Noble713 comments

@Tamarama

Hopefully they have learnt the lessons of the 3 newer films

There are 3 indicators that they have:

1: Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote Empire Strikes Back (generally considered the best Star Wars movie), wrote the script

2: JJ Abrams style of directing has been compared to "George Lucas when he was young". Just look at the new Star Trek movies: they are gripping space adventures

3: there is a noticeable heavy emphasis on physical sets and practical special effects, not just green-screen and CGI'ing everything. This is important because actors aren't really trained to be emotive with no "stuff" and no people. They benefit from having scenes to immerse themselves in.

With all the money that Japan supposedly spends on public works and bridges to nowhere, they couldn't scrape together some yen to make sure all the railroad crossings were properly equipped? Strange....

@Jimizo

Most if not nearly all religions have been guilty of bigotry, violence and murder to different degrees. Oh, and not just the >Abrahamic faiths.

While I largely agree with the crux of your argument that all religions and ideologies have blood on their hands.....I suspect if we look at the past 3 millennia of recorded history, the overwhelming balance of religious violence would be tallied under the "Abrahamic faith" column. Monotheism is a fundamentally un-sound basis for tolerance of other people and their viewpoints.

I'd love to try on a suit of authentic armor. See how the weight distribution and mobility compares to the stuff we wear now.

@shonanbb

They were throwing bombs into the crowd and yelling it was for Syria. Something wrong here. Why don't they send >them all back to Syria if they love it so much?

That's what irritates me about these "refugees" and "migrants": seems to be a LOT of military-age men amongst their ranks. Why aren't they fighting to make their motherland a better place? If you are going to relocate to greener pastures...don't bring your problems with you. I've decided I can't fix America so I plan to settle here in Japan, but you don't see me running around shouting "Black lives matter! Stop police brutality! Long live Edward Snowden!"...and then shooting/blowing up Japanese people to send a message. It's totally misguided.

@Kansaicoon

I believe the meek shall inherent the earth

The meek will inherent the earth....after the strong have finished raping it and discarded it as refuse. But not before.

@PaperCrane

That's how it's been for the last 70yrs like the Ryukuan/Okinawan people

Longer than that. But hey, if the Okinawans didn't want to be pushed around by a far away government, maybe they shouldn't have lost the war when Satsuma invaded in the 1600s? Or maybe they shouldn't have played along when the Japanese Empire annexed them formally in the late 1800s? I've said it before and I'll say it again: when you surrender your sovereignty you can expect to NEVER get it back....unless you are willing to shed blood for it. And so far the Okinawans aren't willing.

@Nathaw

However US military and Central government have never won and will never win the hearts and minds of Local people.

If the bases continue to function as intended, and their operations are not significantly impaired by riots/sabotage/bombings/etc.......what makes you think the "hearts and minds of the local people" matter even one iota to those in positions of power?

This is terrible news, and I'm happy to stand in solidarity with the French people, and especially the French military and counter-terror forces who I'm sure will work overtime to put the hurt on those responsible.

As an immigrant in Japan, life is sometimes frustrating here but I definitely understand the Japanese approach: a small trickle of foreigners is easily managed, monitored, and assimilated into Japanese culture. Mass immigration only worked in the Western hemisphere because the bulk of immigrants were Christian and the religion had already gotten the sectarian violence out of its system. Plus the economy was growing. Now the global economy is in recession or stagnant nearly everywhere.

An influx of young poor people, with a potentially very violent ideology is just asking for trouble. The Sunnis and Shiites are currently fighting the Islamic equivalent of Europe's Thirty Years War. Until it is resolved, and hopefully in favor of the minority Shia (the more moderate of the two factions IMO), expect violence against any and all parties that might be "oppressors".

I'm trying to resist the temptation to make a quip about France's strict gun laws too... "Where there's a will, there's a way." And clearly the willingness of these disaffected Muslims to perpetrate acts of extreme slaughter and terror cannot be ignored. Trying to restrict access to the tools necessary to ply their "trade" clearly hasn't worked.

