RoccoL comments

Walking past the Okura hotel in Toranomon today where there is a lot of activity around the Olympics. Seems there’s a lot of foreign and local officials with clipboards, and the 2020 t-shirts randomly walking around the local area for a stroll.

When they are all mingling and circulating freely, it can only end badly. Local officials will be heading home this evening to families having been fully exposed to unquarrantined and possibly unvaxxed people from around the world.

Here's the video!

Looking at the video it looks like he ran, tried to get off the bridge by jumping over barrier, was dragged back onto the bridge by the police. He was then marched to the end of the bridge, slipped their grasp (if they had one) and just threw himself off the bridge. Didn’t look like he was aiming to stick the landing - maybe an attempt at suicide.

Great news. The vaccinations have helped turn the virus into nothing more than a flu (for those vaccinated).

Now we need to vaccinate (with proper vaccines) the countries where it’s rampant. Indonesia, India etc, to reduce the risk of more variants otherwise we’ll get another “Modhi variant.”

Unfortunately as we are probably about I learn, the mindbending decisions over the past 18 months were for the benefit of the demographic that are about to vote them back in. Old people, polyester variety salarymen, inept public servants and small restaurant owners.

I hope the young and educated brave the rain to vote.

The everlasting pursuit of profit via murky and cheap supply chains. Now you know why Uniqlo etc are so cheap.

Uniqlo - it’s Ok to charge more for t-shirt if we know that abhorrent suffering isn’t contained in the fabric.

“Emaciated”

I still count 2 chins..

@zeram1

Spot on. Yet another parasitic tech company charging a %ge for a fixed cost service.

For those less informed, listen to a real restaurant owner before deciding that’s it’s such a great idea.

https://www.google.co.jp/amp/s/chicago.eater.com/platform/amp/2021/1/26/22250664/delivery-apps-destroying-restaurants-chicago-uber-eats-doordash-postmates

Exactly. People expect company owners to be taxed on something they own instead of profit they made. 

I hear ya, but the tax system is set up in Japan and the USA to allow business owners to offset personal expenses as business expenses. This means that the business owner doesn’t need to take a large personal income and thereby avoids the income taxes. In the UK they are more strict about it.

e.g. business owners in Japan frequently add their rent, vacations and car(s) as a business expenses and take a small monthly “declared taxable income” on which they pay tax. The government has a highly questionable list of things that can be used to offset your tax including owning a wooden house (I.e. your holiday home in Karuizawa) and private jets.

This appears to be what Bezos etc are doing, their living expenses, yachts, private planes, vacations can all be considered business expenses. It’s easy not to take an income when you don’t need one.

Try doing that as a salaryman.

What’s deeply troubling is that the Olympic Committee is currently trying to save costs. They were told in the report in the NEJM criticizing their prevention methods to use wearable devices to track athletes but they instead opted for the phone tracker (which has proven to be useless) because it’s cheaper.

An insider told me that overtime is banned for the crews setting up the venues because they can’t afford the overtime and electricity costs in the evening.

We should ask the IOC if they are COVID conspiracy theorists because that’s how they are behaving.

What’s even more nauseating is that people like Bill Gates, are happy to take the credit (and tax credit) for benevolent donations through their charities/foundations, yet offshore the tax affairs of their corporations so they don’t have to pay tax.

They offshore their taxes not only because they can, but because they choose to use the loophole. That last part is optional.

If ever there was an example of narcissism bordering on sociopathy, there it is: “I don’t pay unless it makes me look good and stokes my ego.”

Naming variants after the places they originate is a good deterrent.

The Indian government caused the Indian variant by allowing the Kumb Mela and massive election rallies. The British failed in their early efforts too.

Name and shame.

Suga should definitely hold a snap election after the Olympics. I’d suggest around 6-8 weeks after.

Bang in the middle of the inevitable virus surge, collapsing hospital system and birth of the Tokyo Olympics variant.

Although I hope none of that comes to pass, this guy needs to be held to account for ignoring the people who voted him in and the scientific advisors he’s paid to listen to.

Violent psychopath acting out a fantasy. Planned, premeditated and brutal.

Thank God they got him. Sadly too late.

Poor girl. If you’re reading this, know that people care.

Maximum respect to the wife as @MrKipling said.

I hope he gets the FULL treatment in prison.

@yotomaya

Am I missing something or has this been the main obstacle until now?I'm not sure most companies and universities have the resources to train personell to do that, let alone make them appear out of thin air.

Companies in Japan give an annual health check up to all staff and contract a private company to do it either on-site or offsite. These are separate from the general hospitals, usually have 1-2 doctors and a bunch of nurses and specialize only in screening. It will be these companies that are likely to be contracted again for workplace vaccination.

Makes sense, they are specialists in very high volume turnaround. My company does 40,000 medicals like this in a month.

This was always going to be a good option. My company gets 1000+ people through the annual health screen per day including ECGs and X-rays.

