taiko666 comments

The Dept Com. of Queensland Police said immediately that "this is not about race or religion."

How can he rule out a potential motive before the investigation has even begun?

Many probably smoke, are short, skinny, boring to talk to, and dress like a, uhm, salaryman.

All of those can be fixed except being short.

When my wife discovered she was pregnant, her Japanese doctor decided on which day the baby would be born. She duly checked into the hospital in Tokyo the day before. By the evening of the big day she hadn't gone into labour, so it was induced with drugs(!!!) This caused problems, so she had to have an emergency ceasarian (c-section.) I was shocked by this cold adherence to the schedule. She then had her 5 days of resting in the hospital, but as she was walking out the door she collapsed and nearly died. She had a massive pituitary tumour and almost lethally low blood pressure, but the doctors hadn't noticed anything untoward. She then had to stay in hospital for a month while I looked after our newborn.

Great achievement.

It's a typical story though. Maglev was invented and first deployed in the UK (as in fact, were trains in general), but now the UK doesn't even build toy trains any more.

@John Carl Smith

8 tracks were analogue and therefore lossy.

ALL sound recording is lossy when it is first made.

"lossless' usually refers to loss of precision when making copies. Analogue tapes are very lossy in that respect, but CDs are not lossy if copying to 16-bit 44KHz. Converting a CD to MP3 is lossy, but copying that MP3 file to another machine is not lossy.

So smithinjapan, yes, a CD is of better audio quality than an MP3, with the margin of superiority decreasing with increased MP3 bitrates. See http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/mp3quality.html

It's good that the Koreans have made this film... if they'd left it much longer there might have been a Hollywood version depicting how it was actually the good ol' USA who won that battle in 1597,

@MarkG

I'd say that he hadn't had easy access to a gun, those 6 people would not be dead now.

Even if he'd tried to kill them with a (eg) a knife, it's doubtful that he could have killed so many.

The gun culture in the USA is obscene.

@kimuzukashiiiii and @LaWren

It's perfectly possible for the woman (=mother) in a family to be the abuser, to be mentally unbalanced, to be violent to her spouse or to her kids. THAT'S why mothers and fathers should have equal rights and custody of the children decided purely on merit, not on gender.

Syd Barrett made Pink Floyd.

When he (er...) left, Dave Gilmour rocked them up and make them less quirky, culminating in the fantastic Dark Side of the Moon.

.... and when Waters eventually became dominant, he turned them into dark, boring dirge band for manic depressives.

and England (10) for example

England lost narrowly to two teams higher than them in the rankings... no shock there. And after those loses, England will drop in the rankings.

The rankings seem fine to me... Spain however are a special case.

@kimuzukashiiiii

It's obvious that you have no regard for the rights or well-being of fathers.

But can I ask you, how do you feel about foreign mothers living in Japan, married to Japanese men, abducting their Japanese children from Japan and taking them to their 'home' countries?

@Wolfpack

What a ludicrous post, obviously by somebody with zero understanding of the problem.

The UK would gladly ditch Northern Ireland. As long ago as 1990 the UK gov said it had no "selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland.

The majority of the protestants in NI, who've lived there for hundreds of years, don't wish to join a catholic Ireland. So how can the problem be solved? Deport all these people to Britain? Remove all security and let the protestants and catholics kill each other again? Walk away, say 'you're on your own' and let them fight it out?

Personally, I think the Orange Order are a bunch of bigoted dinosaurs who cause most of the problems by whipping up sectarianism. I think if they were dealt with somehow, the future would be bright. And who knows... perhaps the majority in NI would eventually be ok with reuniting with the rest of Ireland.

@James

I don't think you need to apologise to toshiko- she should apologise to you for automatically assuming that as a foreigner you were complaining about the lack of katakana in Japanese newspapers. And of course from her post one can infer that she believes no foreigners can actually read kanji and hiragana, but that's another matter.

As for the story, I have some sympathy with the old gent, but he chose the wrong basis for his claim. He pays his NHK fees to be entertained and informed in Japanese. If he can't understand NHK's Engrish gobbledegook, then I think he's entitled to complain.

The only aspect of Japanese culture involved in the whaling issue is the culture of throwing a toddler tantrum whenever the foreign community asks Japan to comply with international standards of behaviour.

@OldHawk

How many times do I have to remind you that Japan is an island before it finally registers?

What has that got to do with it? Only island nations control guns?

@MarkG

Japan does not have the mixed cultures like USA.

What has that got to do with it? Mixed cultures require guns?

I think the gun lobby has some kind of collective mental illness.

@overchan

I think you'll find that there are more convictions in those countries because possession of child pornography is already illegal, and has been for decades. If the J-police do their job (never a certainty) I expect the conviction rate in Japan to soar.

@Cary Layton

What an adult does with their favorite fictional or cartoon kid is their business.

