tsurubushi comments

"Men" like him repulse women and shame their families. No sensible woman woman would want children if they knew there was any chance they might be morally bankrupt clowns like these assemblymen. They contribute directly to the problem they want to solve (though working and other conditions certainly don't help).

Japan_cynic: the motive is economic. AS we've seen, bankers will stop at nothing, and indeed are willing to do anything to increase their profits. The umber industry sees these ans makes plans to derive cheap profit for minimal effort. So, they are rightly sick in the head. It would be doing the world a favor to make an example out of them, once they are caught.

Spahnmatthew: it says that we are all so sick and craven that we cannot comprehend much outside of money.

As for my own thoughts: don't sell the lumber. Purify the wood, and renovate/improve these shrines with the wood from the trees. That way, everyone wins, except the criminals. The shrine gets rebuilt with the trees that have been a part of the shrine for so long, the trees don't get sold off to the highest bidder, and the local builders get work building the shrines. the lumber industry gets nothing. See? Win-Win.

Yasukuni, You certainly got your popcorn's worth, eh?

ya think?!

I think wontond was talking about the ceremonial get-up the priest is wearing. Also, look in Akihito's hand for the top hat. They are commenting on the actual picture, rather than the content of the story (yes, it's valid to do so).

I feel sad for the police "occifer" in question...I mean, look at the kind of shaming he's getting (okay, he deserves it, but still).

I could see this in other countries - think smokin' hot college coeds (or for fairness' sake, the ultra-toned captain of local college gymnastics team - you're welcome, ladies) helping you "get fit" and wearing ever more revealing brand name school gear. I smell sponsorship cash and ad revenue waiting to be had.

I think some of the other posters hit the mark. If she has figured out how to control the weather and nature, I'm sure a number of other governments would really like to get in on that action. G'luck with that, and all.

The only tablet that has a real chance against the iPad is the Fujitsu Q550, and that's only because they are going for the business market, and put in all the right features for such. Full disclosure: I own neither Fujitsu nor Apple products, but have literally no use for anything Apple puts out. Fujitsu...maybe, as the Q550 might well come in handy in an enterprise setting. As for this attempt by Sony, the little one is a mistake, and the bigger one isn't really offering anything new that other companies don't already have.

NPR had Reagan's budget director on, and he was pretty clear that both sides are wrong (and both are lying to the middle class). I tend to agree. We can't do just taxes or just cuts, but we need to do both.

Just what the Union folks don't need, another sideshow distraction.

As for the pensions/healthcare/stuff: they get the pensions as a form of delayed wages. If they were doing the same job in the private sector, the theory goes, they would be making more, and contributing more. But because government pay is so low (contrary to popular belief, they are actually paid relatively low wages). The days of cushy government jobs is long over. Just ask my old mail delivery guy. he was making a decent paycheck, but they had cutbacks, and now we get a different guy making a small portion of what the UPS guy gets, and he doesn't get benefits. Any wonder half of my mail gets delivered wrong?

As much as we Wisconsinites share your concern, America, you can keep your Michael Moore and your Sarah Palin. We don't want either of them.

what, no "best apple-ist"?

Three cheers and +1 Internets for Gurukun. If you have to chisel it off of your face, it is too much.

war dialing for lazy people. Or fanservice rules the universe? Ah, who cares. No one will remember this gimmick in 2 months anyway.

is it wrong that I am tempted to satirically yell, "No JT, it's Best Dress-IST! Get it right!"?

elbudamexicano - the "Cow"-pis has been fairly common since 2001, minimum. That's when I first heard people making jokes about it. maybe your ears are just better than most.

"From Left: Japanese..." If left means liberal and right means conservative, do we have the proper spectrum?

m5c32 - War (and combat in general) has often been described by combatants as being more erotically charged than sex. Tick put it well in his "war and the Soul", saying, "When we study the roots of war, we find this relentless darkside of eros at work." and "War transforms a combatant's relations to love and sex, and to beauty and order and form, in a way that compromises some of the most difficult dimensions of the survivor's inner world." both on p. 122, for those of you so inclined.

Elbudamexicano's central point stands, even if his suggestion of a separate all-gay army is ridiculous. Let the military sort this out on their own. They have been better at integration than civilian society in most other things (religious integration and racial integration both happened in the military before they happened in the civilian world).

