zaldaus comments

Hahaha... These stuck up "leaders" can't handle the fact that Ukrainians are smarter than they let on. Joining the E.U. would mean dismantling all their industry, especially arms industry, and agriculture. These "leaders" only know how to rob smaller countries, leaving an economical wasteland behind. Poland, Estonia, Latvia and a few other countries are a prime example.

@Dog

The Russian Tsar Alexander III said once, that Russia has only two allies - its army and its navy. I'm sure the same applies to the U.S. and any large country. All the weaker nations need us to die for them in a time of crisis, and forget all the good things that are done, only remembering injuries.

@anohito

I'm sure the Emperor too has qualified staff telling him if it's safe or not.

The appalling handling of the Fukushima disaster for two and a half years straight proves conclusively that Japan has no qualified staff whatsoever as far as nuclear matters are concerned.

@Mark Quijano

True empathy is leveraging one's influence to improve the situation. What he's doing is telling people to cover their eyes and ears and pretend everything is fine.

@SpeaklikeGandhi

"People who tend to have suspicion about everything what others do may have his or her own problem."

I can't believe people like you who "support the team" are actually serious. It means that the Japanese public, or part of it, is severly misinformed on the effects of radiation. It is deadly. Why don't you read up on the Chernobyl disaster. It looks like the previous generation failed to pass their knowledge to the current one, if people think eating contaminated rice is good for you, or that a statesman/emperor who does so or claims to do so is doing something "valuable" for the country. Here's a clue: he isn't. He's doing harm, because instead of alerting his people to the very real and present danger of contaminated food, he is blinding them to the real consequences of the Fukushima disaster. In fact, he's playing right into TEPCO's hands.

Are we allowed to take them off? So.. inviting.

@papasmurfinjapan

"Both China and Korea suffer from an inferiority complex, which is why they always feel the need to entice anti-Japanese sentiment. Sad, really.."

I think you are overlooking something here. Both these nations are, for the first time in their history, experience a clear development of national sentiment.

China used to be a collection of different peoples, languages and ideas and to some extent is still that. But for the first time they are feeling a uniting force in being Chinese, and feeling good about it. It takes a while for the sentiment to develop, so I tend to see the Communist times as a formative period there. Besides, during Communism it wasn't about China so much as it was about Communism. But suddenly it's no longer about Communism, Emperors or Buddha, but China.

Korea experienced the same in a different manner, in the south they were hampered by the division of the Korean War. But now the same thing is happening there too.

What I do agree on is that this development of nationalism is going to lead to trouble.. especially with a neighbour like Japan which has a "fossilized" nationalism that's about to resurrect itself. Trouble brewing in Asia on all sides.

@Doug Birbeck

"the ruling classes here collectively disgust me with their total disregard and lack or compassion"

That's because they were never held responsible for it. Yes, a few fish were hanged, but the rest swam out of reach. In part the fault of the U.S. as they needed to keep Japan as an ally against the USSR (the Cold War started just about then, even before WWII officially ended).

What we have now though is a bunch of rich kids who have been brainwashed by their elders that it's ok to commit crimes. The bigger crimes the better, since you don't get anything for them. A suspected chikan gets his life ruined, but a proven war criminal with millions of lives on his consience gets to live happily ever after.

The same, by the way happened in post-war Germany, most of those sentenced at Nurnberg got out a couple years later and wrote memoirs! The Western politicians wanted to get anti-Soviets back on track and on the move again as quickly as possible. The only difference being that Germany itself got bombed into the stone age and are reluctant to repeat the experiment again. Not the case in Japan.

@spudman

The Allies didn't seem to think quite in the same manner. France fought. True, they did not have separate armies, but there were very many Free French battalions among the British forces, and even in the ranks of the Soviet Army. So yes, they did win their battles and did earn their freedom. Not to mention the effort of civilian populace in hiding Allied airmen, escaped POWs and in conducting guerilla warfare.

@OssanAmerica

"240,000 Koreans were in the Imperial Japanese military"

You conveniently forget that they were pressed into service.

Simply amazing ignorance on the part of Japanese politicians. The man is a hero, he fought for his country's freedom.

For example, Finns still praise the memory of Eugen Schauman. He murdered the Russian governor-general of Finland (Bobrikov) in 1904, who tried to enforce a policy of "russification" on the country. The murderer committed suicide at the spot. Quite similar circumstances as with Ito, even if with slight differences. Schauman has his own memorial and is treated as a national hero in Finland. To Russians he's a criminal and murderer. But do we fly off the handle and demand the Finns disown him? No way. We understand that there are two sides to the issue and respect their right to independence and glorifying those who fought for it. End of story. And it should be the end of story for Japan as well.

@darknuts

They always say it's "pilot error", when often the case is simply bad maintenance and the age of the planes themselves.

Russian airlines (except Aerofolot) buy cheap, used, old Boeings and Airbuses, and fail to maintain them properly. This method worked with old Soviet planes as they were built in a different manner, with a guarantee of many thousands of flight hours before maintenance was required. Western aircraft are less robust, especially in Russian circumstances, and coupled with being used to the limit.. no wonder they crash.

Pilots too, are pushed beyond their limit. Overworked and underpaid, and most often over their retirement age, to boot. But generally it's an easy copout to blame it on the pilot, that way the airline is not responsible..