Manga is much more powerful in Japan than 'cartoon kids' in the rest of the world.

do you people who are posting really believe that rock music causes people to suicide? Or foul languages causes aberrant behaviour?

I don't. But then, rock music isn't illegal, nor is violence, bad language or strong pornography in films. However, child-porn is illegal, because it most definitely puts children at risk and is enjoyed exclusively by dangerous perverts. The same goes for child-porn manga.

@Gosenx

If production and distribution is prohibited how one can possible possess it?

Is this a serious question? Have you not heard of the terms "The Internet' or "The Black Market" ?

The fact that Japan still hasn't banned the possession of child pornography is a jaw-dropper that completely poleaxes anyone who learns of it. How can a 'modern' country be such a massively long way behind the rest of the world? And the fact that paedophile manga is still not going to be banned says a lot about the society.

Don't Japanese fathers have a valid opinion about this too?

@LostInNagoya

But, as usual, Apple is proving to be ahead of times.

As usual, Apple fanbois are making ludicrous claims. The "flat" style was pioneered by Microsoft on Win8 and Windows Phone.

@Jimizo

Bronze age?

@ but this disgusting idea of honor killings exists in non-Muslim societies.

Yes, but 91% of honour killings worldwide are in Muslim communities.

Unless the Islamic link is acknowledged and addressed, the killings will continue.

@Frungy

The child wandered off and drowned while in her parents care. Unless the parents had suffered some medical emergency which rendered them incapable, or unless their was a negligent or malicious third party, the stark fact is that they are culpable. But of course that doesn't mean we can't feel empathy or sympathy for them. They must be totally mortified. It's the worst thing that can happen to a parent. I'm terrified that one day due to some carelessness on my part my child might come to harm. If that came to pass, I'd certainly blame myself and would expect to be charged.

In Japan I've noticed that many people don't seem to be able to assess risk, either for themselves or for others. One of my apartments was brand new and on the top floor of a block... with no guard railings on the roof garden. Any toddler that found their way up there would almost certainly die. No risk assessment at all by the architect or builders. I see kids running around in car parks, riding their bicycles at high speed through minor junctions, playing in kitchens where they can reach pots of boiling liquid.... People seem oblivious to risk. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this unfortunate child was in the habit of playing alone in her garden/yard.... I've seen it with some Japanese acquaintances in Gunma. I think it's very likely that the parents were negligent, but perhaps no worse than many other parents in Japan- which means that we'll probably see many more sad cases like this.

@tmaria

You seem to have missed a very important point.

While it's true that every country has its racists, their bile isn't proudly published by national broadcasters.

So next time an Aussie calls me a "whinging Pom" I can have them arrested :-)

@CH3CHO "When a city is occupied, occupying army kill the hiding soldiers in the city. That is called mopping up operation".

A civilised army doesn't shoot prisoners. Japan not only murdered prisoners, it dissected some alive. How many Chinese prisoners of the Japanese survived the war? With its abominable behaviour from 1933-45 and, crucially, its lack of humility thereafter Japan still has no right to complain when China mentions things like the Nanjing massacre.

@bass4funk

"hooligan culture" - if you're talking about football (soccer) then you're 20 years out of date. If you're talking about young idiots who can't hold their drink on a Friday or Saturday night ... maybe!

All this talk about guns being pulled stems from an experience my dad had in the 70s in California. He was pulled over for some minor traffic violation, was spoken to politely by a cop who asked him for his licence. He didn't have it on him, so the cop asked him politely but firmly to step out of the car - after unholstering his gun. It made quite an impression on him and subsequently on me. I'm proud that the UK police don't wave guns at people, and you're proud / happy with the fact that USA police do... fair enough :-)

All this discussion of pulling over / stopping is a bit bizarre.

Surely it's common sense that if you see flashing lights on a police car behind you, you first move over to the nearside (=left in civilised countries like Japan in the UK, right almost everywhere else :-) )

If the police car in question does the same (rather than zooming past you) then it's a fair assumption that he wants a word with you and it's time to stop, turn your engine off, wind down your window and with your best smile say "good evening officer."

@bass4funk

Ok, in the light of your experiences I'll amend that to it seems that if you do wrong you get a gun pulled on you.

If you'd not stopped, would you have had a gun pulled on you then? Is a fleeing suspect always shot at in the US? Just a question, because it certainly seems that way.

And yes, the UK is a different culture. I made the point that in UK the cops don't carry guns as an illustration that not all countries have a crazy gun culture like the US.

@bass4funk, toshiko

You'll never find a UK cop pulling a gun in a situation like that. In fact the vast majority of UK cops don't carry a gun at all.

But in the US, you do wrong, you get a gun pointed at you.

Was there any need for the cops to wave guns at the driver?

US gun culture is obscene. It's just sick.

@tinawatanabe

The undisputed accounts of horrendous atrocities committed by Japan in the 30s and 40s are so vile that there's really no need for anyone, not even the crazies in China and Korea, to make anything up.