Robert Cikki comments

For several months they claimed they had no covid, that nothing was happening. And people who buy respirators/masks are fools, influenced by western media.

Meanwhile, news leaked out that it's not even remotely good there. And yet they still bravely claimed everything was fine and under control. Then they started saying that they had caught it at the beginning and that they never claimed that nothing was happening. "And in America they beat up black people and nobody points that out!!!"

I know from my own experience that the news from Russia cannot be trusted in the same way as the news from the former USSR.

This one is golden too.. https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-says-he-dressed-doctor-tend-grandmother-covid-ward-2021-10-29/

I personally don't like cats. However, I wouldn't dream of doing this to cats.

Just the fact that someone kills/injuries a cat with an airsoft gun says something about the psyche of the person. And with this many, it's certainly not a one-off excess or an accident. And boiling water?

That he got a suspended sentence? I'm fascinated by the justice system here. How it only deals with one thing, but not the other, related things. The fact that the man is not completely mentally well is simply not taken into account. He is completely mental, a nutjob FCOL.

In countries where there is no prehistoric court system, he would serve his sentence and get treatment on top of it. Or a combination of both and serve the sentence in a medical institution.

I love how behind almost every good deed here or government decision there is a catch. So on the outside it looks nice and that everything is fine, but inside it's still moldy and stinks.

including written pledges by the businesspeople and companies to follow anti-virus measures

And why just written? Why not also a verbal pledge? And will it have to be faxed? What year is it? What year are they comming from? I'm reluctant to believe it. Even after 30 years here, when I've seen other things...

What a joke...

Let's meet here in a month or two and see if those numbers here are real.

As one expat here once said - behind every robot here is a human who looks after the robot. Then one person bosses the person who oversees the robot. Someone then writes a report on the robot in Excel because the robot doesn't write it in the style expected. And someone has to put their own hanko on all the related documents and fax everything.

Weebs might find this interesting, but that's due to lack of knowledge of the situation here. This country is powered by fax machines and hanko stamps, not run by robots.

Commercials? Do you mean 80% of all the TV channels' shows here, where there is about 2-3 minutes of the show itself in the break and then the rest is all commercials?

All the ads here are loud, screaming, following the same script. You've seen one painkiller commercial, and you've seen all the future ones.

If it's a dinner-related commercial, then mostly the family sits at the table, smiling convulsively. If it's a commercial for a painkiller or a nasal decongestant, then there's bound to be a person spreading their arms and the wind is against them. In the case of detergents, people in white coats.

Most of the advertisements for various support and stimulants here promise miraculous effects, despite that being complete nonsense. In Europe, many advertisements with false content or information would have already resulted in a hefty fine for the television station.

And we haven't even gotten to those shows where the advertising is hidden and spread throughout the show - visiting an establishment and shamelessly advertising.

Japan has fairly strict labour laws. Compared to several EU countries, it's even stricter. Unfortunately, they are just ignored and the ignoring itself is also tolerated, publicly.

The most common, and easiest, is the play on words. How to avoid overtime pay and overtime reporting altogether? Like "it wasn't overtime, it was just voluntary work that the employee didn't complete. Moreover, he agreed to this work himself" and so on. Over the last three decades, so many PMs and other ministers have made promises to change working conditions, laws and the overall situation. And virtually nothing has changed since the late 1980s. A few small changes have happened, but we are still more or less in the 80s in that respect. The main problem is lobbying and the ubiquitous geronts in leadership positions. Anyone is short against them, no one dares to oppose them or go against them in any way. This is reflected in the working situation here. And when you add to that the huge inefficiency of work here (20 meetings a day, transcribing data from one SW to Excel, from Excel to another spreadsheet, reports of reports,....), you have a nice Ouroboros.

Oh, they don't know how it works here. If someone, especially a foreigner, says that something should be different, then those in leadership positions will only harden up and take it as a confirmation of their good work and continue to do it the way it has always been done.

cleoToday  04:06 pm JST

So how do they stop their 'only natural ingredients' from separating out?

I'm a bit wary of food that's been 'engineered'.

There are various types of emulsifiers, and there are also a large number of natural emulsifiers for the food industry. Or possibly a starch-based thickener or something like that.

However, I still wonder - isn't that inventing a problem and then finding a solution? I understand advertising and trying to bring a new product to market and the associated profit... But still, who really takes out the ketchup, does not shake it even a little bit, and does really get water first?

Old allies reunited. At last. What's next? Another surprise visit to Hawaii? An unexpected visit to friends in Russia?

Proponents of one energy source always see only the pros for using their energy. But they no longer see or deliberately fail to mention the negatives. And it doesn't matter whether it is wind power, solar power, nuclear power, water by secondary processing, etc. Every decade has a buzzword and a favorite target to show that this kind of energy is the only good one and the other the only bad one. So what if it changes every decade.

