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Ganguro King posted:The whole "respects the rule of law" thing kind of gives me the impression that the Japanese government (much like the population as a whole) doesn't really care about whaling, and this ICJ ruling gives them an excuse to scale back the program without enraging the nationalists too much. What jab? Japan will not take the senkaku/diaoyu to the ICJ since their position is that "there is no dispute" and therefore nothing to bring to the ICJ. In fact if anything their attitude with china is jabbing themselves in the korea dispute (which they do want to bring to the ICJ). Anyway I ate some whale last night to celebrate the ruling, it was alright.
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# ? May 25, 2024 00:56 |
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China could force Japan to go to the ICJ if they would submit to the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction as Japan has, but I think it's clear that that would be a huge can of worms for China and will never happen. That's why I think it could be a jab. Edit: I guess the reasoning is slightly different, so I can see how the way I combined them in the sentence could be confusing. Ganguro King fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Apr 1, 2014 |
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Oh I see. Pretty weak jab if it were an attempt though, but I get your point. I also doubt they will actually stop whaling in the slightest but we'll see.
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Ganguro King posted:
As others have said, I think you're a little confused here; the Japanese are the ones who refuse to go to the ICJ with China (and, though they've occasionally tried to get Korea to go with them, it's a pretty bad idea which might undermine their claims over Senkaku). What they may be referring to, though, is China's dismissal of UNCLOS and respect of EEZs and territorial waters. While ultimately UNCLOS would get resolved at the ICJ too, I don't think that's what the Japanese are getting at (if this has anything to do with China at all), it's just a "we're not the ones violating an agreement we are signatories on, ahem" remark. Edit-- wait I just read your other more recent post. So I guess you're not that confused, but yeah, point stands, I think it's more UNCLOS-specific.
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Yeah, obviously I worded that poorly. And I don't think the statement necessarily has anything to do with China or Korea, it was just speculation in response to Wibbleman wondering if they might be boxing themselves in with the phrase "respect the rule of law."
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CronoGamer posted:the Japanese are the ones who refuse to go to the ICJ with China Do you have any sources on this? To my understanding China has never presented a petition to the court (or tried to get japan to agree to go), and most of the stuff in the press has been various politicians speculating on what they would do. Ie at no stage has China presented a case to MOFA or the ICJ to my understanding.
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LimburgLimbo posted:Rape certainly is under-reported but corpses are corpses and Japan has a low-rear end murder rate. Japan is safe as poo poo. And yet it has a super high suicide rate. And funnily enough it's a well known execution method for the Yakuza to go up to someone and flat out tell them they either jump of the building themselves or your family joins you. And the cops apparently LOVE to rule dead bodies as suicide/accident to close the case ASAP. Assuming anyone even finds the body, sense they don't exactly go looking very hard for missing people either. It's almost like it's quite possible that the whole "Japanese suicide" thing might be a bit of myth, and the stats for suicide get padded by what are actually murders. I would suggest reading Tokyo Vice if you want to get a first hand report from an English speaker who dealt with the Japanese justice system.
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I thought China wasn't willing to go to the ICJ over it because then they would be opening the door to having all their bullshit claims in the South China Sea arbitrated away from them the same way.
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anglachel posted:And yet it has a super high suicide rate. And funnily enough it's a well known execution method for the Yakuza to go up to someone and flat out tell them they either jump of the building themselves or your family joins you. Are you actually suggesting that some significant number of the reported suicides in Japan are murders? Even noted story-embellisher Jake Adelstein would say you're full of poo poo.
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Wibbleman posted:Do you have any sources on this? To my understanding China has never presented a petition to the court (or tried to get japan to agree to go), and most of the stuff in the press has been various politicians speculating on what they would do. Ie at no stage has China presented a case to MOFA or the ICJ to my understanding. You know what, I actually don't. I don't recall ever hearing about an official petition, just grumbling and an assertion by the Japanese that no dispute exists. Everything else has just been the "experts" chiming in, you're right.
