pacificwest comments

Posted in: Principal, another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy See in context

@Strangerland

It's not 'immoral' earnings.

It's 'immoral earnings', a compound noun, not a moral judgement.

Try the grown ups version of the Oxford Dictionary.

I don't know, is this some sort of Americanism you are applying here - that any sex with someone under 18 (or 21?) is by definition "rape" - but if so, I strongly disagree; and, going further, I would consider it to be a highly unacceptable misapplication of the word and offensive to those who have actually been raped.

I used the word "hooker" with respect to this homosexual prostitute as a slight barb to those who commented here only a few days ago about teenage girl who was caught prostituting herself calling her a "hooker", by way of a condemning moral judgement, and inferring she got what she deserved etc etc.

(I forget the details of that story right now).

There is no evidence at all to suggest that this homosexual prostitute was forced, coerced or violated in anyway whatsoever. Not even circumstantial.

It appears that the encounter was consensual and that he initiated the contact having put himself up for sale. And it was just for the money. The article reports he advertized himself and was not being pimped out.

I think it is fair to presume not for the first time either.

It does not say what the charges are, perhaps it "corrupting a minor", however, in this case, it appears more like a teenage homosexual corrupting an adult.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Welcome to Shikoku, awarded 2nd place in Lonely Planet’s 'Best in Asia Pacific' See in context

@Mike Sharpe

FYI the dog fighting no longer takes place in Kochi

City or prefecture?

If you are into that kind of stuff, there's also the boar hunting with dogs.

@Tara,

I am not sure what you are referring to. I'd certainly give a high placing to the "loneliness" factor of the prize. It's pretty remote, hard to get around if you have not got a car, and not really set up for tourism (which is a good thing in my book). I think people can be friendlier because of its remoteness (and gratitude to meet new people).

But, the countryside is the countryside.

The Henro, I think, if one wants to be honest, sucks and I'd tell people to scratch it off the bucket list.

Who really wants to walk 1,000km on the side of a dusty road as busloads of obaasan scoot around it in two days using buses? I think its a far stretch to imagine it being spiritual these days.

I can see how it was a big thing in the old days though.

The Kochi stretch really did used to kill people, hence the white robes.

After you've seen 10 temples, they all pretty much look the same.

If you like remote it's good. I was disappointed by the grey beach and surf in Kochi itself. If you go, I'd say you've really got to fit in with the Japanese style of tourism, eg stick to the bus, book in early, do the food and spa experience, go to bed and get up early.

Its get very, very dark at night. Like most of Japan, lots of the coastline is concreted in.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: Vegetarian diets not always the most climate-friendly, researchers say See in context

The study also finds that if the world became vegan it would cut food related carbon emissions by 70 per cent.

So why isn't the article entitled what the study actually says,

"Vegan diets the most climate-friendly, researchers say"

A typical SAD (Standard American diet) produces an excess of +135%.

A vegetarian diet -2% ... 137% less.

Insect/plant based would be -68%.

This Flexitarian (2/3 vegan) recommendation -41%.

Enjoy your bugs.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/eating-meat-better-environment-going-vegetarian-finds-new-study/

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: Commercial land prices outside Japan's 3 largest urban areas rise for 1st time in 28 years See in context

@Chip Star

Foreigners coming to the rescue of the Japanese once again.

Nope, the foreign tourists are just coming to buy the high quality, well produced consumer items that their own [insert Trump's insult]hole countries can't produce, and experience a quality of service that equally does not exist back home.

That's why you see all the Chinese piling up electrical devices that actually work, and South Koreans loading up on high fashion that is actually made by the companies' who logos are on it, instead of pirated stuff.

Rising land prices is not "rescuing" anyone. It is pricing people out of small businesses and decent sized homes.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Posted in: Mitsubishi says Singapore-based oil trader lost $320 mil in unauthorized trades See in context

According to the FT, the rogue trader was "a local hire".

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Airbnb says it will go public in 2020 See in context

So much for "sharing economy" ... all the way to the stock exchange.

@goldiehawned

Hotel rooms in Japan are tiny and way overpriced for no reason other than just to be overpriced.

Hotel rooms are smaller because the people are smaller.

