Laguna comments

Oh, God - always hits me like s sledgehammer. I'll stay indoors with the windows shut until it's gone.

Sadly, he'd left Disney before I started working there, but I did run into him once in Burbank. I exclaimed, "Hi, Steve!" and he replied, "Hi, random guy!"

I mean, what else are you gonna say? - at least he replied.

An offence against humanity, certainly. Yet it's difficult to conjure sympathy towards Russia as a whole as it continues its barbarities in Ukraine. Though these are two completely different subjects I understand, but they share a common plane.

Israel should be loaned money not granted it. It might spend it more wisely - and beneficially.

A scant 100 years ago, gasoline stations were unusual. Then they became ubiquitous. The one in my neighborhood recently closed, likely due to reduced demand. Who knows what we'll see in future? - perhaps a diversified supply.

Tho dollar always strengthens when global tensions worsen. Bad for my son, in Tokyo, but good for my daughter, in the US.

Frankly, I don't care which country makes the EVs - I just want them on the road. A friend of mine just took me out in his EV - he wanted to show me its acceleration, and damned if after two seconds I wasn't like, "Okay - that's enough!" Sooner rather than later, they'll become the standard, and all countries will catch up.

We love God.

I can imagine how he went on: "Oh, yes, we love God. He's a great God, a big, beautiful God, like nothing in the sky. He came up to me, I had tears in my eyes, he is so great. Maybe not the greatest, but great."

The port should have used tugs to take the container ships beyond the bridge.

Wallace, that is a very good point - and it does stink of cost cutting.

One other point: do NOT intend to learn from your spouse or significant other. There is no more common cause of a breakup than trying to turn your partner into a language teacher.

I read the book when I was a kid, and it opened my eyes to Japanese history and culture, however accurate. As usual, I'd recommend 15 hours with the book over two hours with the video.

I got a decent education at the YMCA. I already knew kanji from my study of Chinese - just had to learn the Japanese pronunciation. And grammar was important. Most important was the awareness of the plain form (kudaketa), the simple polite form (teinei) and the advanced polite form (keigo) of the language. After a year, I had sufficient knowledge to learn the rest myself.

The staff at YMCA were committed, and there were many volunteers from the neighborhood who made themselves available for conversation. With their help, I was able to begin to function in society, and that is where my real learning came.

I don't understand how one can be "praised" for a "frank" admission of cancer. It is a most terrible disease - my wife died of it, as did her father - and all afflicted should speak out to attract more innovative medicinal techniques to combat it. It can strike anyone, regardless of lifestyle. The only shame in having cancer is trying to hide it.

Per capita income is the only meaningful measure. A falling GNP met with a more rapidly falling population would be a plus for all involved.

I was involved in leadership work with an IT company and came away with two points. First, engineers inherently want to concentrate on engineering, not management. Finding an engineer willing to accept a management role was like pulling nails. Second, the company was heavily compartmentalized. Leadership training, which transversed the various company departments, was highly useful in growing employees skilled with an overall view of the company mission.

I'm from LA so have always loved the ocean. It is forgiving - waves come in sets, so there's (usually) a chance to escape even in the heaviest of surf.

Rivers terrify me. They are unrelenting, and if you're caught beneath a snag, you're dead.

I strongly urged my daughter not to get a small tat on her heel, but she did it anyway.

Now she has to cover it up whenever she visits an onsen.

I frequent the Kyushu west coast. It is awash with garbage labeled in the Chinese language. Can we have them clean it up?

When my son was in elementary school, he wanted a Play Station, which I refused to buy, so he saved his gift money and bought it himself. I was impressed and allowed him to keep it. He learned two lessons: how to target a goal and save to achieve it, and that video games are boring.

I wonder where they'll calve. In the Pacific, they generally do so in the warm, calm waters of the Sea of Cortez, Baja. Perhaps they'll do so around the Caribbean.

It is tragic that Haiti has not changed since Graham Greene wrote "The Comedians." For an understanding of Haiti, you can read nothing better. It is available for free here: https://archive.org/stream/2015.182352.-the-comedians/2015.182352.The-Comedians_djvu.txt

Why aren't ALL Russian men over 18 being thrown into the meat grinder?

Fighto, I've heard that the vast majority per capita of Russian recruits are from minority areas. Putin does not want to stir up the hornet's nest that is Moscow and Western Russia.

The RNC's cupboards are bare as many of their donors are donating to Trump's funds instead. Now the money that is left will also go to Trump. So much for supporting down-ticket races.

November will be another blowout election for the Dems.

A local law requires a car owner to possess a parking spot within a certain distance from their residence. A friend had one near her parents' house but not near her paramours - she'd have had to secure one there at great trouble and expense if they married and she changed her address, so they simply did not marry. Over a parking space.

A "good" tax has two characteristics: it is cheap to collect and does not change behavior in a negative way. That is why paying for roads by taxing at the pump is "better" than paying a man to sit at a toll booth, and why "sin" taxes (those on tobacco and alcohol) are so high in many countries: to discourage consumption.

How this new tax will affect visits to Osaka, both in numbers and sentiment, and how it will be collected remain to be seen. On the surface, though, it appears unnecessarily complicated and prone to misunderstanding both by the collector and payer.

kohakuebisu, I'd say it's not just the architecture, it's the residents. In the States, the communal space would likely be often used for communal activities such as barbecues or impromptu badminton games. Japanese are paranoid about "creating fuss" and thus are hesitant to utilize the space offered.

Better look at an historical map of China before expressing such sentiments. Vladivostok is at stake.

Damn. Two hours and a shipmate overboard. That must have been terrifying.

As social animals, the human group benefitted from containing members with various disparate traits. While having a majority of its members content to chow down on what was in front of them, the group benefitted by having a few who worried about what to do once the banquet before them was consumed. So if you're a worrier, note that it's likely genetic and take steps to ensure it does not negatively impact your life, but know that it is for a purpose.

smart phone, dumb man.