lordomni comments

Also, it should be remembered that despite the two bombings there was still an attempt by the military to stop the Emperors tape delivering the message of surrender to Japan from being aired. They were a terrible thing, but nowhere near as terrible as the devastation that would have occurred during an invasion. And the blockade idea was also impossible and would have slowly starved to death far more people across the entirety of the nation.

Eviction wihtout notice is illegal, and I hope he wipes the floor with this group as well as his landlord. Yes, the landlord has right. However no warning or notice was posted, as far as he knew the agreements were still fine.

This is ridiculous. Jcops are just... sad. Not saying they should have shot him, but if one stayed back and pulled his gun when they realized he was dangerous, then maybe the guy wouldn't have tried stabbing the others.

Just like in Akiba, play with the baton before you pull the gun. Cept in that case people were dying in the meantime.

Cleo, you're being ridiculous. I would have demanded these officers write their names and badge numbers and compared it with their badges to file harassment charges. Yes, she ran a red light. She wasn't selling drugs, she wasn't killing innocent and defenseless Japanese people or something. These officers had NO business asking how much they made, NO business making comments about 'its a long distance from your apartment', etc. These officers were harassing people needlessly, and should be penalized for it.

If they wanted to write a ticket, fine. If they wanted to check a gaijin card like good little racist scum, fine. Thats legally within their right because of the way this country views foreigners. Anything else, they can get back n their little scooter and get back to their little box pretending they have a purpose in life. I have 0 respect for police in Japan, most of them are either useless or dangerous. As a foreigner, I don't have police protection here. I've been attacked before by a drunk Japanese man whining about Gaijin while I was walking to a taxi, quietly. I was told by the two friends with me, both Japanese, don't call the cops as they'll arrest you for creating a disturbance. There are many things good and bad in all societies, in Japan the police fall 90% under bad.

I'm not surprised about the language bit for Americans. Nothing to do with immigrants, people from the US are terrible with foreign languages because most never need to deal with it. However, I have never known someone to travel who didn't buy phrase books and do a little with it. I'd say Americans are more willing to try (and often fail miserably) at foreign languages, while many other countries like Japan have schooling in them from early age.

But we do really enjoy complaining, lol.

I'm not so surprised about the result for French, my experiences have generally been pretty unpleasant dealing with French travelers. Many I've met understood and spoke English, but did so tersely and disdainfully.

I've also been told that Japanese are a bit troublesome as tourists, or at least incredibly unfriendly as they stay in their group and are just a nightmare if separated from the guide. Thats from my friends in the US who worked in hotels. I can imagine it, I suppose.

Generally, I feel as an American it is disrespectful for me to go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have no issue with the Imperial Family not visiting Pearl harbor. Whether they have the same reasoning is not an issue really.

Trial by jury works fine in small claims, but is a bit of a waste of time for the number of people involved. Large cases shouldn't be left to jurors who are untrained in the law and depend on one or the other lawyer convincing them. I've only been involved in one jury trial in the US. It was a medical trial which half my fellow jurors (and half the witnesses) had trouble understanding what was going on. Despite being reviewed by an actual panel of qualified doctors and denied, they tried to appeal to the ignorant public and convince them.

Trial by jury is not a good system in any case, and I doubt it will work well in Japan due to the previously mentioned culture clash.

I've been wondering about Specter for awhile. He often seemed to take too many sensible moral stands, something inconsistent with the GOP agenda in the past 8 years. He's very moderate, so his party choice is really just a decision on which support institution he prefers.

Also, while I'm delighted to see the 60 seat majority for the Dems, part of that is because its a very mixed majority. There are many conservative Democrats in the Senate so nothing too insane will be passed, (like say PATRIOT Act or anything else pretending the Constitution is a document of convenience.) All this means is that good bills won't be blocked for no reason but to block them, and appointments can happen without irresponsible deadlocks for ideological reasons.

I do think it is funny, the GOP's response to filibusters was to try to destroy the Congress balance of power by pushing non-constitutional laws, while the Dems... just... found a majority. Imagine that. Really sums up the differences between the parties right now.

Its interesting contrasting this to the Okinawa incident involving the soldier who did the same thing.

