

Which new plants in Japan are you referring to?

I don't believe I was referring to plants in Japan in that... oh wait... I get it you're being sarcastic. What a clever fellow you are.

No Zichi my statement would be in reference to the 42 reactors under construction in other parts of Asia mainly South Korea (9), India (7) and China (26). Seems these countries have decided that GEN III plants are the best answer to their swiftly expanding power needs. A quarter of a million children between the ages of 1 and 5 die in India every year from cooking smoke because they don't have electricity. The Indian gov't has decided to go with new nuclear technology now rather than wait on the possibility of solar and wind generated power, not to mention the even larger threat of global warming and the harm being done by burning fossil fuels to generate energy. Nuclear energy has zero carbon output. Let me ask you Zichi, if China and India's present power needs could be met by wind and solar why would they bother with nuclear?

Any serious discussion of future energy production in Japan needs to consider modern nuclear power generation. Whether this culture and can come to terms with the oversight and regulation involved remains to be seen. But like it's Asian neighbors, Japan will have some percentage nuclear power in it's overall future energy picture.

What do you know about GEN IV reactors Zichi? Did you know they can run on nuclear waste? Did you know they have passive safety features where the reactor will shut itself down in an emergency? Modern reactors can not run out of control like the one in Chernobyl because water has the dual role of coolant and moderator. My original comment was in reference to the statement that technology is not static. That includes nuclear technology.

Doing fine = increasing the use of fossil fuels which we KNOW kills tens of thousands a year globally.

Not to mention Japan's expanding trade deficit and the much bigger problem of climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels. Wind and solar will not provide the gigawatts necessary for an industrial nation. Not yet anyway.

"because it takes a static view of technology. Why would technology stop in its tracks?"

good point, along those lines nuclear technology has also been moving forward. Fukushima was a forty year old plant, technology and safety in new plants are light years better.

Ben Jack wins the comment of the thread award!

only a fool would think that another nuclear disaster won't happen in another country

and only a hysterical fool would throw out the nuclear baby with the Fukushima bath water, considering the future energy needs for the planet, the growing economies of China and India, the destruction of climate with fossil fuels and peak oil. You are ubiquitous on Fukushima related threads with an obvious anti-nuclear stance but you always bring mostly credible links and info that encourages debate with some less than stellar science at times. But declaring all nuclear power out of the question because the Japanese gov't and nuclear industry mis-handled Fukushima is a bridge too far Zichi.

just like at Chernobyl and TMI? The MIT have predicted 5 major nuclear events by 2050.

really Zichi? Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are on the same level of severity? Really? And then to try and cover it with a fig leaf quote without context from MIT?

here's another view for you Zichi

http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/06/17/time-for-reckoning/

It would be a mistake to pin all the blame on ex PM Kan, when clearly TEPCO is the main rogue, but also the entire structure of the nuclear industry failed. We never got much out of the LDP on their responsibilities leading up to the LEVEL 7 nuclear disaster, the worse since Chernobyl. The urban myth of nuclear energy being cheap, clean and safe, is BUSTED!

no the urban myth of safe Japanese nuclear energy is busted. Other countries are doing just fine, France included. Whether of not the culture is this country can safely run nuc generators remains to be seen...from the report

"What must be admitted -- very painfully -- is that this was a disaster 'Made in Japan,' " the report said. "Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to 'sticking with the program.' "

just been given the day off here in Kobe! Good chance to clean out the eaves....

In his address, Mr Obama maintained the USA's stance of neutrality over the Falklands, saying he wanted to ensure good relations with both Argentina and Britain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9207183/Barack-Obama-makes-Falklands-gaffe-by-calling-Malvinas-the-Maldives.html

who's an idiot?

He and other TEPCO executives had said repeatedly that the scale of the natural disaster was unpredictable,

possibly, but putting the back up generators in the basement of a building sitting next to a large body of water prone to tsunami has nothing to do with predictability. It's just stupid and careless, even to layman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lF7n5tYtkFg

that should read "Ichiro's all star speech"