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anglachel posted:I would suggest reading Tokyo Vice if you want to get a first hand report from an English speaker who dealt with the Japanese justice system. Nah dude it's even worse than that you should really read the novelization of Tokyo Drift it's got the truth about the Japanese underground.
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anglachel posted:And yet it has a super high suicide rate. And funnily enough it's a well known execution method for the Yakuza to go up to someone and flat out tell them they either jump of the building themselves or your family joins you. I don't even know what to say to this that other posters haven't already crucified you for. While I don't doubt that organized crime has some very interesting methods of execution you are taking away a load of rational intelligence away from the Japanese police. Especially since the Violence Group law was passed in the early 90s, police are basically watching yakuza members all the time. This is beyond the fact that yakuza's stock in trade has never centered around murder and what might be considered "actual violence", just the threat of it. Even in the bad old days of the postwar gang conflicts the police usually did not worry about yakuza clipping civilians because the yakuza knew if they let things get too out of control they would get smacked down. Which is exactly what happened. I have Tokyo Vice and the much better Tokyo Underground on my bookshelf behind me. I'd also recommend the autobiography of Miyazaki Manabu for reading along with Peter Hill's "The Japanese Mafia : Yakuza, Law, and the State". I'm not saying Tokyo Vice doesn't have any value, just that it should be taken in doses with other studies.
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Shinobo posted:I don't even know what to say to this that other posters haven't already crucified you for. Yeah it's much a practical money making form of organized crime than american style hood drive by shootings. Also another amusing story is due to the nature of Japanese business culture the yakuza get paid money to not run smear campaigns and public disruptions against big name companies. Don't pay the money, they get embarrassing things such as protesters crashing shareholder meetings accusing the company of embezzlement, rape and other random crimes.
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etalian posted:Don't pay the money, they get embarrassing things such as protesters crashing shareholder meetings accusing the company of embezzlement, rape and other random crimes. This probably shouldn't be so funny to me, but really? In Japan, people pay protection money to stop people from saying mean things about you. Not to stop people from beating you up or burning your building, but just to not say mean things in a public forum.
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Wittgen posted:This probably shouldn't be so funny to me, but really? In Japan, people pay protection money to stop people from saying mean things about you. Not to stop people from beating you up or burning your building, but just to not say mean things in a public forum. I know that sounds kind of weak, but it's actually way more insidious. If you put the hurt on someone, you put yourself in a class of criminal that is beyond the pale, which has the effect of making people not want to do business with you. Additionally, bodies and injuries get the cops involved and bloody bats are easy to find with today's crime solving techniques. On the other hand, what would an accusation of rape do? Destroy your reputation in the community, which has the effect of destroying your business. How would you ever get the evidence to prove that someone did it intentionally on someone's order? When it comes to invisible evidence the random whispered order of a shadowy figurehead that no one bothered to write down or record will always beat the bloody bat. The yakuza aren't organized and usually calm just because they're Japanese. They're that way because it is the most effective and profitable way to run a criminal empire.
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Wittgen posted:This probably shouldn't be so funny to me, but really? In Japan, people pay protection money to stop people from saying mean things about you. Not to stop people from beating you up or burning your building, but just to not say mean things in a public forum. It's more because the image/reputation of the company to the local community is a big deal in Japanese culture and therefore makes more sense to pay off the yakuza to avoid embarrassing incidents. Also in the past the owners of a company could have unlimited liability for company debts and other financial obligations meaning a embarrassing scandal could ruin the fortune of a big boss. The companies did respond such as requiring at least 50,000 yen in stock to attend the shareholder meetings but the yakuza found amusing ways around these countermeasures such as having a truck drive through town blasting wild made up stories about the target company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Dkaiya
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Just a reminder everyone: companies like Chiso Chemical used these techniques to intimidate and silence those complaining about things like Minamata Disease and Yokkaichi Asthma for a decade. The yakuza may not beat people up or cut their throats and pull their tongues through the hole but they are just as scummy and ruthless as any other underlegal entity. There is an interesting book sadly available only in Japanese called Yakuza to Genpatsu that basically tells the story of how local yakuza gangs were partially involved in the siting decision for Fukushima Daiichi while traditional national groups that run construction labor scams have been deeply involved in the cleanup. We're talking gathering literal homeless on the streets and sending them in to Fukushima with no training and ridiculously low pay involved. Motherfuckers are absolute zero style cold blooded.