And... I really don't see how they can draw the SMAP conclusion. Honestly. What does it have to do with anything? Are police in this country just trained to jump to really weird conclusions? There was a burglary in Saitmaa today... It must be NORTH KOREA! : )

We believe there is no problem with the software, which has cleared the domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body,” he said.

And thats the main problem.

English as taught in Japan isn't English. Its a different hybrid language. The use of Katakana gurantees students will not be able to correctly pronounce the actual words. This practice needs to be abolished from ALL language teaching in Japan. Its just more tragic with English because of how much time the school systems put into it, then fail to actually teach the language they want to.

The other problem is that Japan is very reliant on old methods of language teaching. Teaching by translation instead of teaching by use. A language class should be 50% or more speaking and group work to practice. Many of the students I have actually posses excellent grammar knowledge, but are completely unable to use it. Those are likely the two biggest problems with Japanese language education.

Someone earlier mentioned the US and its language programs. However I'd say that in the time US students spend learning a language, often only two years, they are miles ahead of Japanese students who have been taught English for the better part of a decade. Japan invests a lot more time, but has far less success. Europe isn't a fair comparison because they have much more exposure to other languages and probably more opportunity to practice.

This isn't any weirder than goths or emo. Just a little bit stranger, perhaps. Less of a fashion sense. : )

THough I admit having a valentines day event for people supposedly turning their backs on love is a bit suspicious.

Lies from Palin. 'Obama never authroed a single law.' Obviously false, he's authored several important bills including gun control, WMD disposal and shipping laws, and civil rights laws.

'I told Congress thanks but no thanks for the Bridge to nowhere' She pushed hard for this, promising it during her campaign for governor. She only killed it after it had become a national joke, saying we had 320 billion to go after all the great work of our people in congress, so we will have to end the project. Roughly. Not saying no thanks, more like saying we got caught.

She's come out as a very two-faced person. Kind of the flagship captain for the kind of politics that make the far right so disgusting, using lies in personal attacks and double-standards for her and her family compared to what she wants to make law for everyone else.

This reminds me of the 'huge' Nova bust that happened just before I came to Japan. They arrested 7 or so Nova teachers for pot, but never bothered to investigate the Japanese guys who sold them the stuff. Its like once the trail loses its gaijinness, the police just don't care. Where did the 'Russians and Nigerians' get the pot?

The levees broke on the third day, thats why the governor asked for assistance then. Prior to that there was no need. Even after president Bush approved federal assistance (do you understand the idea of FEMA?) It took a great deal of time for FEMA to actually do anything despite total cooperation from Blanco and Nagin, as well as documented emails requesting assistance.

Then we have the fun with FEMA fiasco for months on end. I was working for an insurance company at the time and spent three months speaking to people in new Orleans about how FEMA had purchased aid equipment but didn't know what to do with it. All the trailers sitting around doing nothing, the mountains of paperwork needed to get one and the several month wait time when in fact they were sitting there empty. The director of FEMA was a political buddy of the President with no actual credentials or experience managing such an operation. Thats why it became such a nightmare.

Also, Nagin is still the mayor. He had an effective plan with pick up points spread throughout the city using buses to remove people to a safe distance. He has also wisely advised there will be no help for people, to make sure they get up and leave. The mayor and governors roles in the disaster were minor, they did fail to plan for the size of the storm but then so did everyone. The true tragedy was that the federal government failed its job to assist when a tragedy is too large for the state level, which only a nutcase would think they had the resources in LA to deal with something that large. Especially considering a single tornado gets PA declared a disaster area.

dxxjp, I don't go to dinner parties with killers and criminals willingly. Unless its to poison the punch.

Change, the reason such systems develop is due to a serious lack in society of an effective and honest police force. If the yakuza are relied upon for such things, then the police need to reform and figure out why they aren't doing their job properly. I've done a bit of study on the yaks, and they are nothing more than a crime syndicate. They do all the usual PR things to make themselves less offensive, but in the end they murder, they sell drugs, they sell people, and need to be removed. The bad far outweighs the good.

haha, 10 people busted for coke, less than half foreigners. Whats the headline? 'ten people including 4 foreigners busted for coke.' Good lord thats ridiculous.

Sorry, guests obey the rules theirs hosts show them.