Actually, the use of the courts to force this on an an uneasy military population will, in reality, lead to more recrimination, more discrimination, and more suffering for gays in the military. Expect more problems in the ranks if this trend continues. Why is it so hard for gays to wait for Sec. Gates to come out with his report? Why take it to the courts, who will hand down chaos in the wake of this ruling? The military is working on it, and will come out with a balanced, reasonable, gradual plan. But patience is clearly not a virtue for some people.

Lunchbox - it's the Best Motherist award. Gotta get it right, now. /Sarcasm.

maybe the new domino's pizza hasn't made to to Japan yet. Domino's in the states realized that their pizza needed some work, and I have to give them credit. They admitted it, changed the recipe, and now have a pizza that puts Pizza Hut to shame. As in, I don't need to go to Pizza Hut when i can get a better pizza at Domino's for the same price. And no, I'm not a Domino's shill. I used to think their pizza sucked (cardboard crust, runny ketchup sauce, low-grade toppings and choices), but I tried one of their new ones and it kicked the pants off of Pizza Hut. At least for chain store pizza. If I want a real pizza, I'll go to a real pizza shop. Hopefully, they'll send that one to Japan soon as well.

Ossan -

agreed. put the information out in the public sphere and let the Japanese people figure out what they want to do with it. No more of this "we think it's bad, so your country should ban it" nonsense.

Frungy is right. There are some things the public doesn't need to know. If it needlessly endangers human lives that are not our own, we don't need to know, and we really don't have a right to know, either. What about the privacy of individuals? WikiLeaks has neither the manpower nor the resources to remove all names (particularly of the Afghans who are helping stabilize their country). It is clear already that WikiLeaks does not look at the context (particularly in their sensationalizing) and see that they are more hurting their cause than helping it. Why? Because now the crackdown will be even harder. You know what an ordeal it is to get a security clearance now? With this, they have pushed their own cause back 20 or 30 years, as more draconian measures will be (if they aren't already) put in place to make sure this information does not get out.

Actually, I have two gripes about WikiLeaks. First, they put all of this out there and don't give the public the context of the situation. It's all about making sure people are lead deliberately to the wrong conclusions - that is to say, whatever Assange wants them so see. Second, although there is no paper trail showing Assange is getting these secret documents and then only placing the ones that they wanted in public view, that is what they are doing. Ultimately, it is a biased organization that wants to skew the information in the direction they want it to go. You don't think that cables showing successes in Afghanistan would make it to WikiLeaks Latest Leaks section, do you? How about if someone leaked documents showing that Company X was secretly stealing money from their CEO and donating it to fund a public library in Nebraska? Nope, even though they are doing it in secret, it would never make it up there. Why? because that isn't scandalous enough. It doesn't pass the "we're shamelessly promoting ourselves as givers of information, but really we only show you what we decide you should see" test.

The difference between the government and Assange? The government is at the very least bound by the rules of law. Assange is a immoral clown who does what he wants and runs like a coward to avoid the consequences of his actions. If his cause was seriously noble, if he really thought his goal was good, he wouldn't run. He wouldn't need to.

It's easy people - water balloons (or other such thing) to the speakers. Practice on the annoying but slow-moving ones first (work on aim, if it misses the speaker, it's useless. Then work your way up to stealth/sneak attacks on the black vans. Maybe a super soaker would be a better idea for them. To be clear, don't aim at the truck, only the loudspeakers (when they are mounted externally). Probably a concealed location would be a good idea, too. They put up with no nonsense, but if they can't find you, they can't get you. I always hated the political ones oozing like a slime mold past my university with their propaganda at 100+ decibals. Short out the speakers on those ones, and life is good. I heard coca-cola does wonders for electronic circuitry (kills a laptop), maybe that's another tactic. pretend to trip and "spill" one right into the speakers if they are low enough...

ben4short - the military delegates caring for service members to those of us in the Chaplain Corps. And we take it seriously. That said, we can't control the management at national cemeteries. We do funeral rites and family care, and we have to hope that the cemetary management is competent. MrDog - unfortunately, it is a problem when the management can't keep track of simple records. You'd think it would be easy (name, date, plot #). It seems like something that could easily be put into an Excel spreadsheet or similar database and easily brought up. Usually, it goes unnoticed unless a family member visits and can't find their relative.

on a side note, I agree with all the comments suggesting that this article is not particularly well-written.

