Larry Woodworth comments

And how many cancelled health plans resulted from obamacare? Somewhat north of 7M I recall.

The Republicans like to trot this statistic out whenever they want to bash the ACA, all the while knowing that out of 7 million cancellations, at least 80% of the affected people were automatically enrolled into the replacement ACA-compliant plans their place of employment went with.

The Republicans are doing the equivalent of raising the alarm about millions of driver's licenses being expired by the state every year, while conveniently glossing over the fact that almost all of those whose license expired received renewals.

The McClory family’s law firm said McClory created the iconic character, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the global terrorist organization he headed, SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), which were not part of the original novels.

If it's a mistake, then the lawyers made it. (Wait... lawyers don't tell the truth?!?!? SAY IT AIN'T SO!!!!)

As I read this, the government is saying they're adding their "take' on these topics, not removing anyone else's. I believe there are enough people out there looking closely at Japan's history texts that if Japan truly DID try to re-write what is recognized by the rest of the world, the outcry would be swift and deafening. Let them do their update, read what they have put in there, THEN cry foul if what they add is perceived as wrong.

Why can't they train in LA or Hawaii? Why do they need to train in Japa?

Yeah! So what if traveling halfway around the world just to conduct flight training, then traveling halfway around the world back to the duty station you're assigned to is considered a horrendous waste of fuel? I'd call this a "bad idea", but that would be giving it way too much credit as actually BEING an idea.

This really isn't that earth-shaking. As the number of months since the last case of mad cow disease increases, the restrictions on how young the beef must be will ease. Japan's just making sure that any beef imported from the U.S. wasn't conceived while the infected cow was around. Assuming no new cases appear, I imagine the age restrictions will completely disappear once the lifespan of cattle has been reached since the last reported case.

25 kilometers from Fukushima Daiichi. I hadn't realized they were letting kids attend school that close to the reactors.

I can't understand why this has to be done in summer when the whole country will be suffering. Do it in spring!

You DO understand when a reactor goes down for maintenance, it's down for months, right? You never noticed it before because they had other reactors pick up the slack. The reactors run for a set time, then are brought down for inspections and maintenance. The specified number of operating hours will be reached in September, so that's when the reactors will be shut down. You ALSO realize that if they shut down in the Spring, that's just that many more months of shortage because the reactors won't be restarted anytime this year (if ever), right? When the Ooi reactors are brought down, they may as well start packing things up because they probably will never generate another watt of electricity.

There is a guy in Delray Beach Florida that says that he has the original bat mobile and he brings it to events! Is this a fake?

If he's talking about the one from the 60's TV show, then yes it's a fake. Barris has owned it since Ford sold it to him. The Futura was a one-of-a-kind concept car, so there's no way a guy in DelRey Beach, FL could have even taken another one and modded it to look like the original.

Wiki has the new owner identified as "Rick Champagne from Scottsdale, Arizona". Barris is making out like a bandit with this sale. Ford sold him the concept car in December 1965 for the price of $1 plus "other valuable consideration" (whatever that means). At the time of the Ford sale, appraisers put the cost of the Futura at $125,000 in 1966 dollars. (One-off cars cost a lot more to make than production cars.) 47 years later Barris sells the car for $4.2 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batmobile

Wrong, Yuasa makes ALL 787 batteries under contract from Thales SA, not just ANA's planes.

Uhh... how is their statement "wrong"? The battery that failed was in an ANA Dreamliner and the failed battery in the ANA Dreamliner was made by Yuasa. The statement is 100% correct.

GSYuasa is not the system integrator, but Thales SA. As such, the responsibility for choosing the parts and ensuring they all work together with no such problems lies entirely with Thales. I wonder why is the GS Yuasa brought on again and again. FYI, Yuasa is a very respected manufacturer of Li-Ion battery CELLS for aerospace, with millions of usage hours without problem in hundreds of satellites.

GSYuasa is the manufacturer of parts that failed catastrophically on two different planes. Thales SA cannot open up each battery to make sure it was made to specification because the batteries are sealed. Therefore, they have to rely on Yuasa to make them right. I would imagine there is nothing in the design of the battery circuitry that would as a rule cause the batteries to swell and burn. What CAN cause them to swell and burn, however, is shoddy manufacturing processes. THAT is why GS Yuasa is being brought up regularly. Until the actual determination has been found, they are a prime suspect for the cause of these failures. I imagine any GS Yuasa batteries that were made about the same time are being collected and disassembled to see if impurities found their way into the batteries.