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I probably didn't phrase that well. I can see how that would be effective and vile behavior. It's also just so drat Japanese that it made me chuckle. I feel like, in another country, random strangers shouting lies wouldn't hurt someone's business. There'd be a news story about it being a gang tactic for extortion and then most people would know that it was all lies and shouldn't be heeded. But in Japan, of course the balance between communication and image is so skewed that laughably brute force methods like that are really effective. This thread has taught me a lot of interesting things. Thanks for that, by the way.
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Man, I didn't know Chisso had the Yakuza beat up W. Eugene Smith, that's a travesty. I also didn't realize the Chisso president was the grandfather of Crown Princess Masako. Weird.
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Yelling is also an effective tactic in getting people to buy sweet potatoes too.
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Shinobo posted:Just a reminder everyone: companies like Chiso Chemical used these techniques to intimidate and silence those complaining about things like Minamata Disease and Yokkaichi Asthma for a decade. I'll be damned if I can find it again, but someone in the LAN thread found an ad on like Yahoo! Jobs or something back in 2011 looking for people to work for a subcontractor doing cleanup at Fukushima Daiichi. No experience required, 1000 yen an hour, sign me ... up? No doubt they were pocketing all the extra government handouts to workers as well since that was apparently a thing that was (is?) quite common. hadji murad posted:Yelling is also an effective tactic in getting people to buy sweet potatoes too. Or if your shop in Shibuya 109 is having a "time sale", apparently, because that entire building is straight deafening sometimes.
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Sheep posted:I'll be damned if I can find it again, but someone in the LAN thread found an ad on like Yahoo! Jobs or something back in 2011 looking for people to work for a subcontractor doing cleanup at Fukushima Daiichi. No experience required, 1000 yen an hour, sign me ... up? No doubt they were pocketing all the extra government handouts to workers as well since that was apparently a thing that was (is?) quite common. Wait, what? I know I heard the same thing back when Fukushima was still going on, that they were sending homeless and schoolchildren there to try and save the reactor. I called bullshit immediately because no one, not even the most corrupt company on the planet, would do that when the eyes of the world were on them. Nevermind that untrained personal would likely make it worse, so there is no incentive whatsoever to do it. You're telling me that it was actually right?
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Here are some links from my Instapaper account about it cause I'm on the train: Special Report: Japan's homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/30/us-fukushima-workers-idUSBRE9BT00520131230 Help wanted in Fukushima but low pay, high risks and gangsters http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201310250089
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Paper Mac posted:Man, I didn't know Chisso had the Yakuza beat up W. Eugene Smith, that's a travesty. I also didn't realize the Chisso president was the grandfather of Crown Princess Masako. Weird. While he is certainly involved in the case I would be wary of making a direct connection of responsibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisso#cite_note-kaplan-8 The wikipedia article reference is Kaplan's book "Yakuza". I just looked up the reference and it clearly is about President Shimoda and not Egashira. Having said that he WAS there for one of the court battles, so the question becomes a murkier one. Egashira was installed by the Japan Central Bank as a outside caretaker for Chisso since it was almost in insolvency in the mid 60s. So he didn't establish the factory that did the poisoning, nor was he the one that ordered the yakuza to beat the poo poo out of Smith. But he WAS present and involved in denying the victims of the disease their due course. He might not have any "legal" responsibility and was not even the main dude in charge of the industrial process that resulted in the pollution (that happened over a long period of time that preceeded the lengthy court battles), but he was partially responsible for their denial and fight. So you know, not a TOTAL scum bag but still sorta a scum bag. Shinobo fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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ArchangeI posted:Wait, what? I know I heard the same thing back when Fukushima was still going on, that they were sending homeless and schoolchildren there to try and save the reactor. I called bullshit immediately because no one, not even the most corrupt company on the planet, would do that when the eyes of the world were on them. Nevermind that untrained personal would likely make it worse, so there is no incentive whatsoever to do it. The school children thing is bullshit. It's not like they're rounding up these people in vans and forcing them. They just RECRUIT from the bottom of the barrel. And it isn't even TEPCO doing it directly. These are fourth tier contractors, or sub-sub-sub contractors if you will. There was a story a few weeks ago about the cleanup that described a bunch of guys trying to stem the flow of a radioactive water hose. They had no idea what to do and failed miserably. The stuff got everywhere. No training, low wages and accidents. It's just a real poo poo show no matter how you slice it.
