zootmoney comments

Japan operates in a way that only benefits 3 groups

All countries have economic systems that intrinsically better benefit those at the top of the pyramid. Just take a look at the amount of poverty in the richest country in the world. (Which has robust population growth by the way)

at the expense of the apathetic taxpayer.

And every country in the world is full of "apathetic taxpayers" who nearly all moan about paying taxes. What do you suggest they do, apart from self-immolate? As for Japan's demographic problems, let's hope that out of adversity are born solutions. The Japanese can be a very inventive people at times.

That means Sky Perfect's EPL viewers will have to watch every Leicester game in place of one of the top 5 teams.

Could have been used as a fun "find the mistake in the picture" game for the 6-year-olds.

This synthetic opiate is often used as a recreational drug (similar effects and addictiveness as heroin) in the US, so she has mailed herself a class A narcotic drug to Japan, obviously knowing she could well get caught with it when going through Japanese customs. That action would appear to be indicative of not having a prescription and therefore there is the possibility that it was being used as a recreational drug. No wonder she was arrested.

Using the excuse of "stress" for any crime is pathetic. If any authority gives such an excuse any credence, it is even more pathetic. And if I were the father of these girls, I would like to give this creep something to really stress him out.

Sounds like a Dexter type. I sincerely hope he's not living in my neighborhood because who can be really sure he won't feel the need once more to "desperately want to see people die", and crave again the "thrill" he had to commit brutal murders?

And tax payers from those countries having to foot the bill

She'll definitely get a bill from the coast guard. I suppose she lost her boat, too. All in all, an expensive little trip. Reminds me when I was a kid and we could rent a rowing boat on the local lake for 30 minutes, after which we'd hear, "Come on in, number 7. Your time is up."

if he has already confessed to the crime, how can he still be "suspected" of it?

Not every person who confesses to a crime is actually the perpetrator.

An own goal...or was it? Will Abe now have an excuse to say the constitution itself needs to be changed?

@smithincuckooland

zootmoney: "It's been a long time since Apple "raised the bar" with any of their products."

Yeah... only invented the smartphone, gave meaning to tablets, and revolutionized the mp4 music device field.

IBM invented the smartphone, next came Hewlett Packard, then Nokia, then Qualcomm, then Ericsson (the first device actually marketed as a "smartphone", then Kyocera made by Palm, then of course, Blackberry. Apple came along in 2007. Apple's copy of the tablet did indeed invigorate the tablet market, but that was in 2010. So, as I said, it's been a long time since Apple raised the bar with anything (except excellent planned-obsolescence marketing and ever-increasing profit margins).

You still using your old mini-disc player or something and upset? (sic)

No, I'm still using my ipad mini 2 and "upset".

@lost

And what Apple haters have to do with somebody else's money? (sic)

The annoying thing is many millions are influenced by the huge media hype that accompanies anything Apple puts on to the market. Those sales have swelled Apple's bank account into the billions. They just stash their indecent profits. If other companies had the same huge media coverage, it would give those companies more of a chance for some of those billions to be spent on research and increase their pace of development, instead of the pace of technical development being stymied by Apple to fit in with their planned obsolescence (the iphone 6s and iphone7 has been planned even before the iphone 6 was released, in the same way as all the previous models of this phone).

From the cnet review of the Apple watch: "Battery barely lasts a day and recharge time is slow; most models and configurations cost more than they should; requires an iPhone 5 or later to work; interface can be confusing; sometimes slow to communicate with a paired iPhone......first-gen shortfalls make it feel more like a fashionable toy than a necessary tool."

It's been a long time since Apple "raised the bar" with any of their products.

Some young complain about Japan, but what they are doing for their country? Basically nothing.

Really? How many is "some"? I think it's kind of natural for all young people, no matter what their nationality, to complain a little. "What are they doing for their country?" What are any young people anywhere "doing for their country"? Studying? Working? What do you want? Conscription, probably! And the number of young Japanese living and working in America or Europe is a very, very small percentage of the population. As with most nationalists, you appear a little deluded. Any dreams of the future those pilots had were wiped out by the cruelty of the Japanese High Command. The brother of one of the "tokko" was correct......they were victims of similarly deluded and failed nationalists.

Abe’s ruling coalition controls two-thirds of the lower house

Komeito will never agree to fundamentally change article 9

It's only a matter of time before one of these things crashes on to someone's head or car etc.,etc.

There are currently no legal restrictions on the use of drones.

Got a feeling there soon will be.

They are just saying that the general populace should have a choice on what agricultural products they can buy.