@paulinusa

Will someone else replace him?

Of course someone will replace him, conflict is the default state of human civilization. As long as human beings vary genetically, there will be

1: differences of opinion about things

2: people willing to enforce their opinion with violence

To eliminate violence you would need to genetically engineer a human-like organism with no violent inclinations AND it would need to be able to perfectly replicate its DNA (because any errors/mutations will, on a long enough timeline, re-introduce violent genes).

I'm not sure what makes people think they can go traipsing across the most dangerous place in the world with little/no military experience, sticking out ethnically/linguistically, and lacking reliable and powerful local contacts, and NOT end up getting their head cut off.

Mitsubishi has plenty of experience making military aircraft, so while a regional jet is a new endeavor for them, I trust it will work out well. I think I'd rather fly in a Japanese plane than a Brazilian (Embraer) one, all things considered...

While I understand that passenger aircraft companies are all heavily subsidized industries worldwide, I'm comfortable with it. There's a reason air travel is the safest form of transportation. The last thing I'd want is for subsidy reductions to force manufacturers to cut corners. Imagine the aviation equivalent of GM's ignition scandal, or Takata's airbag scandal.....No thanks, I fly too often to play with my life like that.

It's tragic that this guy couldn't exercise some self-control, but continuing to live next door to your ex, bringing a new guy home, and thinking there would be no complications or second-order effects is beyond foolish and careless.

Hell, I'm a guy, have nothing to fear from any woman I've dated, and I wouldn't risk bringing that sort of stress/complication into my life unless I was deliberately trying to cause emotional harm to the ex.

That would make someone a pretty vindictive dirtbag, which, as we've just seen, can have violent consequences.

Re: "English Vampires"

I have a particular disdain for the female ones, especially if young (<25yo).....Countless times I've heard "I really want to practice English, but guys just want to have sex!"

Then the conversation proceeds as follows (if necessary with one of my Japanese-speaking friends translating for me): "You want a private English tutor? I charge $25/hour."

"Takai!!!!!"

"I'm probably the most proficient English speaker you are likely to encounter. I'm the go-to guy amongst my peers for proofreading/editing/correcting people's essays and resumes, even those of other native English-speakers, due my superior command of the language. Besides, my time is valuable to me....so I price it accordingly."

"Demo takai!!!"

"Why do all of you expect men to provide you with a valuable and marketable service without compensation? You don't want to put out and you don't want to spend any money, and yet you are surprised you can't find anyone to entertain your demands?"

There are generally 3 outcomes from such an exchange:

1: They sit there with a stupified look upon their face. Priceless. End the conversation and go about your business.

2: They inquire about your living arrangements, and "studying" at your place. ^_^

3: They try to negotiate the price for English lessons at a coffee shop or something. At which point you've basically convinced the girl to pay you to flirt with her.

All positive IMO....

I had to Google Image search her.......and in practically every picture she has "crazy eyes". She just exudes "nutjob" IMO.... so I'm not in the least surprised that she's unstable enough to cut herself.

@SenseNotSoCommon

So a country with one of the planet's highest GDPs per capita, world-famous universities, pioneering healthcare >facilities and formidable commercial and cultural assets is, in essence, a failed state?

That you consider the western hemisphere a collection of failed states merely belies your ignorance of the world around you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index

Excepting Haiti and Colombia, Russia, India, and Israel are farther up the "failed states" list than any place in the Americas. Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Costa Rica are all reasonably close to the US's ranking.

@Wc626

This is cause under training conditions at the range, there really is no threat perceived.

That's why those "tactical shooter" courses have value: more realistic conditions that get your adrenaline pumping, which helps acclimate the shooter to firing under physically/mentally stressed conditions. I once read it's partly why special operations troops are so lethal: they spend SOOOOO much time doing realistic shooting scenarios, their bodies are acclimated to it. Their heartbeat is like a metronome in conditions that most normal people would sound like hummingbirds, which also means their muscles aren't twitching like crazy and consequently they accurately put rounds on target.

@Strangerland

Correlation does not equal causation.