Four years for raping a woman? I wonder if they reduced the charge to your basic sexual assault because he was under the influence of alcohol? Regardless, he'll do his four years, then face the military courts. About the only thing guaranteed from them is he'll finish-up with a dishonorable discharge. Bye bye being able to use his military service on any job application he submits after that. If you say you were in the military, then the prospective employer will want to see your discharge form. Unless the job is digging ditches, the employer isn't hiring someone who was given a dishonorable discharge.

I realize this doesn't make the people happy who are calling for life imprisonment for committing a crime while drunk, but oh well. Life imprisonment for a drunken rape is a tad extreme. What are you going to do for more serious crimes? Life and a half?

149 comments between Romney giving his concession speech and Obama leaving the stage after his acceptance speech. Just goes to prove the adage that religion and politics discussions turn ugly fast.

Congratulations to Obama for winning re-election. Your work is cut out for you because you've got basically the same situation in the House and Senate as you had in the first term. Your second term will be measured by how well you are able to break this stalemate that Congress has maneuvered itself into. I hope you are able to succeed because another four years like the last four will irreparably harm the country.

Meh. Some appropriately-colored latex house paint, a 1" paintbrush, and her 顔色 is fixed! Then throw some rouge and lipstick on her and DONE!

Zichi, how many of that type GE reactor are operational in the world today?

I agree with you that some American engineers in the Prime Minister's office wouldn't have been much use. Anything they said would be ignored if it upset the "wa" (and let's face it, ANYTHING the Americans said at that time would upset the "wa".)

Did I miss something? I don't see anywhere in the article that says the woman was strangled. If they were too drunk to walk, it could just as easily be alcohol poisoning that killed her.

15% means half of the existing 52 reactors would be restarted. They should write-off and deccommission the 26 oldest reactors right now, then throw a ton of money into the remaining 26 to make sure another Fukushima disaster can't happen before they re-start any of them.

Yeah, that whole "East Sea" vs. "Sea of Japan" nonsense is ridiculous. Should we start an uproar because non-English speaking countries aren't using "Pacific" to describe the ocean Hawaii is located in? Those Korean fools once ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post, chastising the Post for calling that body of water the "Sea of Japan". If that's the number one problem they have, perhaps this "Comfort Women" issue isn't so important to them after all.

I pray that Misia follows AKB and not vice-versa. I realize they are both there to say thanks and promote sales, and the former is definitely a good thing, but it would be better to lessen the shock of seeing AKB48 with someone who's actually talented than following someone who's talented with the vapid nature of AKB48.

Reading Skills 101 FAIL. Misia performs two whole days before AKB48 does. Has everybody forgotten how to read articles to glean facts?

True. On the first floor of the actual Statue of Liberty is a sonnet written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus. The sonnet reads:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Up until now Japan could be accused of rejecting these beliefs. Perhaps that will change in the light of what's happened. Time will tell.

I beg to differ.

You can beg all you want, but the statement is correct.

@Jared Norman

Futenma actually opened in 1957 not 1945.

The AIRFIELD has been there since 1945 right after the Battle of Okinawa. 1957 was when it became a Naval airbase and subsequently a Marine Corps Airfield. (From Wiki:)

Futenma Airfield was constructed by the US military following the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. It was built partly on the ruins of the villages of Aragusuku, Ginowan, Kiyuna and Isa, and entirely over the village of Kamiyama and surrounding farmland. According to Ginowan City records, the joint population of what was then Ginowan Village (now Ginowan City) was 12,994 in 1944. It was initially allocated for Eighth Air Force use to station B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers in the planned Invasion of Japan. With the end of the war, the airfield became a United States Air Force Far East Air Force installation known as Futenma Air Base, and was used as a support airfield for the nearby Kadena Air Base, hosting fighter-interceptor squadrons as part of the air defense of the Ryukyu Islands. The base was transferred to the United States Navy on 30 June 1957 and was subsequently developed into a major United States Marine Corps air station.

Ginowan City was built up around Futenma base. Futenma Base was not built in Ginowan City. The base was built upon the ruins of a village that was destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa. That village had been called Ginowan Village, but there was nothing left. The Okinawans started building around the base until it worked it's way up to a full-fledged city. NATURALLY, because the city is now there, the base has to go because it's too noisy and there's a risk that a plane would fall on the newcomers. (Reminds me of the idiots around here who buy houses next to an airport, then want to shut down the airport because of the noise from the aircraft.)