Most Japanese individuals will no doubt carry on buying Japanese rice, but the Japanese food industry won't. America and Australia can both grow (on a very large scale if necessary) Japanese-style short-grain rice, indistinguishable from the Japanese grown variety. Restaurants and instant rice makers will be big buyers, leading to undoubted loss of sales for Japanese farmers. Of course, many Japanese fear this will lead to their country becoming even less self-sufficient and creating an even more desolate countryside as such small-scale rice growers cannot hope to compete with those huge farming conglomerates.

That's why I nearly always shop COSTCO- more bang for your buck.

That bang has turned to a mere pop. Less than 18 months ago a 3lb bag of almonds was about 1,200 yen; now, the price is nearing 2,000 yen. Their wholegrain bread was 599 yen, now 699 yen. The prices of their cheese and other dairy products have risen by over 50% in the last year. Of course, most of costco's products are imported and prices have risen in line with the weak yen. On top of that, you also have to consider the rip-off 4,320 yen yearly "membership" fee. People don't shop at costco for the reasonable prices any more; they shop for the availability of products not usually found in Japanese supermarkets.

It's been a very long post-war period in these parts.

@kazuaki shimozaki

So, the sentence was placed at around the last points where [i]if he chooses[/i] he still has something approaching a fair chance to rehabiliate, rather than resorting to crime or going for government handouts.

Amazing insight into the Japanese way of thinking. Rehabilitation! I supposed it never crossed your mind that someone who commits such a crime (and without remorse) is without doubt psychopathic and will always be considered a risk to reoffend in the same manner. Of course, with his identity kept a secret, the people around him will be oblivious to the danger they may be in. And how about closure for the victim's family? How would you feel if this had happened to your daughter? This sentence is further punishment for everyone connected to the poor girl. You may well be a troll, but it seems sometimes Japanese people struggle with working out consequences and the processes of critical thinking.

Home of the free?

Maybe the kid has been reading ホームレス中学生 (Homeless Junior High school student) a true story about a boy whose family split up and he ended up living in a local playground/park.

Let the smearfest begin. The American democrat-biased mainstream media will scour every microscopic part of this guys history to find anything they can use to discredit him

Lol! I'm afraid his own mouth discredits him, all the media have to do is report what he says! BTW, have you ever wondered why the "mainstream media" is "democrat-biased"?

We are not living in the 60s and 70s where gasoline was a buck! Geez, talk about incoherent argument.

According to a reliable inflation calculator, what cost $1 in 1965 would cost $7.41 in 2014. The present average gas price in the US is around $2.30 a gallon.

Hillary Clinton would like nothing more than a Cruz Republican nomination, but I think when the dust has settled, yet another Bush-family contender is an absolute shoo-in. Due to the changing demographics of US voters, a right-wing conservative has absolutely no chance of becoming POTUS and the Republican honchos know it. Cruz announced his campaign at an Evangelical university that denies Darwin’s theory of evolution and teaches that the world is only 6,000 years old. His father has let it be known that he believes the theory of evolution (and gay marriage!) is a communist plot. A presidential candidate cannot possibly survive those kinds of associations.

It's a poorly-located airport for the vast majority of people in the Kansai area, built by yakuza-controled construction companies, loads of scams and backhanders that the Osaka-fu taxpayers are still paying for. They should put it on ebay at a knock-down price.

http://www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=1181

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/1998/09/01/national/kansai-airport-chief-sentenced-for-taking-bribes/#.VQafo_yhy_g

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/02/19/national/bid-rigging-eyed-at-kansai-airport/#.VQah0Pyhy_g

http://www.inochi-life.net/archives_destination_kansai_airport2.html

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bid+rigging+suspected+in+Kansai+airport+projects.-a084261088

be ever so careful not to touch the chair of the person sat next to you in a ramen shop if he looks like this:

http://up.gc-img.net/post_img_web/2014/09/885d4e99c29baabc3d513965a5562a52_3276.jpeg

so many Japanese people have become so dissatisfied, that they too would like to kill or die, or get locked up.

Yes, so many. In a country of 126,000,000 people, the average murder rate is about 400 per year, not much more than Australia. In the US, the annual figure is around 15,000. BTW, I don't think this guy was "dissatisfied"; more like an angry, psychopathic yakuza.

Maybe TEPCO should get in touch with Professor Gibb at Sheffield University in the UK. And just maybe TEPCO should be enlisting more international help to deal with these problems. Could it be that there is something inherent in Japanese culture that prevents admitting being incapable of solving a situation and asking for help from "outsiders"? Everything to do with this company still seems to smack of negligence and inefficiency.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/research/impact/stories/fce/3

but kind of bummed that the all steel ones run into the 1,000's

There's a brand new pebble steel (compatible with both apple iOS and android) coming out soon that will be just under $300. And it's waterproof enough to use in the shower or when swimming.

the fact that, it has much more functionality than its rivals

"much more functionality"...are you sure?

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/09/the-apple-watch-compared-to-the-competition/