Exactly my point. Hell, "strict gun laws" and "fewer homicides" aren't even correlated!

from: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-09/heres-what-happened-when-venezuela-imposed-gun-control-laws

But how could the same policy engineer completely different results in two cities? This disparity becomes even more >vexing when we look at other countries. Honduras and Brazil both have very high homicide rates. Yet Brazil has >highly restrictive gun laws, while Honduras has fairly lax gun laws. Pakistan has some of the loosest gun laws in the >world. Chile’s are fairly restrictive. Yet both have low homicide rates. Bosnia has a very liberal gun laws. Belgium >has very restrictive laws. Yet their homicide rates are similar. Luxembourg has few privately-owned guns per capita, >yet its murder rate is much higher than Germany’s, which has over twice as many. Hawaii and Vermont have polar >opposite gun laws yet nearly the same homicide rate. Maryland and Virginia have vastly different gun laws, yet >almost identical rates of gun-related deaths.

The numbers are all over the board.

@SenseNotSoCommon

How aspirational: "Look, honey! We're not as bad as Murderstan, or the Republic of Butcherania!"

It makes sense to compare the US to other countries with similar historical backgrounds, i.e. the rest of the Americas. Countries that are populated largely by European immigrants and slaves within the past few hundred years, of diverse ethnic origins. Like one of the articles states: "If we’re honestly trying to evaluate the nature of crime and violence in a comparative atmosphere, we cannot limit ourselves to a handful of countries that have very little in common with the US beyond a handful of economic indicators."

I hope the victims recover quickly.

If guns are bad, why are homicide rates in the US declining over the past 2 decades, despites MASSIVE firearms purchases?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-01/homicide-rates-cut-half-over-past-20-years-while-new-gun-ownership-soared

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-04/october-sixth-consecutive-month-record-gun-sales

And here's a great article comparing homicide rates and firearms ownership across a wide spectrum of countries (instead of the usually cherry-picked statistical outliers of "countries that banned guns and have low murder rates").

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-16/mistake-only-comparing-us-murder-rates-developed-countries

@nakanoguy01

really? i don't know of any all-electric cars that sell at 28,000.

Base price for a Nissan Leaf is ~Y2.87M....

No... it could not POSSIBLY be true that Nissan and other Japanese car manufacturers manage to build great cars >that people really want to buy.

Funny because TTAC just had an article "Nissan Doesn't Make a Single Car You Want To Buy"....granted the site is aimed at car enthusiasts (and the author inexplicably dismisses the GT-R), but Nissan's lineup is pretty damn dull....far less interesting than Toyota's IMO (at least Toyota has the GT86 coupe and Mark X sedan).

It must be by some trickery or accounting gimmick that they can keep making profits and US and European >manufacturers stumble from one disaster to the next. Yeah, right. Spare me the excuses, Detroit.

Japan has had its fair share of disasters, unless you were asleep during the whole "Takata airbag" thing. While GM has had the ignition scandal, and Fiat-Chrysler on the whole stumbles around with a muddled lineup and too many brands, Ford is knocking things out of the park right now. The aluminum-chassis F-150, new Mustang (especially the GT350 with flatplane crank, 500+hp), Ford Focus RS (a better AWD hot hatch than anything coming out of Japan OR Europe), and the Ford GT halo car......yeah, it's not all doom and gloom in Detroit.

I'm generally a Chevy/Toyota fan but I'm pretty pleased with Ford's management and success lately.

Apple said Tuesday that surging iPhone sales helped propel a sharp rise in quarterly profits, as the tech giant delivered >a record 48 million of the smartphones.

Meanwhile, ZH is reporting that the iPhone 6s manufacturer has stopped hiring due to slow iPhone sales momentum...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-02/key-apple-supplier-halts-hiring-due-poor-iphone-sales

1: Pushing women into the labor force is a move by corporations to lower their labor expenses: more workers competing for jobs = we can pay people less.