Regardless, the Okinawans were whining, so Japan and the U.S. worked out an agreement where the base would get relocated away from populated areas and the only thing at risk for falling planes would be farm fields. Ginowan City would lose the American presence and wouldn't have to worry (as much) about things falling from the sky onto their houses. But WAIT! That's not good enough! Americans can't be ANYWHERE! Yes, there's no city there and 99% of the Okinawans would never have to deal with the Americans unless they wanted to, but THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! We're not Japanese, we're Okinawan, so any agreement Japan makes with regards to the country's security has NOTHING to do with us! We'll put together our OWN SDF - the OSDF! We'll buy fighters and helicopters and put them.... um... at the old Futenma base. But they'll be OUR fighters and helicopters falling on our houses, not American ones! So that's COMPLETELY different from the way it was before!

Yeah, I went off on a tangent. But based on what I read here from actual Okinawans, that's what they'd do if they only weren't so scared of actually running their own country. They'd much rather f***-up the plans of their REAL government than do something like take ANY responsibility towards their own defense. I guess they want to eat their cake and have it too. They want to have protection and security, but they don't want to have to pay for it. NOTHING is for free, people. SOMEBODY has to pay: be it via taxes, or land, or both. Japan (and by extension, the prefecture of Okinawa) has been getting away with cheap defenses by having the Americans shoulder about half of the load. The main island is full, you can't put any more airbases there. The nearest alternate location would be up in Hokkaido. But the only location that Hokkaido is good for defending is Russia, and Russia isn't Japan's current concern.

You should be lucky I don't have a say in U.S. policy OR YOU'D GET YOUR WISH. I'm sure you're familiar with the saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it"? Okinawans act like their island isn't strategically important. Apparently Okinawans fail at geography worse than Americans do. LOOK AT A MAP OF THE REGION. Now look at Taiwan just to the SW. The ONLY reason Taiwan is still independent is because of the American presence on Okinawa. Remove the Americans from Okinawa, and within months Taiwan will be reverted back to Formosa and under Communist Chinese rule again. The only question will be do they take defenseless Okinawa BEFORE or after they re-capture Formosa? Yes, the U.S. has a defense pact with Japan, but Japan can't even tell one of it's prefectures what to do, you expect them to tell the U.S. to go back into an prefecture they were kicked out of and DEFEND them?!? In your dreams. If I became President, you'd have to brush-up on your Chinese, folks!

Got to agree with the others: How can you have a minor working on the police force? For two out of his three years, he wasn't legally allowed into some of the places he would be expected to go as an officer of the law. Has EVERYBODY in Nagoya retired?

Am I missing something here? The government orders the people to leave "for their safety", but now the land is "abandoned". This seems like a VERY shady way for the government to make land-grabs.

Reputable scanlating groups will stop distributing a manga in a country once the publisher starts printing the manga in that country. Then there are others who don't care. These e-book people have the gall to re-publish the works, and actually CHARGE for it! They're no better than the worst of the scanlating groups (who also charge for access).

<-- sad that there are no revealing photos of the models... or the cars, either. :-)

Nakamuran beat me to it, so I'm just going to LOL at James' assertion that Mexico and Canada are "3rd world countries".

Had the truck driver stopped, the one who was in the wrong would have been a toss-up. Since he ran it becomes moot. The truck driver was in the wrong.

Just-a-guy, you misinterpret what "heroism" is. A true hero does not require a government mandate to be called "Dear". A hero doesn't allow thousands to die of starvation while he sits in opulence and grows fat from the food denied the North Korean people. That's not a hero, that's a despot.

It's like flopping down, slumping, or lie down if you use it with yoko ni naru.

Ah! So the second sentence is something like "Drinking, then flopping down." Any idea why it's in katakana? Is it a "borrowed" word?

ありがとうございます。

Wind power is a good supplemental source of energy, but because wind never blows at a constant speed - and sometimes isn't blowing at all - it can never be relied on as the primary source of power for a region.

Re excessive wind burning out motors or shattering blades: The newer units have constant-speed technology that "feather" the blades when an overspeed is detected - causing the blades to take less of a "bite" out of the wind and slow back down.

Re wind turbines "devastating" bird populations: Yes, birds are killed by the blades of older turbines that have to move fast to generate electricity, but there are newer turbines that do not have to spin fast to generate the same amount of electricity. Also, the bird populations are only going to be at risk inside the wind farm. Unless this particular species ONLY resides inside the wind farm, their population could never be "devastated". An offshore floating farm would put... seagulls at risk?