Buildings more compact due to limitation of availability and land ownership patterns.

Then have you checked out the price of land and construction?

Examples; $264,465 sq/m in Tokyo versus, say, $3,700 in San Francisco (highest in USA) approx.

I'm wondering, however, which hotels you've been staying in. Perhaps they were just businessmen's hotels that are meant to be crashpads for salarymen who missed the last train?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: UK appeals for public input in setting post-Brexit trade with Japan See in context

@Ascissor

The crowned loon in the picture is just the sort we don't want here.

Thankfully, they won't come to a place like Japan because it is full of foreigners. As in Japanese.

I'm met some of those sorts and, typically, they only go on holiday to English speaking former colonies or dependencies.

The vote was won by the xenophobia and racism of people who could not even read the text of a single international trade deal, and who have the most to lose when their jobs are moved overseas.

I actually have no idea what the current and future relationships will be. Does Japan at present have to do business with the EU as one at present (UK inc); and in the future will it negotiate two separate trade deals, one with the EU and one with the UK? Presumably falling back on a general WTO rules in the meanwhile.

Apart from the upmarket specialist vehicles, the car industry will die because vehicle these days are just no made by one company, many major parts like chassis are common and pass across a number of borders before assembled.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Posted in: Welcome to Shikoku, awarded 2nd place in Lonely Planet’s 'Best in Asia Pacific' See in context

I am afraid so. It's brutal, fight to the death stuff too ... half way around a so called pilgrimage to enlightenment.

Good article, covers it all, including a well deserved nod to Elizabeth Oliver and others opposing it.

I'm surprised that Lonely Planet promoted Kochi for just that reason.

The article makes good reference to the yakuza (and also buraku) involvement in animal breeding, and also the reactionary right wing support/adoption/protection of it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Principal, another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy See in context

@Strangerland

Prostitution is immoral? That's a pretty strange moral code you suffer from.

Isn't a child prostituting themselves to two men, including one old enough to be their grandfather, just a little immoral?

That's a pretty strange moral code you suffer from.

But in my case, it's not a moral code, it's a good understand of legal English.

"Immoral earnings" is not a moral judgement, it's a noun and the term, albeit perhaps an archaic one, for work that "transgresses accepted moral or legal rules".

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: Woman awarded damages over infidelity of same-sex partner See in context

Did the claimant get her house back?

Did she retain any claim on the child?

I'm surprised she won give the first case or introduction was with her knowledge and agreement. If I was the defendant, I would have claim I was just making sure the job had been done properly.

What a roadwreck of pretentious idiocy, though.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Ocean power: A green option failing to make waves See in context

Tidal generates electricity. Electricity makes hydrogen. Hydrogen ships anywhere, and could replace the entire hydro-carbon economy. Ideal when your generator is sat in salted water.

Generations can be fitted anywhere these a flow. No need for tidal barrages which, it has to be said, have their own problems.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Principal, another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy See in context

As in a spit roast?

I'm still intrigued whether it was two separate cases of prostitution, or both at the same time.

I like the idea of taxing the hooker on their immoral earnings.

Where does the law stand in such matters?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Welcome to Shikoku, awarded 2nd place in Lonely Planet’s 'Best in Asia Pacific' See in context

And it was the Tosa women in Kochi who were famous for drinking.

The dog fighting's scene is not cool either.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Welcome to Shikoku, awarded 2nd place in Lonely Planet’s 'Best in Asia Pacific' See in context

The 88 is also island wide, not a Kochi thing.

Not that I want to encourage more tourists but the Shimanto river is also worth a name check as the last unspoilt river in Japan.

The appeal of O-Henro is over exaggerated now. It's pretty much all concreted over. In the old days, the Kochi section was potentially life threatening.

'Best in Asia Pacific' is a l-o-n-g stretch of the imagination. There is almost nothing to do after 5pm in most of it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Couples flogged for public affection in Indonesia's Aceh See in context

As in "mutual affection" rather than public sex.

They hugged or held hands.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: Couples flogged for public affection in Indonesia's Aceh See in context

@WilliB

This is literal islam for you.