2: Women spend money. And think about how their spending differs from men. Men tend to buy big-ticket recreational items infrequently: sports cars (very low profit margins), sporting goods (think nice golf clubs), power tools.....These are not things for which companies can easily attain consistent repeat buyers. So they have unstable revenue streams. Women, generally-speaking, buy smaller luxury items (high-profit margin handbags), and consumables like cosmetics, and do so on a more regular basis. Stable and higher-profit revenues for business. So putting money in womens hands by putting them in the labor force SHOULD = higher and stable profits for businesses (even if they are earning less than men).

3: I agree with sentiment that 50's/60's-era single-income family structure with an active and involved housewife/child-rearing mother was/is effective for society. Robust families have less need of government services....which also makes them more difficult for governments to control/manipulate with handouts and social programs.

@Strangerland

I agree with what you say for the most part, except for the implication that it needs to be the woman. The father can >be a stay at home father as well.

Except evidence suggests that women strongly reject stay-at-home husbands, even when it was initially the woman's idea.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-467390/Househusband-backlash-high-flying-wives-ditch-men-em-em-wanted-stay-home.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2182970/Why-stay-home-dad-quickest-way-kill-sex-life-lead-wives-stray.html

people fearfully wait to be picked for evacuation abroad to flee radiation. Politics is involved. The sick, people with >criminal records and foreigners are doomed.

Japanese thinking in a nutshell: leverage foreign assets (technology/land/resources/whatever) to save Japan, but those damn dirty gaijin? Screw 'em.

@japan4life

While I agree with the crux of your argument that military facilities should be MUCH more spartan and space-efficient than they are, keep in mind that the bulk of those luxury recreational/family support facilities are on Kadena and Foster. Futenma has no golf course, in fact it has almost no recreational facilities to speak of: just an officer's club, an enlisted club, the USO, a library, a gym, and a shopette. And I'd consider those a minimum on any long-term installation.

Henoko, being a USMC facility, will probably be equally spartan. It's the Air Force that wastes ridiculous sums of taxpayer dollars filling the gigantic Kadena Air Base with little slices of America. For example, Kadena Air Base has not one but TWO Chilis restaurants. WTF.... And then they complain that there is no space to share the Air Base with additional Marine Aviation assets....

$500 million from oil and "hundreds of millions" from taxes/extortion.....

One could easily state that ISIS has a GDP of about $1billion....and for a state that devotes the bulk of its resources to, essentially, its military industrial complex, these sorts of revenues are nothing to scoff at.

What sort of restrictions does Sweden have on bladed weapons?

Curious if he was actually STABBING people....a longsword is primarily a cutting/slicing weapon, it's somewhat inefficient to use it for piercing attacks.

I read "Actresses....."

then read "Sora Aoi".........wait, what? Is this an AVN festival?

I agree with many of the other comments, the pic clearly shows the difference between Japan (where "cute" reigns) and....everywhere else (where women understand "sexy"). That said, they are all, ahem, acceptable for recreational use.

“If I don’t immediately reply to her LINE message, she thinks I’m having an affair.”

This just comes with the territory of being good looking and/or popular. Casually shrug off their concerns and change the subject. ESPECIALLY if you are, in fact, having an affair.....or two....or five. ^_^

The number 1 complaint among male employees regarding female coworkers is the latter’s alleged tendency to beg >off working overtime for personal reasons, whether a date or housework piling up at home.

Men are more willing to make quality-of-life sacrifices in favor of their employment. This willingness to provide additional labor is priced into the general compensation levels for men. I bet the same women who go home early are quick to complain about the male/female pay gap.

There’s a solution to all this, says relationship consultant Mayumi Nimatsu, and it turns out to be the obvious one: >frank and open dialogue.

This x1000. On those rare occasions when I have a dispute/argument with a female I care about, I don't let them leave or go to sleep until we've talked through the issue. Sometimes takes several exhausting hours, but is totally worth it for building/maintaining strong relationships.

@cleo

Or maybe just stayed at home in the kitchen where she belongs?

