Striker10 comments

Imagine all the services they could pay for if they didn't have to pay a quarter of their budget paying interest on their debt!

Despite the strong growth, the association said that sales were still below levels from before the advent of the internet -- which devastated the music industry as fans flocked online.

Sorry, I don't think it'll ever go back to those overpriced, gouging highs again, consumers won't stand for it anymore.

Is there actually official paid paternity leave in Japan? Or would it just be unpaid leave?

This does happen. If I sit there and it happens to me I gently but firmly push the offending object away. I think people usually get it. When I'm the one standing there I'm careful to not hit the person sitting down. However, I think JR trains have a better separating wall than other train lines so it's not usually a problem on JR.

Now if we could just get all the people to stop constantly sniffling and hitting people with their backpacks (because they don't take them off their back while standing in the middle of the train)...

One can only hope that the Japanese population will remember all the scandals and arrogance of the LDP, and see through this flimsy attempt to cash in on the North Korea situation. One can hope...

"Deploying a helicopter can cost up to 10,000 yen per minute and daily payments to a rescuer working on a volunteer basis could come to several tens of thousands yen."

I don't get it, if they are volunteers why do you have to pay them?

She should "take responsibility" for being such an onerous human being. Almost any other candidate would have swept the field against Trump, but the arrogant democrats had already chosen their bed-mate, and the loss serves them right in the end (even if I'm no fan of Trump).

bringing drinks ordered by smartphone and poured by a bartender — who still receives a tip.

Why? Why does simply pouring a drink deserve a tip? Not that I think they deserve a tip even if they are delivering the drink personally. Such a stupid American custom.

The side effects on the public coffers perhaps? I think it's ridiculous that many vaccines are covered by national insurance, but some other equally important vaccines like this one are voluntary, meaning the patient/parents have to pay for them.

Japanese airlines are very good, Air Canada is so-so, United airlines is the worst I've been on. The CA on Japanese airlines are waaay better than on North American airlines. The CA on North American airlines for international flights are especially bad because they are the veterans with union backed job security and they generally couldn't care less about the passengers.

I once asked a CA on Air Canada for a beer and she fixed me with a dirty look before saying in an overly (sarcastically) sweet voice "You know you can get it yourself, right?". Sorry for asking you to do your job!

@tmarie - what's this about a new tax for foreigners who have lived here?

it's not one of those "hey; those kerrraaazy Japanese" type of films.

Portrayal of Japanese culture/people is often not very accurate, but for some reason the "Japan is so crazy!" shows piss me off the most. Most of the time they are not even accurate about what they are portraying.

Still no hints as to where the cord blood was originally obtained. I hope that hospitals aren't conducting a shady side-business selling the cord blood from unsuspecting mothers, but I can't help but be a little suspicious. I wish the journalists would do more digging into this instead of focusing on the more sensationalist headline of the number of foreigners being treated.

Another question I have is where are they getting this cord blood from? Are hospitals running a side-racket selling umbilical cord blood/placentas after they perform births? Do they ask permission from the mothers, or are they doing it all behind their backs?

Good move, should have done it much sooner.

If they just went to the site to browse, how are they being billed? They must have entered in credit card information or something similar, so they should have known there was a risk that they would be charged. Internet porn sites are not exactly paragons of integrity...

I'm with SaikoPhysco, if they volunteered and went to Fukushima themselves after the meltdown they had to have known there would be a definite risk of radiation in the area. The reasoning of this lawsuit doesn't make any sense to me, unless it really just is the bold-faced money-grab as it appears to be.

To be honest, I'd rather have that robot do my funeral than one of those greedy buddhist monks. 240,000 (or more, often much more) to chant for less than an hour? Then there's the "extended-warranty" scam of the Japanese funeral industry with the "kaimyo" (new name after death) which will be another few hundred thousand yen...

What I find very interesting is that peanut allergies are on the rise in the west, but are not much of an issue here in Japan. What is accounting for this difference?

Yeah, the main problem is definitely the customs of today's young people. It's definitely not that all Japanese beers are pretty much the same (mediocre rice/pale lagers), and all of them are very expensive compared to other alcohol. Make a commercial with Jonny Depp, that'll definitely fix things!!

Above I meant slurping Japanese noodle dishes I can handle, because pasta is of course also noodles but should never be slurped.

Slurping noodles I can handle because it's part of "the culture" I suppose, but slurping everything else like DiscoJ said is too much. The worst is when you go to a fancy Italian restaurant and there are people slurping the spaghetti...

Good riddance you useless tool! And don't ever come back!

I could think of other stuff I'd like to hire someone to do to the person cheating with my partner...

The problem is that if you feed the stray cats they multiply, and then you end up with even more "starving cats". So which is more humane? It's a difficult question.

There is no effective medicine to treat the disease.

Very scary. At least Lyme disease is treatable if you start treatment soon enough.

The survey also showed that only two prefectures -- Kanagawa and Hyogo -- have their own ordinances to counter passive smoking.

Kanagawa supposedly has it's own ordinance, but there are still tons of restaurants here that allow smoking - not even separated between smoking/non-smoking, the whole restaurant is "smoking". Just try to find a Chinese restaurant here that is smoke free.

I don't see how this will do anything other than increase the profits of pachinko parlours (and all the former police officers in charge of the industry). Agree with Reckless, if they set a limit to the profit, they should correspondingly limit the losses as well.

All of Indiana Jones 4, probably one of the worst pieces of garbage I ever saw. Cloverfield also made me really want to throw something at the screen when it was finished for wasting more than 2 hours of my time.

There's no will to change things because all the dirty old men in charge of the country all smoke themselves. They're all still wishing for a return of the "good old days" when they smoked in the office and in meetings.

My city never introduced a fine. But the introduced a city-wide ban on throwing butts away.

@pacint - how did that end up working? I'm sick of those rude, ignorant smokers who throw their butts out wherever they are. Kudos to the ones who bring those portable ashtray pouches with them, or smoke only in designated areas with butt cans/ash trays.