upintheair comments

Well, this is not the thing that the other was talking about. Or is it? Well, let it be.

I think the focus should be on whether Japan is really following the rules for whaling in international waters. What I mean is that quotas are set for scientific study. I find it hard to believe it though that all this whaling they do is truly for scientific purposes. Especially when you can find whale on the menu in sushi restaurants. Now, I am all in favor for applying the law but I am questioning whether Japan is 'exploiting' the scientific studies' quotas for other purposes. So I think the real criminal act here is committed by whomever is in charge of making sure that whaling quotas are truly used for scientific purposes. Unfortunately, the dynamics of international organizations are so complex and influenced by lobbies that it is not really a surprise that no authority is currently questioning the usage of quotas. So we, the powerless people, are here arguing whether a poor animal-lover activist whom is breaking the law for the love of animals should pay back equally poor Japanese fishermen to refund them of damage an legal expenses. It looks like the war of the poor people while the powerful authorities in the international organizations (that should prevent this from happening by being vigilant) are probably having an expensive lunch in Brussels at our expenses. So sad.

English drivers know how to use them. Great. Italian drivers don't know because they never had them so when introduced recently there were a lot of accidents. Same will happen in Japan. Question: can a country survive without them? Are they so badly needed? Why now? Was it mandated by some global trade agreement?

I think it is disheartening to see a country like Japan having to resolve to gambling and tourism to make ends meet. Japan is a strong industrial nation that has flourished with its technology, design and so on. Gambling and tourism are the cop out of countries that cannot achieve success through other means. Singapore does not have a specialized work force or a strong business sector. So all they can do is attract tourists with gambling and a number of other 'amusement park-like' attractions, like the Universal Studios, orchid gardens, night safari and all sorts of Disneyland-style things. Japan turning to these sort of cheap efforts to boost the economy is like an engineer turning to 'songs and dances' to turn a quick buck. It's humiliating for the country. My point is that external influences to Japan, from the US, TPP, Las Vegas establishments, and so on seem all mired at opening Japan's market to American corporatins and making it another globalized country. And I use this term in a negative form. In the sense that it will look and feel exactly like every other country in the world: Mac Donald, gambling, open immigration with no regard for consequences to social harmony, free market where local farmers are bankrupt by cheap imports from 3rd world countries (TPP), destruction of the Japanese middle class, few billionaires and everyone else a slave to the rat race. What I struggle to understand is whether this is just a play by the J.gov to sound pleasing to the US or they are really set into making Japan another run-of-the-mill globalized boring, Facebook-country. Even more jarring is to see Japanese or Japan foreign residents agreeing to this process of identity obliteration. Oh well, my hope is to not be around when that happens.

This is a really good news. It's time that we get more tourists from China and South East Asia. I think Japan really needs more of these people to come here and even stay and live here. Ideally it would be great to have a society in Japan with lots of Chinese, a community of Vietnamese and Filipino too. Japan is a great country but cannot call itself truly great until many foreigners come to live here, create their own little communities like China-Town, etc. Also all these tourists contribute to the economy and as everyone knows Japan is ruined and cannot survive without the Chinese tourists buying local products. China please help us!! Ideally I would like to see more real estate tourism as well as I would really fancy my neighborhood to have more people of Chinese ancestry. My suggestions is also for Japanese restaurants to have more rounded tables because I have noticed that Chinese tourists prefer them, as they like to share their food. Also it would be good if restaurants lowered prices a bit, even though the quality of the ingredients would go down. But at least tourist would find this a really good deal. Lots of food at a good price! As for the flavor we can just add more MSG.

Based on my experience, when you open a casino you get flooded by gamblers. And in Asia we all know which country loves gambling the most. This is not a good idea.

@timtak or maybe let's hope what you hope never happens. Chinese are speculators and big gamblers. Real estate speculation just makes life more difficult for those who actually need to live in a city, rather then just looking to flip properties.

They might be fanatic nationalists but at least they have the guts to fight for what they believe in. Most people in front of abuses will just shy away and hope it goes away. This is the kind of behavior that lets government run over civil liberties until it's too late. Well done to them.

Hopefully consumption in China will remain high.

On Singapore's TV they censure Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" from the Sistina Chapel as Adam's genital are exposed. They cover them up. I think it's the epitome of stupidity but I am sure that if I said that aloud they would reply that us, the dirty evil Westeners, are trying to impose our values onto them. At the same time they have areas in the center of the city where dirty old men go, at lunch time, to have sex with sex slaves from China. All in the light of the day. It would be like Hitler shooting someone in the head but refusing to even talk about guns.

I hope he doesn't commit seppuku though. Maybe his family and friends should keep an eye on him. You know. Just in case.

Thank you. This just made my day. Less PRCs in Japan is a fantastic news :)

Many fear this could lead to a war. I say that if it turns out to be the only way to stop the Chinese government from bringing instability to the world so be it. Maybe the U.N. could even split China into smaller countries and be done with it. Can you imagine what a better world that would be? No more arrogant Chinese, no more rare earths bans, no more stealing of Intellectual Property, newly found freedom for the Chinese people, for the Tibetans, a united North and South Korea, more income equality for its people, no more death penalties, no more unrestrained pollution, etc. This China country it's like a tumor that really ought to be cut off.

This is great. I think China is doing a great job in showing the world the majestic idiocy of their system. Countries of the world have managed until now to avoid major multinational conflicts. It took a bunch of sweat shops' peasants vindicating their 100 years of humiliation to get us even to talk about WWIII. Maybe if they had built a society instead of scratching their buts and hailing to Communism they would not have become the factory of the world. It's their own making. And this behavior might be their own undoing. Frankly it makes one wonder whether the world would be a better place now if Japan had continued colonization of their territory.

