Wanda-kun comments

I'd check to see if that's really beer or just "near beer." Normally, if you freeze beer, the water and alcohol separate because they have different freezing points just as if you boil/cook with liquor, the alcohol evaporates long before the water.

Frank VaughnJun. 04, 2012 - 10:31PM JST . . . I personally believe that there is too much corruption in the Mexican government and that is why the drugs and violence have not been stopped. This is a highly complex issue and there are strong feelings on both sides of the legalization argument, but after many years and $billion$ and thousands of lives (my first wife included) the governments of the U.S. and Mexico need to do something different.

Though you're likely to get furthest with the legalization of marijuana, I think reducing U.S. demand for heroin and cocaine would diminish drug violence in Mexico dramatically. I'd like to see the U.S take about half the DEA's $2 billion budget and dedicate it to drug treatment programs and primary and secondary education.

I think the Mexican government is so badly compromised at this point that extending additional aid on that side of the border for the "war on drugs" is a waste.

One must assume the "coolness" of wearing a full body wrap item of clothing like a yukata is the absence of underwear. Yes, yukata is cooler than a kimono, but not as cool as a pair of board shorts and a loose shirt.

Fail.

The article fails to tell us whether there is a law against growing hemp in Japan. If so, why? What this article should have told us is that he was arrested for growing cannabis, hemp's happy cousin.

Rick EarlyMay. 30, 2012 - 08:04AM JST What is more amazing is that a strongly worded and very public denunciation by the central government re Ishihara's ranting hasn't happened. Perhaps there is more behind the scenes than we know and he actually has central government backing for this venture?

Exactly. At this point, central government silence on the this idiotic behavior can only be interpreted as acquiescence. Otherwise, he needs to be told in no uncertain terms to cease and desist.

tomokiMay. 28, 2012 - 12:26PM JST We can't live without nuclear energy at least until other resources become available, e.g., wind energy, gas hydrate, etc

They are available already. I think even horrible, petroleum addicted Texas has more wind power generation capasity than does the entirety of Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_installed_wind_power_capacity_animation_561px.gif

SquidBertMay. 28, 2012 - 11:18AM JST Goldman-Sachs says they are planning to invest USD40bilion over the next decade in renewable energy. A company like Godlman Sachs would not even consider getting involved unless they were convinced there are BIG bucks to be made in this sector.

Right. GS has about as much interest in renewable energy as Royal Dutch Shell.

Thanks to advances in "fracking" technology, the U.S. has become the second largest producer of oil in the world. We weren't even in the top ten a decade ago.

Renewable energies of all sort will only rule the day when governments are bold enough to legislate against hydrocarbons. Don't hold your breath.

Guess there are a lot of people out there with lousy sex lives.

LostinNagoyaMay. 11, 2012 - 12:21PM JST Nothing that Prince and David Bowie have done before, but with great style

Prince? I don't recall him ever dressing like a girl or that his public and stage persona ever caused any confusion regarding his sexuality. Bowie, however, was/is bi-sexual and was never particularly coy about it.

The difference in these situations is that the Japanese talent coming to the U.S. is by-and-large the best in the game there - Matsuo, Suzuki, Darvish and a few others over the years. However, the guys ending up in Japan from the States are usually just so-so utility players whose careers were either over or never amounted too much or guys that are damaged goods. Randy Bass was a demi-god in Japanese baseball for a couple of seasons. He was nothing in the States.

cactusJackMay. 10, 2012 - 04:33PM JST Now I understand the lyrics!!! " I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me... She showed me her room, isn't it good, norwegian wood? "

Nope. Wrong British Invasion band. Try the Kinks and "Lola."

WolfpackMay. 10, 2012 - 10:40AM JST That visual kei stuff has always seemed creepy to me.

I don't find it creepy. I think it's pathetic. For every David Bowie (one to be exact) there have been and apparently will be thousands of essentially talentless wannabes.

sfjp330May. 03, 2012 - 08:31AM JST General Ishihara should focus on problem of Tokyo. That's his boundary. Forget about international matters.

