Mike Dashler comments

some women find out about their pregnancy when they give birth.

What an incredibly ridiculous statement. How could a woman carry a baby in the womb through gestation and not know she is pregnant...or at least not realize that something strange is going on? A woman wouldn't notice not having a menstrual cycle for nine months, and wouldn't ever feel the baby moving/kicking? I don't think so. I agree that it is sad that she didn't feel like she had any other option, but she had several several months of pregnancy to come up with a plan. Let's not forget, the baby is the victim here, not the 24 year-old child who abandoned the baby in a toilet.

@Goodluckto you...Tepco is in court now, minus Shimazu. I agree with what you say, but you can’t let every single criminal off just because some get let off.

Agree with the second part of your statement 100%. As for the first part...TEPCO is in court, but their CEO is not in jail which is a glaring difference in the "justice" being carried out here.

@Yoshimi Onishi...agree that he has been very greedy. However, greed is not a crime. I don't support Ghosn at all, but I'm not against him either. I support a fair trial and will reserve judgement until all the facts are revealed.

Just the first day Tiger is just warming up.

Tiger is currently tied for 11th with 8 other people. There are 10 other guys you should be talking about first.

In free societies, isn't it the right of any consumer to decide where they purchase from? Under what basis could this even be contested by Japan?

Japan will continue nonlethal scientific whale research in the Antarctic Ocean, such as counting the number of whales by visual inspection, the agency said.

Counting whales by visual inspection? That sounds like an inherently scientific method. Surely there is no way that any of the sighted whales could have been counted more than once. (Sarcasm)

I have a 7-year old daughter.  My eyes teared up a bit when I read about the father beating her head against the floor with his knees pressed against her back.  I closed my eyes and saw my daughter's face thinking about that.  I can't imagine any of my children ever doing anything that could possibly make me want to hurt them like this.  Regardless of the upbringing that the parents may have experienced, there is no excuse for this.  This little girl Mia was tortured under the guise of discipline.  The only fitting sentence for the Father is the death penalty.  That is much more merciful than he ever was to his poor little girl.

As a middle-aged husband, father, and white male, I am offended that Homer is portrayed as an idiotic overweight drunk who is a horrible husband and is physically abusive to his son.  If that is how Homer's character is portrayed, surely the writers are saying that every white male is exactly the same as Homer. 

Oh wait, I'm actually not offended.  I just remembered that the show is supposed to be a comedy.  It is supposed to be funny.  So I can laugh and enjoy the things I find comical and can brush off the things I don't.  If I am really offended by any of it, I can exercise my right to watch something else.

Hirosaki is amazing. The views are breathtaking and the crowds are not as bad as in the more crowded regions of Japan.

Japan's lobbying of the Trump administration reflects concern that issues linked to Tokyo such as North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s and its development of medium-range ballistic missiles may get sidelined because the Trump-Kim summit appears to be primarily focused on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

I'm sorry Abe-san, but the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is much more important an issue than the abductions.  The abductions were a terrible thing and I don't mean to down play it. Five of them were returned and NK says that the other eight have died.  As horrible as it is, we need to move on.  Is appeasing eight families a higher priority than the safety and security of the entire country?  Let's focus on the primary threat to the entire region and perhaps the entire planet.

No I think it is bad because teachers will get mad at misbehaving students and will shoot them. 

I definitely worry about that.  I also worry about teachers trying to break up fights in school and one of the kids going for the teacher's gun. 

Another scenario is if a student tries to attack a teacher and goes for their gun.  What option does the teacher have at that point other than to shoot the student?  If they don't and are unable to subdue the student, if the student gets the teacher's weapon, then the student puts everyone else in danger.

Final scenario from me...going back to Daniel Naumoff's quote, if the teacher goes nuts and is the shooter, what happens when other "Armed" teachers come looking for the shooter.  They see the teacher with the weapon, but the teacher is supposed to have a weapon, so they do not think of the teacher as a threat. This teacher than shoots the other teachers adding to the loss of life. 

One final thought, this is probably the first time I have ever agreed with one of your quotes "Daniel Naumoff." I tried to give you a thumbs up on it, but the site doesn't seem to be working correctly.

There is a petition out on change.org to have his YouTube page removed for anyone interested.

Definitely heartbreaking.   I hate to speculate on the circumstances.  But whether the baby was alive, stillborn, or a botched abortion, it is hard to fathom someone discarding of him or her in the river like a piece of trash.  I feel for the guy that found the infant as well. That memory will probably haunt him for quite some time.