Well, more precisely Salafi/Wahabi Islam. Islam is actually a fairly broad church, with a lot of disagreement over interpretation, but this is the stuff that the Saudi's are promoting/exporting, and the habits, like niqab, cultural to them/Arab culture.

Equally important to factor into the equation is how the right wing/shariah mob rose to ascendancy within Indonesia and for that you've got to look to Uncle Sam and the CIA funding and supporting their brand of terrorism for the sake of US interests.

@Burning Bush

This law also protects woman's rights as it teaches men not to use woman for sex.

What are women supposed to use for sex?

Note the article is discussing "mutual affection".

Back to the goats then, bros?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: Will marijuana become the next tapioca? See in context

Mister

Keep this filthy drugs out of Japan please,

Actually, it's deeply traditional to Japan, with a long history before the Americans turned up and banned it.

People need to study up on the history of its prohibition.

Personally, I'd rather have chilled out "deadbeats" than drunken overworked salarymen vomiting up and then crashing out in the street.

Any chance of removing really filthy drugs like tobacco and alcohol?

it's really not fair to blame the plant on the culture of the people who use it.

I try to work at the grass roots level

Nice pun.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Posted in: UK appeals for public input in setting post-Brexit trade with Japan See in context

+1 on allowing easier Japanese immigration to the UK.

-1 on allowing easier UK immigration to Japan.

Do we really wish more whingeing poms on Japan?

-4 ( +6 / -10 )

Posted in: Principal, another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy See in context

How many times have you read of something like this and it's teacher, priest, coach, scout master etc. It's all so obvious and audacious of them.

How many of them actually go into the professions because of their tendencies, and how many are "turned" by the access their jobs offer?

You'd have thought by now someone would have worked out some screening detector.

Christian priests and monks? (Not so sure pedo Buddhist priests are so common). Without a doubt chosen as a mask for deviant sexuality in my book.

Where's the line between homosexual and paedophiliac interest drawn these days?

Would not this be considered a statutory rape in the US given his age? It does not actually say what the charges are.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Posted in: Principal, another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy See in context

Nearly $500 to sleep with a 58 year old, the kid knows how to charge too.

@Speed

I don't find it that offensive when all three are consenting participants without any coercion.

May be not in general, you'd be surprised by the number of young gay guys who were "initiated" by much older gay guys, but there is a serious public interest where one of the parties is a principal of an elementary school.

Where are the kids parents?

I'm guessing it can't be the first $500?

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Posted in: Principal, another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy See in context

Rather than "boy" I would have written "teenage male prostitute". Hard to pose it as "abuse" when the "victim" has already set up an online payment system.

Not exact a unique phenomenon. I did not know there was a scene for male to male compensation dating in Japan, but should I really be surprised?

15 ( +21 / -6 )

Posted in: Man with HIV awarded damages after being denied hospital job See in context

Obviously, I am not legally trained, so take professional advice if you need it and then decide what you want to do, but I think the above contains some useful pointers.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Man with HIV awarded damages after being denied hospital job See in context

I guess the real lesson to take from this is, if you are going to fire someone because they have HIV, even because it is for LYING about having HIV, don't tell them that.

Make up some other plausible sounding excuse, or do so within a probationary period.

And if you are an employer, find out if this law applies to you.

It strikes me they got fired because they lied, which I would support, not because they had HIV, which would have been responsible of them to report.

Were they gay, a drug user, or infected by contaminated blood?

@Educator

Why would the use of “state” throw you?

Because the article is so vague or poorly translated, and does not refer to which specific law it refers, that it is unclear whether the author was translating kokka (国家) or todōfuken (都道府県) as state, as in whether it was a nationwide law or a prefecture level law.

If someone says to me, "state law" I would think prefecture, not national, eg jōrei, kisoku, chokusetsu seikyū etc. If it's a national law, I would say national.

Perhaps it should have been 'statute' or 'statutory law'? As in roppō (六法), perhaps minpō (民法) or one of the other hōten (法典) in contrast to the hanreihō (判例法) or hanrei (判例).

But thank you for offering us the other dictionary definition of "state".

One of the reasons for asking is to discover to whom this law applies and at what level.