Yup. This isn't exactly a matter related to the governance of Tokyo-to. The central government needs to tell him in no uncertain terms to knock it off.

Chaz EdMay. 01, 2012 - 09:34PM JST Why learn something that is so narrowly used? I can go just about anywhere on earth and communicate in English!

Chaz may be a bit flip here, but what he says is true. Japanese is a borderline dead language. No one actually needs the language except the Japanese themselves. And even when a non-Japanese masters the language, you're still often treated as a curiosity, like a talking dog.

The rest of the world has used Greek, Latin, French and now English for the last couple of millennium. One could argue that Mandarin may replace English, but then, no one really likes doing business with Chinese to being with, so it's probably the Chinese who will be learning English rather than the rest of the world learning Mandarin.

Tom DeMickeMay. 01, 2012 - 06:35PM JST It blows me away and while they think they're doing me a favor, it's so much more difficult to read. Japanese Romaji should be done away with all together.

I think you mean the Japanese shouldn't use it, which is true. Most Japanese have such a poor grasp of pronunciation of the Roman alphabet that they can't transliterate Japanese into the proper sound combinations in the Roman alphabet.

It's a major hinderance in them learning English.

Romaji is not the problem primarily because it's rarely used or needed. Katakana is the problem. If we could do some house cleaning in language education in Japan, first and foremost would be to take the standardization of "loan word" "spelling" in katakana away from the Japanese and let the bilingual folks from where the words/names come from handle it. Three perfect and perfectly annoying examples of words/names that could better rendered in katakana - pizza, Hawaii and Vietnam. Most of us have lists that run into the dozens, I'm sure.

avantarinacMay. 01, 2012 - 03:33AM JST if you would know what they put in their products you would never ever eat this ever again!!!! mc Rubbish

The only time I've ever had food poisoning (twice) was when living in Japan.

FadamorMay. 01, 2012 - 12:20AM JST Being from "outside the area" makes you more sensitive to differences - even within the same country. When I was a child my dad was in the navy and we moved every three years or so to a different duty station in the States.

What so interesting about this is she's a "navy wife" herself, so she didn't marry into the most open American "sub-culture" to begin with.

Mike HuntApr. 30, 2012 - 02:44PM JST Japan has some of the world's best restaurants and "street food" know to man. Such a shame that the American peddlers of processed rubbish are allowed such a prevalence here. McDonald's is one of the most pernicious companies ever known.

Not been in Japan long? Have you ever even been there?

All the McDonalds in Japan, as they are in the U.S., are franchises. However, all the franchises there, at one time, were owned by one man.

http://www.mcd-holdings.co.jp/english/company/index.html

The company has been in Japan since the 1970s, only about ten years less than it has existed in the U.S.

While I agree with you that in Japan in general and Tokyo in particular you can hardly swinging a dead cat without hitting a great restaurant, it's the Japanese themselves who embraced McDonalds and wasn't something forced on them as an act of cultural imperialism.

I've got to agree with other posters here; 9,600 per city section would be more like it with unimaginable damage in and around all the "reclaimed" in-fill land. This doesn't begin to address the possibility of what an accompanying tsunami would do.

This paragraph is particularly ridiculous.

A huge tsunami would strike isolated Pacific Ocean islands several hundred kilometers outside Tokyo, which are considered part of the municipality, but was not likely to cause damage or fatalities in the metropolis itself.

Why do they believe that there is no potential for tsunami damage all along Tokyo Bay?

While it's true that most of the people who died in the Great Kanto Quake were killed by fire, there was comparatively little development along the water front and not a single building over 5- or 10-stories then. I'd rather be on the top floor of the Mori Building than in a 5-storey ferro-concrete apartment building from the 1960s or 1970s.