If it was up to me, I would rather see, US, China, Russia and Japan sign a non aggression pact and ensure neither country provided support in any means necessary including humanitarian until the conflict battled out by both South and North came to an end on their own terms. If it means a fight to the finish so be it, but at least it should be held by their countrymen and shedding or loss of life by either side not outsiders. Once the conflict ends and the argument is settled then the nations could assist a unified Korea.

Sorry, but this suggestion is absurd. How could stepping out of the way and letting them all kill each other be a good idea? Having lived in South Korea for 4 years, I can assure you that the South doesn't want a war. Most people in the South don't even want reunification because of the economic strain absorbing the north would cause. South Koreans aren't willing to fight to free the people of the North, they are only focused on self-defense. If the U.S. and China stepped out of the way, the North would attack, millions of people would die on both sides, the Korean peninsula would be mostly destroyed, and no one would be any better off than they are today.

The South (and probably most of the world) would be content with open borders, but that will never happen under the Kim dynasty. If those in the North realized what the rest of the world was like, The North Korean government would lose the psychological hold they have on their people and their government would collapse.

Within North Korea, the best case scenario is actually an internal uprising, but that would likely trade one dictatorship for another. Diplomacy is the only real hope for the outside world.

@Cricky, I completely agree with you. These are desperate people with no hope in their lives and no future. Desperate people take desperate actions sometimes. There is no telling what some of these appliances could have gone for on the black market in the DPRK. These mere things they took could have been sold to purchase food as the government distribution system in the DPRK doesn't provide enough for them to eat. They could have used these items to bribe border guards to look the other way as they reentered the country (after a trip much longer than expected, the government was most likely searching for them and had quite possibly declared them as defectors or enemies of the state).

To those so quick to judge the actions of these people and call them criminals and thieves...I agree with you too. What they did was wrong. It is unfortunate in this day and age that we have a country full of people so close to us that are starving and live in such horrid desperate conditions that they are willing to steal to survive. Obviously you have no sympathy, but why are you so calloused? If you don't think they were taking these things to survive, I would suggest you do a little research on what people in the DPRK are driven to do for survival. Books such as "The girl with seven names" and "In order to live" would be good starting points for you. The plight of the North Korean people is the worst injustice of our time in my opinion.

A week earlier, the coast guard rescued three North Korean men from a capsized fishing boat off Japan's northern coast. They were transferred hours later to another North Korean vessel that was to return them home.

In this case, I wonder if the men rescued were asked if they wanted to return to North Korea or not.  I have read several books written by successful defectors.  If these people had been listed as missing for any reason, they are in for lengthy interrogations by the DPRK when they return.  I only hope that the Japanese government would be willing to take in refugees from North Korea.

I've worked and lived on US Air Force bases for the last 26 years, and am at Yokota now. Yokota is probably the quietest base I have ever been at. I spent four years in Misawa and the F-16s are much much louder there than the aircraft here at Yokota. I'm curious as to what the level of noise pollution is around some of the airports here with significant air traffic such as Haneda? Are the residents in that area protected from aircraft noise levels? Are they asking for early morning and later night flights to be cancelled? Are they seeking compensation for noise pollution? If not, this seems more like extortion than realistic noise complaints.

The man suffered a broken spine.  The article doesn't say, but doesn't that normally mean at least partial paralysis?  Regardless, this is horrible.  I hope they see some serious jail time so they can have adequate time to think about their lives.

I wonder if these are really accidents. The certainly could be mere coincidences...or they could be practice runs for something bigger yet to come.  I am not normally one for conspiracy theories, but look back at 9/11/2001.  When the first plane hit a tower, we all thought "what a terrible accident."  When the second plane hit, we knew we were under attack.  Is that what is going on here?

Ota had been arrested in 2013 for allegedly sending child pornography online while working at an elementary school in Saitama Prefecture, but later managed to be hired by the Chita board of education after changing his legal name in the family registry.

This is a big part of the problem.  If he was arrested in 2013 for child pornography, he should still be in jail.  As garypen said above, the other guy should have been jailed as well too...not given a six-month suspension from his employer.  These are serious offenses and deserve serious jail time, not slaps on the wrist.

Although I seriously understand this guy's frustration, kicking someone is bad form. If some smarphone zombie is coming my way, I usually elbow the hell out of them or throw my arm or shoulder out in front of me.

@Mocheake...do you really think that elbowing the hell out of them is any better than what this guy did?  SMH

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Hopefully this teacher will be forced to seek out a new profession.