They just need to use the usual medical staff (nurses and a Doctors) to administer it.

The guy was an idiot. Nuff said.

The mamacharis though, are a nuisance because they are pedal assist and the riders cycle way to quickly and inconsiderately. They’re known as “Mamachari-gangsters” amongst my Japanese friends here in Tokyo.

I wouldn’t want the kids to have to ride on a main street and definitely don’t want them in a car for a school run.

Seems sensible to limit the speed of those things mechanically and make sure they’re on cycle lanes where they have them. If they’re not carrying kids, they should be in the street not sidewalk.

The government was caught lying about the radiation levels after the disaster (remember the giant Geiger counters showing safe levels when accurate equipment showed alarmingly different readings?)

The government has proved with the Olympics that it’s profit 1st, health second.

I’m not sure I’m ready to trust this food just yet.

Hope they both get good treatment.

I should clarify - it’s the pharmaceutical company that pays the “commission” to doctors and gives the target. I used to interview their sales people. Eye opening.

The big issue is the corruption in Japanese healthcare and this vaccine rollout is no exception. Why in earth did Takeda need to get involved in testing AND distributing the Moderna vaccine - because they wanted their piece.

In the healthcare space, everyone needs to get paid and maintains their patch at all costs. Doctors are given “commissions” to prescribe drugs and are given targets (this is a global problem too). The pharmacy is the symbiotic corruption benefactor and often placed next door or even in the same building and the clinic.

Psychologists, are not paid for by health insurance but psychiatrists are because the psychiatrists are more a more powerful faction and defend their income - I.e. making patients dependent on medication.

The government even admitted last week that it needs to financially incentivize private clinics (that’s nearly the entire healthcare system) to treat COVID patients. You can’t make this stuff up!!

I’ve lived in enough corrupt countries to know that where there is over regulation there is a system deliberately created for the purposes of corruption opportunities. Japan is a world leader in this.

It’s hasn’t worked for a month what makes them think extending the SOE in the same manner will work this time?

People are simply ignoring the SOE.

Massively speeding up vaccination seems their only option right now.

As macabre as it sounds, a Japanese psychologist friend of mine told me that it’s quite common to hear about families leaving a deceased body at home in Japan whilst the family continue to collect payments from the government e.g. pensions etc.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

It seem that there are real problems in Japan with emotional health and also empathy. There’s no shortage of cognitive “read the room” empathy but a real lack of compassionate/affective empathy.

The waiver proves the athletes (and us taxpayers in Japan) are just being exploited.

It’s worth remembering that the IOC and Olympics is only 126 years old and has its roots in aristocracy with the belief that some people are just born to be champions (read: to rule over others). Sporting practice/training was initially banned.

Although there are ex-athletes among them, many members and attendees are billionaires (like Coates) and royalty. The Olympics is just a networking event for a powerful clique, sport is just the entertainment for the event.

The athletes get paid nothing (except USA track and field team). Athletes and taxpayers are just being exploited so these inbred sociopaths can hobnob in luxury without paying.

Please read the article in the New England Journal of Medicine regarding the IOC's playbook. 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2108567?query=featured_home

We’ve been citing this report for days now but still no dedicated coverage from JT specifically on the contents of report.

JT, could we get an article on this? It’s not only extremely relevant, it’s in the public health interest of JT readers. Thanks!

Didn’t they guarantee a safe Olympics? Isn’t it in their charter to protect the safety of athletes?

Why the waiver then? If they fail in their duty if care, they should be sued.

Oh, wait, you mean the insurance companies won’t cover this?

The only thing that will be safe at this Olympics if the personal wealth of the IOC members.

According to a Canadian study on parricide:

The study seems to describe the mental state of an abused child.

I gotta say, whenever I see a child doing something heinous, I just see a dysfunctional parent at the core.

Very very rarely frontal lobe damage or a genetic pre disposition.

Either way, it’s always environmental factors that produce the result.

Here we go again. Poor mother. Don't these guys know that the blueprint is to raise them until 18 then get a job and become independent?

That’s the point. According to a Japanese psychologist friend, parents in Japan sometimes require their children to stay at hone and look after them, never allowed to move out and live in their own. Apparently they eventually just snap.

have all vowed the Games will go ahead, albeit under strict virus prevention measures. 

No there measures are not strict, they are frightening useless and based on out of date protocols and science and cheap measures designed to save money. E.g. using a contract tracing app instead of a wearable device despite the advice from medical professionals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/sports/olympics/tokyo-olympics-cancel.html

It’s worth looking at the total current active cases too - not only new daily reported cases which make it look like the numbers are lower than they are.

There are 65,000 current active coronavirus cases in Japan. The real number obviously way higher due to low testing and asymptotic and mildly symptomatic (toughing it out) untested people out there. All of whom are infectious.

Interestingly they postponed the Olympics with c.850 active cases in Japan last year.