As the others here say:

Fine. They just scan the items under the scanner, it beeps a few times, today I pay by card or phone, earlier I handed over the money and got back the change. At most I bought something fried that they pulled out of the fryer. It's no extra special service, so I don't see any reason to complain. I especially see no reason to complain knowing how much money they're getting for it.

What's your point?

The important word is "anticipated". Since the 1970s, Western countries have had China as a backward country, a country of origin of poor quality products. This remained the case during the 1980s and 1990s. In the 00's the world started to wake up, but didn't acknowledge that China was forging ahead (the other thing is at what cost). Well now the Western countries have woken up but it is too late and China is nowhere near where it was in the 70s. We underestimated the threat and now it will be hard to correct. But we have helped China to develop ourselves. And become a financial powerhouse too. Underestimation may have been cool back then, but it will come back to bite us hard. And I know from my work trips to China during the 1990s that we underestimated their face-facade.

No, I don't believe it. In three decades, when there was a situation involving the JSDF, it was always longer than a week before payday. The most Japan will do is to express concern and strongly condemn the situation. If the JSDF were to be deployed, then because everything here takes so long, everything has to be discussed at several levels, look into things, make surveys, everyone has to make a report and put a hanko stamp on it, send it on by fax,........ the actual deployment would only happen after the end of the conflict. However, if for some reason it was related to tax collection, then the Japanese government would have reacted even faster than the Americans and before the situation even occurred.

Over the decades here, I've figured out how this is going to work out. Either she'll reappear, everyone will tap her on the shoulder and "thank you for your hard work and what you do for us" or she'll disappear for a while and then reappear with a bang. Because up until now, if it was a "fatigue", it was always like that. If it's something more serious, then usually the media won't publish the reason for a while and it's just discussed on TV. Or, conversely, they immediately publish that it's something serious, like end-stage cancer with metastases.

Just trying to ride the wave of someone else's success the last few years. But other than unprofessionalism and a strange form of hysteria, she's not doing a very good job. Yes, she's visible, but that's it.

The leftovers currently in storage are worth 11.5 billion yen 

83 million unused

Someone's friend got a contract and got paid. And that's all that matters. That the masks are sitting in a warehouse somewhere? しょうが無い。申し訳ありません. For such a failure, the originator of this idea would already be investigated by the financial police elsewhere abroad. And not get away with such a pitty "excuse" like "He insisted that the mask campaign was “appropriate at that time” when there was a shortage of surgical masks"

Japan is changing and is slowly catching up with other countries. A country where it has always been common to express disapproval or criticism of something (I am not talking about the way of expressing criticism). Up until now, it has been common here to just keep quiet and keep up. With the development of the internet came anonymous criticism, sometimes even vulgar. However, in neither case is the local society still prepared for this, and so even a simple criticism of an unnamed hotel, where a guest criticised the cleanliness of a private bathroom, including photos, would trigger a flurry of criticism and often lawsuits.

In both cases the extreme. The bowl of Ramen has become something that Ramen simply is not. An ordinary, simple dish has become some kind of icon.

When it comes to paying taxes or making sure money comes into the state coffers, the government here is doing the first and the last so as not to miss a single chance. However, if it is education or things relating to foreigners, where the inflow of tax money is not even remotely certain or viable, then it looks exactly like this.

On the one hand, foreign students and other foreigners can't practically enter Japan, even though they may have a valid visa or documents. It's not impossible, but it is very difficult. On the other hand, even a Japanese living abroad for say 5 years can easily return to Japan. The excuse is that we are trying to keep the infection numbers down, but a Japanese returning from the US after 5 years can be just as infected as a student from the US. But someone needs to think about that a little bit....

I think the same thing about them as I do about advertising presentations between shows on various TV channels, or about TV shows where they covertly advertise a certain restaurant or ramen place by "accidentally" choosing it on the way somewhere and the place just happens to be empty and everyone just happens to be ready - it often benefits from the mental simplicity or outright stupidity of others. Sometimes it's so obvious that it's some sort of advertising presentation that it makes me want to cry. But to each their own.

Hahaha, that made me laugh. In three decades, the police have been unable to do anything about the bosozoku. When the bosozoku showed up somewhere, usually a few police cars arrived and just circled helplessly behind the bosozoku. The Bosozoku were just making fun of the police and the helplessness of the police.

The reason is simply that bosozoku are no longer in trend and the actors are middle aged and not in schools or that period. Probably like kogyaru - the boom was in the 90s, then it declined. Today, maybe someone is still doing it, but not in the same quantity as 20+ years ago.

And that they charged 53 individuals? Get that number down to absolute numbers. It's like peeing in the sea.

The police are merely taking credit for what is not theirs.

I believe it will happen. Sooner or later, it will. Whether because of some pretext ala "they're oppressing ethnic Chinese in Taiwan. We'll protect Chinese everywhere" ala Ukrainian Crimea (and then later tales of how x centuries that territory was theirs and only a few decades donated under XYZ rule) or they'll just swim those few miles across the sea in a few moments.

