Richard Posner comments

So much cynicism and conspirational nonsense derived from not knowing what the hell is going on. Regardless of what is going on, get vaccinated, if possible. I know some of you think your anti-viral fortresses, but just maybe your family, friends, colleagues and schoolmates are not so invincible. Don't overthink getting vaccinated (if you can), wearing a mask (which you can) and learning to curb your desire from immediate, unbridled "freedom and immediate gratification." The virus does not write splenetic messages on social media, it just spreads indiscriminately to the proud, the sophist, the righteous, and the defiant despite your indignities and desire to be right. We are all frustrated with this government, but the one thing we can do is take care of each other, as best we can. Our fates are connected at the hip.

This whole scheme of the monstrously discombobulated Suga regime is all Olympic-centric and big-donor driven. At 71-years-old, I only ask: "Where the hell are the vaccines?"

Screw the vainglorious Olympics. Screw Phizer giving vaccines to athletes. The government's war on Covid should be a war and first priority is to get the people of Japan vaccinated long before the O word should ever be uttered again.

There is no transparency in Japan about vaccines, how businesses can survive OR how they are being paid off to close there doors without a government vision of what the end result will be. There is no science here. This is far worse than the bonkers policy of the Trump administration toward the pandemic.

While it is true there is a crisis, it will not be solved with arbitrary, inefficacious directives. Actually which could be moot considerations, if and when a vaccine is quickly and efficiently made available. The LDP is the only horse in the race, and unfortunately they are totally complacent with the concept that people mean exponentially less to the grim-reaper politicians than satisfying corporate donors.

This is a bleeping sham. Older people like myself who DO take care of themselves are nonetheless more vulnerable to dying from the Covid-19 virus.

Stop worrying about closing department stores, restaurants, and whatever holds patrons who unfortunately breathe. The virus has no friends or borders and doesn't require economic impetus to be happy and go away. It requires no-nonsense, dogged accumulation and distribution of vaccines...pronto!!! Full stop.

A megalomaniac is a pathological egotist, that is, someone with a psychological disorder with symptoms like delusions of grandeur and an obsession with power. We also use the word megalomaniac more informally for people who behave as if they're convinced of their absolute power and greatness. The person - until 2016 who was most associated with this word - was definitively Adolf Hitler. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich embedded the idea of evil personified in my mind. A second term (legitimately or under martial law) of Trump will update the term in more diabolical ways.

Calling something a pandemic should mean decentralization must cease and a uniform, one-size-fits-all strategm be enforced with bite. Pandemics are grim, unrelenting, and not influenced by political leanings. America's response is disastrous because states rights remain paramount in a time where federal power must lead. Like so many other examples since the end of the Pacific War, Japan follows America far too blindly. The Japanese leadership needs a backbone.

Japan has the equivalent thinking to Germany's Aryan race delusionsl of 65 years ago. In this world, we must learn tolerance more than exceptionalism and segregation, sacrifice more than accumulation and hoarding. To do otherwise, is to insure a worldwide insurgence against racial and religious intolerance which could send us back to the Dark Ages.

Tempest in a teapot.

Perhaps in our social-media-led-politically-correct era we should start prison camps that hold anyone who is unable to guess how words or ideas will be interpreted. All those in the gulag should be sentenced to mandatory lobotomy and have their lips sewn shut for life.

We human beings are flawed and the social media witch hunts of our times are unfortunately controlling the free flow of information and understanding.

Disney is a microcosm of our new group-think at work.

Perspective: The mag is very pricey at 2300 yen in Japan and here is the kicker...In September 2014, Brûlé (the entrepreneure-wner of Monocle) sold a minority stake in Monocle magazine to Japanese newspaper publisher Nikkei Inc. The deal valued Monocle at about $115m although the size of Nikkei's investment was undisclosed. I smell a skunk! Tokyo is perhaps the safest city and sports a good train infrastructure, but in all other aspects of comfort it is a mere also-ran.

This tit-for-tat violence has no innocent parties. Israel went way overboard in unilaterally annexing territory under Sharon and others. The Palestinian people are shoveled into a cesspool city and told to take their medicine. The Israelis have faced countless suicide bombers, randomly-fired rockets and even the senseless loss of an entire Olympic team because of their determination to isolate a humankind virus. But the true villain in this most recent event is the verminous Hamas who use women-and-children human shields and fire rockets into Israel, build tunnels to do the same, and even set up artillery depots in hospitals and other areas frequented by mostly innocent people. Though I can only surmise, the Hamas tell those innocents not to run from the Israeli roof knockings and phone calls, but to martyr themselves (at gunpoint) to further the Hamas objectives. It is naive to think of Israelis as genocidal murderers; it is the evil forces within Palestine that are clearly that way.

Live by the sword and die by the sword. Japanese perversion of truth on this issue is written in the war archives and in Hiroshima. Another Abenomic boondoggle is in the making.

Sanctioning murder - while an unproven and likely unprovable allegation - is not just media gossip...it's a tyrannical crime worthy of pursuit..

You can't rectify an alleged heinous crime by a slowly-executed , arbitrary hanging...and it's not the next best thing to bringing back to life the former victim(s). It is blatant ,state-sponsored, cruel-and-unusual punishment of the same crime ilk as those like Eichmann and Engels committed. Five die under Abe without a whisper in the public tells you that the sadistic killer-robots of Japan's brutal past have inbred ancestors at work in 2013.

"Experts" are already in their comfort zones, with cushy retirements and perks in place. They pontificate about the good of the commoner, but they don't - in the scheme of things - have any empathy for the silent lemmings who will be most impacted by tax increases. Policy without accountability is the scourge of modern capitalism. It's time for laymen to head those panels or at least participate on a 50-50 basis. People should not be lost in the shuffle of high-brow policy-making.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. ~C. S. Lewis~

The dumbing down of Japan has commenced in earnest. Pacifism should never be equated with being unpatriotic. That was how both Hitler and Stalin were able to isolate their stubborn individualists from the sheeple and then incarcerate or execute "the former as traitors or enemies of the state." The reemergence of the Liberal Democratic Party and the pruning and emasculation of all opposition parties will lead to demagoguery and a totalitarian culture. Five or six years of Abe spells W-A-R...another losing one for Japan and its people. Abenomics is just a flaccid cover for a blind power grab by Japanese elite and their banker friends intent on drugging us into submission and carving up the spoils of wars either won or lost.

She should also apply the screws to the apathetic or complicit crooked law enforcement officers and bureaucrats who make their living by seeing and hearing no evil and skimming off some of the ill-gotten moolah.

Japan under Abe in the generic words of Albert Einstein: "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."

A prime specimen of a power-hungry political whore.

He who lives by the sword will surely die by the sword. I came into possession of an Imperial Army Soldier's book recently and it is a stark reminder that the only way Abe's offense is ever going to work is by forced conscription. The opposition parties should make it clear that Abe's reckless plan to restart an offensive army is a sad case of those who forget history are sure to repeat it. The parents of Japanese high school boys should be told that the Self-Defense force is fixin to become the Self-Offense force and that their sons may well be forced to serve and die in the name of "The Emperor?" or whoever. This is the beginning of the end of the nation-state of Japan.

Like so many laws and regulations in Japan, they have no real bite. This is a serious problem and another political whitewash or sweeping under the rug.