@Guillaume

"There is no free lunch. If the consumer does not pay the full price, then the taxpayer will."

The problem is the taxpayer has always paid for utilities and they worked just fine before being privatised. Now that utilities are fully privatised, where does the excess taxpayer money go? Does it end up on beneficial projects for the taxpayers? Do we see an increase in public services or their quality?

The answer is NO, on the contrary. The quality of services goes down. So in essence the extra "freed" public money ends up in the pockets of the politicians. Well done.

This is just like EU politicians proposing to force everyone to flush their toilets with a bare minimum amount of water. Seems that when an organization gets too big for its own good, dementia sets in..

I tend to think that certain circles in the U.S. government got tired of his willful policies. Especially ones that concerned the FRS. His policies were in most cases good, but he overestimated the power he actually wielded and his stubborn character made him many enemies in the influential circles.

"Let Israel express the willingness to destroy these weapons of mass destruction"

The Jews may be many things, but they are not stupid. Destroying the weapons they have would be suicidal. You may talk all you want about peace and oppression, but Israel's existence is now an undeniable fact of life. It's far too late to expect things to change or the Jews to leave. And it's also naive to expect the Arabs to suddenly turn into docile kawaii kittens. If Israel has no big club to wave around with, it'll be beaten into pulp in no time at all. If you think about it, the existence of nuclear weapons is the only thing that has prevented a large scale war between Arabs and Jews since the 1960's. This is realpolitik, not leftist/greenist fantasies.

I can't help but feel that had the Philippine authorities been prepared for such an event (and these things happen on a yearly basis) and issued a warning, and perhaps conducted at least a limited evacuation, there'd be far fewer deaths. Look at Vietnam. A stark contrast. Evacuating 600,000 people is a rather enormous task. Yet they did so.

"Japanese is not a race"

Good point, racism gets called upon in too many places these days, and often wrongly. In Japan it's not so much about racism (though there's some of that too) but more about xenophobia and lack of exposure. If a person is not exposed to natural environment and the "allergens" in it, they develop allergies where their body treats even harmless molecules as foreign particles that need to be destroyed. If this works so on a biological level, it only makes sense that it also does so on a social one.

@Weasel

Could be, but it amounts to the same thing in the end. Whether the parts are cheap or expensive, it's the sum of them that makes or breaks a product.

"state-of-the-art jet"

When it's outsourced to cheapest possible labour, it's no longer state-of-the-art. It's a flying wreck just waiting to fall apart.

@J_rock

Don't tie your panties in a knot over this issue. I personally am disinterested, as I don't even live in Canada. I visit relatives in Toronto, however, and can compare different "administrations" as far as my personal empirical experience of the city goes.

I think support of him is more of a political than economical issue, at its core. He's anti-gay, and that naturally brings a lot of liberal folk to see him in a more negative light than they would otherwise. Personally I see it as a redeeming quality.

Do you think that had Smitherman been elected there would be no hike in taxes? No transit debates? That's naive thinking, especially in this economy.

Name me a few recent politicians of mayor level or above that do not have anything to do with organized crime, however slight the connection might be? It's a bit too far fetched to assume that politics would do without criminal money. That's how they get on stage in the first place. The only difference is how much more or less does a certain individual owe to certain groups and how many middlemen are between him and the dirty money.

And as for crack video, I haven't seen it. How old is that video? Is he really smoking crack in it? Where was it taken and does it clearly show him being "in possession"? If so, he should be prosecuted. If no, then there's no substantial evidence to do so.

Ford is a fine man, and he's anti-liberal in his views. They've been trying to get him out of office by all sorts of fabricated accusations for years now. But he's a tough one. Toronto is actually much better off since he took office, lots of improvements in services quality and safety, too.

"But they said the case had stalled because victims were too traumatised to give evidence about what they had been through."

I think this sentence is enough of a clue as to the state of these girls. An extra word in a quite somewhere doesn't say much, this however does.

Dog is completely right here. This doesn't amount to much, no matter how much some Japanese would like to see it as a rapprochement. Russia will never be an enemy to China, there's too long a history of friendship and cooperation (border conflicts notwithstanding). Besides, these two do not have anything to argue about. China needs Russian oil, Russia needs Chinese cheap goods. The Pacific is not as such a sphere of Russian interests as long as it's not in enemy hands. If China is friendly to Russia, Russians will stay out of Pacific disputes. Simple as that.

"Russia using the term hooliganism? I guess the country is familiar with the phenomenon."

Considering how the term doesn't originate in Russia to begin with.. and the hooligans all being "civilized" europeans..

Makes you think.

@ Dutchduck

"And any Russian national should be deeply ashamed of their governments's reaction to this incident, remember Russian children were abused by a drunk adult."

This coming from a nation where they have a legal party promoting paedophilia? Really? So I guess if you are sober, and Dutch, it must be ok. Got it.

@ Dave Brouwer

This attack wasn't official. Too bad. They should have planted some drugs in the diplomat's home and made it look like a drug-related incident. Just that Russian citizens often act on these things even quicker than the officials.

"Yeah, let's punish cops that arrest child abusers! "

Proof? Other than frothing at the mouth? None. Case closed pending further evidence.