If they stayed home in the kitchen, maybe men and children could have healthier organic/paleo meals, giving them more energy to be productive? Trying to consume 4,000+ calories, heavy on lean proteins, can be difficult without a second party planning/preparing your meals.

@AlyRustom

Again, how many of you could have found Syria on a map before all this,

It's more than a bit arrogant and presumptuous to assume that no one else amongst JT's readership has a knowledge of geography. You are not a special snowflake.

Yes there are foreigners fighting alongside syrians against him,

To the tune of ~25% of the end strength of anti-Assad forces. That has a huge impact operationally (think about the sort of freedom of maneuver you gain when you have 4 units instead of 3). Wiki gives FSA strength in June 2015 @ 45-60k. This article suggest ~15k foreigners to Syria in just the past year: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/world/middleeast/thousands-enter-syria-to-join-isis-despite-global-efforts.html

the Arab League has suspended Syria's membership

And Yemen's. Funny how they didn't suspend Bahrain's (brutal crackdown during Arab Spring) or Sudan's (oppression in Darfur/against South Sudan). It's pretty obvious the organization is dominated by Sunni states aligned with Saudi geopolitical interests.

http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/news/id_5122/Arab-League-Syria-suspension-illegal-under-organizations-charter-.html

But the terms of such an arrangement are uncertain, and questions remain about whether Moscow will seek the >departure of its longtime ally or try for a power-sharing agreement.

This is a laughably naive conclusion compared to, say ZeroHedge's. Basically, a surprise visit by Assad a month after Russia and Iran just went "all in" on their military support is Putin's way of saying "Assad belongs to me, and he's going NOWHERE unless I say so." Power-sharing agreement? Only in the West's dreams.

@Aly Rustom

Why do you think there is a "civil war"?

Nathaw covered it pretty well, but I'll reiterate it: because the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have spent a fortune funneling weapons and foreign fighters into the country with the explicit purpose of overthrowing Assad.

Simple question to you Yamashi: who gave Russia the right to determine he must stay?

Well, the Russians were invited by what is still recognized by the UN as the legitimate government of Syria.

During Arab Spring, U.S has toppled many dictators like Mubarak of Egypt and Gaddafi of Lybra for spreading >>western ideology in medieval culture of Middle East.

The US did not topple them.

In Gaddafi's case, I'm confident he would have retained power if the NATO bombing campaign hadn't systematically destroyed all his tanks and other heavy ordnance. That conflict's balance of power was absolutely tipped by the intervention of the US and its allies.

By the way, Assad was on his way out when Iran and Russia begann arming him and now fighting alongside him. >both nations are not going to win

How do you figure? The combination of Russian air support + Iranian Revolutionary Guards + Hezbollah is shaping up as more effective on the battlefield than the opposing mass of imported and barely-trained foreign jihadis armed with US TOW missiles. Do you really think the Russians are going to let an ally of ~50 years and home to their only warm-water port collapse? Do you really think the Iranians will let their primary line of supply/communications to their Shiite allies Hezbollah get cut? These two nations have made a clear move to permanently disrupt the US-Saudi power axis across the entire Middle East, and Putin is smart enough to not make such a move without a damn good analysis of his chances of success.

Indonesia's Aceh to start caning gays caught having sex

The real question is, who (and why) are the Peeping Toms catching homosexuals in the act?

But if you are one of those ‘til-the-death “Star Wars” fans (what do they call you, anyway? Star Warians? Where’s your >catchy collective noun?)

It's Warsies. As opposed to Trekkies (die-hard Star Trek fans).

And I'm not buying this thing: I can just put a Star Wars desktop wallpaper on my black Sony Vaio, and slap a vinyl wrap on the back (although it seems Star Wars laptop vinyls are a missed merchandise opportunity, none on Amazon).

Like the Italian Mafia and Chinese triads, the yakuza engage in everything from gambling, drugs and prostitution to >loan sharking, protection rackets and white-collar crime. “Taxation is a very effective way to control the mafia, and it’s used worldwide,” lawyer Hideaki Kubori,

All of those criminal economic activities are ok, but don't you DARE not give the government a cut of your revenues!