The article refers to a 'social welfare corporations' (Shakai Fukushi-Hojin 社会福祉法人), private non-profit entities that are more strictly regulated than civil law-based public service corporations ( kōeki shadan/zaidan hōjin 公益社団法人); therefore the law may only apply to them, governmental, municipal or public interest entities, not private employers.

Social welfare entities generally fall under Article 34 of Japan's Civil Code/Social Welfare Services Law and is under the jurisdiction of the prefectural governor or the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

The military is another employer who requires physicals and disclosure, just because some language school does not, does not mean much.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Researchers: AI surveillance is expanding worldwide See in context

@Yubaru

Going to have to learn to accept this as a part of reality in today's world.

It's funny how it has become all pervasive, like all those zombies walking around with their heads plugged into their phones without any prior discussion and consensus of whether this was where we all wanted to go.

The last one I take offence at is cameras on supermarket tills. Work out what that is all about or how it could be used against you.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Mother gets 8 years in prison over fatal abuse of 5-year-old daughter See in context

In the West, there has been the development of laws against "coercive control" or "controlling behaviour" going beyond just the physical abuse in domestic violence cases to recognizing the effects of mental and emotional threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.

In some countries, it is now a criminal offence. I don't know what its status in Japan is but I'd suspect Japan to be behind the times in it.

Deprivation of basic needs such as food is one specific one, deprivation of access to support services, such as medical services is another.

Immediately, in this case, that's two strikes.

Isolation from friends and family - which I suspect in this case, monitoring of time and communication, control over aspects of everyday life - such as where you can go, who you can see, what you can wear and when you can sleep, repeated put downs - again which I suspect in this case, humiliation, degradation, or dehumanisation, and control over finances are all others.

It's a case for forensic psychologists to untangle and treat but likely you'd find both partners came from dysfunctional backgrounds.

Simple "punishing" is likely to destroy one party, the mother; and reinforce the behavior of other, the step father.

It be something like the male acting out infantile attention seeking desires (projected onto the girl friend/mother figure) by manifesting repressed desires to kill a competing sibling. Classic Freudian stuff in 10 words or less form.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Man with HIV awarded damages after being denied hospital job See in context

I could not find the specific law, but the wording in English is "at work".

In this case, he was not "at work" but applying for work. Also, I find the use of "guidelines" unusual.

Usually "guidelines" would mean it was discretionary.

Is it poor translation or poor legal understanding?

Lastly, it is national or prefecture wide? Again, the use of "state" threw me.

Does it apply to only governmental employers or private employers?

Is it this?

Guidelines on AIDS issues in workplaces (1995)

https://www.jniosh.johas.go.jp/icpro/jicosh-old/english/guideline/2073-906.html

It uses the language "should not" rather than "must not", again suggesting an advisory rather than a prohibition.

We need better clarification.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Man with HIV awarded damages after being denied hospital job See in context

@Educator

perhaps you should study study the current effectiveness of medication for this disease.

What's the cost of ongoing treatment, and is it paid for privately, by workplace, or by national insurance?

If it is a private company paying for private insurance I could see why they and their insurers might have an issue with it given it was not disclosed.

The employer is made to look like the bad guy but it could be the insurer is saying 'no cover". I don't know the laws and how far they apply (eg public sector/private sector), and we don't know what the job application form specifically asked for, but non-disclosure is bad form.

What sort of health related questions are people normally asked? "Do you have any communicable disease", "have you had any serious illness in the past 6 months", "do you have disabilities" etc?

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Posted in: Park place See in context

But can you climb in through the passenger door to save yourself having to take the stairs down?

Presumably the family has two cars?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Bars brace for Rugby World Cup surge in beer drinking See in context

@zichi

But it wasn’t

Yes, it clearly was. It followed, your response did not.

Ossan wrote, "And South Korea is helping make the supply available" which has nothing to do with them playing. That they were or were not playing is immaterial.

It's the SK beer diplomacy that is the issue, not that they are crap at playing rugby.

Sometimes I worry about your reading comprehension.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: Man with HIV awarded damages after being denied hospital job See in context

It does say, "failing to report" rather than "having the disease".

It's a difficult one for employers. If you have 10 applicants for the same job, why take on and train up an employee if you know they are going to take a lot of sick days off, or die quick?

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

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