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Shinobo posted:While he is certainly involved in the case I would be wary of making a direct connection of responsibility. Ah, I didn't mean to imply that the Smith beating was ordered by Egashira, those were just two things I was unaware of with respect to Chisso and the Minamata case. Thanks for the additional info, though.
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Yeah my gut feeling is that they offered the jobs to the homeless in Sanya or Nishinari; those are the slums that no one in Japan wants the world to know about (cause they're probably the only seriously dodgy areas in Japan). The poor souls probably chomped at the one bone they were thrown in life and didn't know what the gently caress.
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Fuckin' laffo at this:quote:2日正午から開かれた自民党・捕鯨議員連盟の会合。昼時ということもあり会合には食事が用意されていました。 Tell us we can't do our "traditional scientific whale research" every year? Let's have whale for lunch, guys!
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Well, Japanese retailers seem to have handled the increase by switching from after-tax to before-tax price listings.
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Arbite posted:Well, Japanese retailers seem to have handled the increase by switching from after-tax to before-tax price listings. This, this is annoying the hell out of me, more than the fact that things are a bit pricier. As well as the fact that I gotta start carrying around 1-yen coins cause now drat near everything ends in ¥1 or ¥6 ![]()
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i'd just assumed the entire reason for an 8% tax was so retailers could pocket 2% from a 5% price increase
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It really seems like my local grocery has raised the prices in addition to now showing the pretax amount (and a post tax which includes tenths of a yen... wtf?). Maybe they hoped the increase would get looked over with the fuzzy feeling of the new numbers.
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Japan almost universally displaying post tax prices that almost always ended in zero or five was one of the great little things about it as a country. The loss makes me sad. What's next? They institute America style tipping?
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On a good note Seiyu seems to have great prices on some imported beer.
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hadji murad posted:On a good note Seiyu seems to have great prices on some imported beer.
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Arbite posted:Well, Japanese retailers seem to have handled the increase by switching from after-tax to before-tax price listings. This used to be true historically - it certainly was 10 years ago, and the guides to Japan I saw warned you about it. I didn't actually notice when they switched to largely post-tax prices, but perhaps this is just a return to historical conditions?
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Arbite posted:Well, Japanese retailers seem to have handled the increase by switching from after-tax to before-tax price listings. (I may be misunderstanding this, though; I find the whole thing very confusing.)
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Abe: To support women entering the labor force, let's open the door to immigrants to do housework and such Well uh...er...okay, maybe? That's not what I really had in mind. Is it not even worth considering that husbands could help with housework? Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Samurai Sanders posted:Abe: To support women entering the labor force, let's open the door to immigrants to do housework and such This is Abe we're talking about.
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# ? May 25, 2024 00:56 |
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Japanese men work 18 hours a day, how are they supposed to have time for housework? drat baka gaijin, no understanding of culture etc etc
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