China can't be trusted, just like Hong Kong couldn't be trusted when it went from British administration to Chinese administration and promises of how HK will be autonomous, citizens won't even know the change, etc.

China claims that Taiwan is an indivisible part of it. That is, that Taiwan is a province of China. That it is and always has been. And anyone who claims otherwise is lying and being nasty, mean and meddling in China's internal affairs.

Now imagine the following situation:

China retakes Taiwan by force. The same Taiwan that China believes is an indivisible part of it. The same Taiwan that China considers to be one of its provinces.

This move will only feather China's own nest, because in fact this would be, according to previous claims, China invading China. China invading its own territory, Province. China would take back territory that it says has always been part of it. Simply grotesque.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that China would be saying, in a way, that it hasn't been telling the truth for decades. And that therefore Taiwan was not part of it, etc.

Keiichi Ishii, secretary general of the LDP's smaller partner Komeito, said in Tokyo, "Only the LDP-Komeito coalition can revive the Japanese economy damaged by the coronavirus pandemic."

Japan's struggling economy because of the corona virus because for nearly two years it has been bad decision after bad decision. And the absolute highlight, the icing on the cake, was the Go To Travel campaign and similar. The main problem is simply that in order to avoid anyone having to accept any responsibility, the government has taken its hands off everything. A declared state of emergency? Nonsense - if they had actually declared one and it was a hard lockdown like in many other countries, they would have had to deal somehow with the businesses that were closed and losing money because of the government's decision. So the government would be spending a lot of money to cover the losses.

However, as it has so far been only a form of a request, the businesses have not been ordered to close, so they have closed of their own accord and therefore will not get any proper compensation. Maybe some small, but it will not even partially cover their losses.

This cowardly attitude has affected not just pubs, izakayas and hotels, but just about everything.

And now the government literally wants to solve the spilled milk on the floor by pouring water on it, covering it with a rag and looking the other way until it somehow resolves itself...

In Sapporo, Kazuo Shii of the opposition Japanese Communist Party, said, "We need a change of government in order to protect lives from the novel coronavirus."

A typical populist claim by communists who are in opposition...

More than a change of government, it takes a change of mindset. Planning. And most importantly, a crisis plan and capable crisis management. Changing the government won't just be like a POOF - and all is well

Five people who say they were promised "paradise on Earth" in North Korea but suffered human rights violations instead told a Japanese court Thursday that they were deceived and kidnapped to that country and that they now want its leader Kim Jong Un to compensate them.

If they are building on the fact that they believed what someone told them and they did not verify it in any way, then it should rather be about deprivation of legal capacity and assignment of a legal guardian. They have only shown their naivety with this whole move. That's all.

It is like this:

LDP: "Only the LDP is capable of protecting Japan from security threats. Don't you believe it? Have you seen any actual security threat to Japan in the last decade? You haven't? Then see how the LDP has protected you!!!"

Common folks: "Actually, that's true. I don't remember any terrorist attack like elsewhere abroad, I don't remember any immediate security threat. So the LDP has lived up to its words and I will continue to vote for them. And so will my children. And my children's children. And their children's children.".

The LDP has done nothing special to do that. The whole thing just works out of inertia. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'd quite like to know the details of what this poster was based on, what was behind it. After all, it looks like it was printed and not just sloppy..

Another leaflet, this time urging vigilance and alertness to hidden cameras inside umbrellas on the subway? Another mascot? The same was claimed in the first half of the 2000s with the rise of cameras in mobile phones. The problem is not the availability of the mini cameras. The camera is just an inanimate tool and it's not its fault. The problem is the people who will use the camera for said purpose. It's like saying that knife sales and easy availability have increased the number of knife attacks.

Just as some (including myself) predicted - once the emergency is over, the Go to travel programme or similar will be launched to improve the economic situation and the tourism sector in general. Since we love all sorts of bogus "discounts" and "campaigns" here, people will take advantage of it. The number of infected will increase (like last year), the whole event will be stopped, there will be another emergency (or give it another name) and again. The number of infected will increase, the economic situation in the tourism sector will worsen (again).

Of course, it will then be the fault, as usual, of the operators of the pachinko parlours, karaoke and izakaya. Not those who started the campaign.

Sometimes, their genius is frightening...

Good luck enforcing it.

I'm quite interested to know how much money this event cost... And more visual noise

Staying in the EU = bad. "The bad EU this and that and this and that".

Leaving the EU = bad. "The bad EU this and that and that and that"

The EU has moved on from Brexit and it is simply a closed chapter, there is no need to keep opening the door. Britain should do the same, keep its promises to its citizens and let the door close with the EU exactly as they wanted it to. So far the only obstruction I see is on the UK side, but it is always easier to blame the EU.

If Britain fails to meet its settlement obligations, then it cannot expect leniency from the other side.

So suck it up, stop crying, start doing something and get over it FCOL