Tom Webb: it's naive to think these politicians have broken their promises because of the Big One. If anything they've used it as an excuse. The solution is cutting wasteful spending, not taxing the common people. They love voters like you though.

This is madness. The euro trash (I was born there btw) is even thinking selling their 'trains' to the Japanese. So this would mean that instead of an amazing Shinkansen I would be traveling on some Euro stuff. I hope to die before I see this happening. Yes, yes, let's bring the great Euro stuff here in Japan. That's why we are here. Let's also bring the socialist system, the lax immigration laws too. We need a bunch of desperate criminals sailing up to the shores of Tokyo from Albania. You've got to be loving globalization.

Until China demonstrate to be a responsible member of the international community their intentions will always be seen under the wrong light. In this case specifically, they are coming across as aggressive and hegemonic (which in my opinion they are). With all the land they have why bothering Japan for few rocks that nobody cared about till now? Thus, regardless of Ishihara's character, I agree with his actions. The central government has already shown their weakness when they released the Chinese captain that spearheaded his boat into the coast guards'. Seriously, how could China even defend these criminal actions? Well, if you are a criminal at heart then you can defend them with a straight face.

The only reason reactors haven't been restarted has nothing to do with their safety. It's simply because people, including the vast majority of those on this forum, perceive it as dangerous and don't want it. Even if it were proven and demonstrated that they are safe, still they wouldn't be restarted until public opinion is changed. Thus I think here the challenge is twofold: 1 - Make sure the reactors are safe. 2 - Educate the public about its safety. I'm a little disconcerted about how most people seemed to have been taken by this craze and fear about nuclear energy. In 50 years we have had 3 accidents globally. The result has been a number of death and large inhabitable areas. Now take oil as a source of energy and look at the disasters produced, eg Exon Valdez, Gulf of Mexico, etc. There's been hundreds of them. They have destroyed more lives and made larger areas (of the sea) inhabitable. Why isn't people jumping on that as well? I think many folks are myopic and easily galvanize against the fear of the moment. Two years ago banks were the villain, now it's nuclear energy, tomorrow will be something else. Thinking with your own head, IMHO, is to recognize that: 1 - Nuclear energy is neither safer nor more dangerous than oil. 2 - Japan does in fact need this energy source at the moment to function well. Given a better alternative I'd be in favor of decommissioning reactors. As the situation is now I think we need them.

Japan asserting sovereignty on the islands is definitely a good thing, given that China thinks the islands belong to them. It'll be also a good test of the Japan-US alliance. Sounds like most people on this forum would rather leave the issue to the Chinese government and wait for it to decide when to occupy the (Japanese) islands. Puzzling, very puzzling, especially as I suppose many of them live in Japan to enjoy the Japanese peaceful and quiet lifestyle. Maybe some time in Beijing would change their views.

It seems a lot of people assume that minors are by definition innocent angels roaming the planet, immune to the defects of human beings and oblivious to the dangers lurking in the world. I think it's a very naive view of human nature. The age-of-consent laws are there to protect young people from older more experienced ones and also from themselves, eg signing a contract of which they cannot understand the full consequences. The law's existence though does not establishes that minors are pure an innocent beings though.

In this specific case it's the girl that went looking for a job. I think it's clear that, unfortunately, this young lady has grown up to think and behave like a prostitute. Whether the blame is on her parents, school or society it's another subject. Certainly though I think the manger should not be punished as hard as if he had 'solicited' or 'tried to convince' her to get into the business. Furthermore, she even provided fake IDs and might (as we don't know) have looked older than her age.

@Psyops, I couldn't agree more with you. It should be obvious to everybody that this is not about owning a piece of inhabited land. It's about Japan standing up to the raising aggressiveness of China. The Chinese foreign policy is aggressive and I think we haven't seen anything yet. Their military spending has increased 17% this year and they are building their first air carrier. Japan ought to assert its sovereignty on the land it rightfully owns. The same should happen for some of the Kuril islands Russia took from Japan soon after the war. Although I agree that Ishihara at times has said bold things and taken difficult-to-defend positions, this time I agree with him. Both China and Russia are the only 2 countries on the United Nations Security Council vetoing sanctions against countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria and the likes because of their dirty and self serving foreign policies. Still it seems a lot of people here are suggesting Japan should just give in to these bullies.

It's so hypocritical. The government tries to stop them but at the same time it's making tons of money out of cigarettes being sold. As @NambyPamby say, they don't even try to make them safer. Well, here goes another comment about how disgusting government are. Every man for himself.

I think many people are overreacting to what happened. I'll explain myself. Suppose the earthquake brought down the Mori Building in Roppongi Hills. Would you people object to any more high rise building being built in Japan? Or would you rather think that maybe, just maybe, the Mori building had not been built with adequate safety features to withstand an earthquake? To compare this what Fukushima, have you thought that maybe most of the other 54 reactors are actually safe and they have been built with appropriate security features in mind? Rather, Fukushima was the result of a freak combination of events: a poorly built reactor (right next to the seashore) and a giant tsunami that happens once every few hundred years. It seems to me that you are so easy to polarize as a mass. I imagine how a cunning politician could use sneaky arguments to steer the entire mass of you people in the direction he wants. One last example to make my point clear: many street pavements in Japan are one with street's concrete - no step stone to separate them from the traffic flow. Let alone a barrier between people and cars. If tomorrow someone got hit by a car would you campaign for safety barriers to be installed at ever street pavement around the world? Or would you rather say that "shit happens". Because that's what happened at Fukushima.