Zurconium - "The liberals on this board knew this before, during and immediately after the tragedy"

And because they knew it, they had a higher responsibility to stop it. They failed. Various administration lies/justifications do not change the fact that those who knew didn't go as far as they needed to in order to stop it from happening, but they dropped the ball.

SuperLib - "In all reality what I wanted to see was a coordinate world effort to remove men like Saddam from power. Unfortunately, I just don't think that is going to happen."

Has anyone ever stopped to think about the probability that some peoples/nations just don't function without a "strongman" in charge? They are simply too chaotic in nature to hold together without one. Democracy? Will never work for some. The 9/11 - Saddam connection was always tenuous at best, but the real issue, as you say, is deeper.

Let us all take a moment to pray this doesn't become the next Elmo.

SuperLib - it isn't trivial. Poor judgement on that level shows the opponent a glaring weakness in our system, and would have provided them with a wedge to drive between our own forces. He's lucky he didn't have UCMJ thrown at him. As a military officer, he was trained never to let his guard down among reporters, no matter where they come from. While he is in uniform, everything he says and does is seen as representing the official policy of the military. Reporters have one job, according to the military: to create conflict and burn whoever/whatever they are reporting on. He knew that. As a Chaplain, I know that. The military train all officers to first avoid the media, and then if cornered, say nothing important. You don't say anything of "value" to a reporter, or when there is a reporter present for tactical reasons. Even in this post, I have to be aware that my words can and will be taken and misconstrued and used for whatever purpose, and therefore I have to consider the impact of each word. He has a PAO (public affairs officer) for a reason... Gen. McChrystal failed, and he took the consequences.

Come on Stratu23, you know you can't eat a proper mystery meal without new Meiji brand Yeti-natto (TM).

Sarge, If you have to ask...it'll probably wreak havoc on your innards for longer than rush hour traffic in L.A. I suggest avoiding it.

WilliB,

We Buddhists would not have a problem with it. Funny that you should mention it, actually. That's exactly how we describe the various bodhisattvas to our Catholic friends. Indeed, we often suggest to our Christian friends that we consider Jesus to be a bodhisattva (that is, one who reached the goal and came back to help others - a model for one's behavior), and when the concept is explained to them, they find it more or less agreeable. The key here is, if your religion and your beliefs are strong, you can let others believe whatever they want without issue ans still get along. It's when you have weak levels of belief that you get fanaticism. Of course, to the casual observer, this is counterintuitive.

not to state the obvious, but anyone rolling up on your block with a flash grenade is 99% probably police. Would it have hurt the grandmother (assuming the story is true) to simply let the officers come in and search? They find what they are looking for, he gets taken away quietly, and nobody dies. It's not rocket science.

Of course, if there is more to the story (and there always is), an investigation should be carried out.

Of course, Yabits is quoting the family's lawyer, who knows full well that if this goes to court, it will be decided by a bunch of locals, who will likely see him on the local news. The more he can do to prejudice his potential pool of jury members in advance, the better his chances of winning the case. That's not to say the police aren't doing the same thing (I'd put money on them also using this technique), only that lawyers can't be trusted either. Personally, I'm more willing to trust the police than I am a lawyer, because lawyers NEVER lie, right? Police do too, but lawyers get paid to do so. None of us on this board has seen the actual footage since it was confiscated by police and none of us was there that night to verify the incident happened as either party said, although the police did mention an independent witness in the CNN piece... draw your own conclusions.

Perhaps it is better to wait until the details and evidence come out (if/when this goes to court) and draw real conclusions then.

And Frungy, the police did have a "high-risk search warrant" for that house. When they entered the premises, they had reasonable suspicion that the suspect was there and would engage in violent confrontation. The difference is that one is in what is called "line of duty". It doesn't absolve the officer, but it does protect them. And if you have access to the video, please produce links, or something. Or you are just spouting off what the family's lawyer says is there, rather an actually knowing what went on.