"This version is more square and closer to the roots of Jeep", Saita said. "For us, this is the first time we have entered Japan with a four-by-two, which is really a requirement in the smaller SUV segment. It's for people who do not need the four-by-four functions, but still want the look, the feel and the lifestyle".

If it's a 4x2 then it's not really an SUV, is it?

The Japanese, save for Audi, already make the best SUVs, AWD and crossover vehicles available. Why do they need Jeep?

It's to be scuttled by the coast guard.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/US-to-sink-ghost-ship-dislodged-by-Japan-tsunami-3461405.php

Brilliant! I'd missed it. Seconding madmel, too bad they apologized for it.

Tora-san? Where are the geta and the hara-maki?

TizalleymanMar. 29, 2012 - 07:07PM JST In the States the gov't can regulate business, loan/grant money to businesses, but they don't own them...

Until quite recently in U.S. history, the government owned or administrated all utilities. We've only had problems with energy and water when private entities with minimal oversight were allowed to manage or own power and water (Three Mile Island or Enron anyone?).

Three of the largest power entities in the U.S., the Bonneville Power Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Colorado River Authority are all public. City Light and Power of Seattle owns its own dams. Combined, they control flooding and provide power and water for about 1/3 of the U.S. All the problem children of power generation in the U.S., coal and nuclear, are ostensibly publicly regulated but are private, for profit corporations.

Power and water are public good and therefore belong in the hands of the public. TEPCO should be nationalized with an eye to shutting down those nuclear facilities that can't be modernized. Unfortunately, that would mean about a 75% loss of electrical generating capacity in Japan as most of the reactors in Japan are of the same vintage and design as those at the Daiichi facility and have reached, or will shortly, their useful lifespans.

some14someMar. 23, 2012 - 06:34AM JST Hashimoto is man with a distinct vision, a reformist not a dictator. Watanabe is not demoractic like any other business leaders in Japan.

First of all, business is private and by it's very nature dictatorial. The so-called consensus-building supposedly at the root of all Japanese businesses is nonsense and everyone knows that. Nemawashi is mere theater.

It is well-known, however, that Hashimoto, if not really resembling Hitler, shares far too many personality traits with the mayor of Tokyo coupled with an anti-government stripe not dissimilar to what is found amongst Tory politicians in the U.K. and the hard right in the U.S.

Just get rid all of these throughout Japan. They're dumb.

The Crown Prince needed the old Alan Ladd Hollywood close-up treatment (standing on a stool as about the only leading-lady working in those days that wasn't taller than him was Judy Garland).

And seconding many posters, who is that translator's boss? Fire him and then fire the translator for attending to state business in a blue suit with brown clown shoes.

And yes, the Thai PM is gorgeous and normally looks like a million bucks in traditional garb, but her shoes are all wrong as well, regardless of what else she may happen to be wearing. Reminds be of the flesh-tone skate covers worn by women figure skaters, and even those look like crap.

Social issues constrain Republicans

Yup. Completely out of touch with about 2/3 - 3/4 of Americans' views.

Thought they were going to be able to run on economic issues, except it continues to improve and all their ideas are from the 19th Century (Paul), from outer space (Gringrich and his moon base), nonexistent (Santorum) or even more of what put us in the hole in 2008 (Romeny). So, now they have to fall back on culture war bulls*&% that was dated even in the 1980s.

Obama has left a lot to be desired (drone strikes anyone?), half-measures for healthcare reform and not even quarter measures for financial reform. But the Rethugs are intent on election one of two nuts at this point. Not going to happen.

YuriOtaniMar. 07, 2012 - 02:16AM JST Not sure they would feel safer. They will immigrate into a war zone. . . .

S. Korea is potentially a war zone. It is not one currently.

They may be welcome now but at the first sign of trouble will be turned into goats.

Wow! I'd like to see that. Is this something the S. Koreans have been able to do for a while?

Interesting to see where they will be more discriminated against, as Japanese, by and large, have no patience with serious Christians and, though they are Christians, will their S. Korean co-religionists overlook the fact that they are Japanese?