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Samurai Sanders posted:Wait, so one of them was passing out bazillions of taxpayer yen to family and friends and the other was giving supporters cheap paper fans, and they both get the same punishment? I don't think that Obuchi's money was taxpayer money, per se. The main issue was that by covering the costs of events she was essentially giving gifts to voters in her district which is akin to buying votes. As for Matsushima, I think she was/is on the cusp of having charges brought against her in court. Neither of them have been punished yet and have only resigned their ministerial positions (they're still MPs). Stringent posted:Did Abe just pick some real snowbirds, or is this kind of thing SOP and these ladies are getting called out? I really wonder about that, too. I guess the benefit to the opposition parties is that it keeps Abe from calling snap elections and using a new mandate to push through the 10% consumption tax, but I would think they would have sat on this until a more opportune time if the source of the info was them. I wonder if this isn't some intra-LDP inter-faction stuff.
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Oct 20, 2014 09:20
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Grouchio posted:Hopefully this causes Shinzo Abe to resign before the new year. Haha, not likely. I'd be pleased if it happened, though.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:44
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Silver linings:
This poll was never going to be anything but a LDP/Komeito victory, but there are a few positive signs. Maybe Shigeru Ishiba can beat out Abe for head of the LDP in the party presidental election next year and things can get really crazy.
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Dec 16, 2014 05:50
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CronoGamer posted:If Jordan had handed over the woman they wanted I'm quite sure that ISIS would've handed over Goto. Why would they want to sacrifice any opportunity at collecting future ransom just for a random Japanese journalist? Yeah, this is just going to be spun into "We need a 'real' armed forces". The interesting part will be whether the DPJ will (rightly) seize on the fact that'd lead to more Japanese nationals dying overseas and fight it tooth and nail, or if they'll cave and suffer the same fate as the socialists in the 90s.
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Feb 2, 2015 04:41
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ErIog posted:Them having no one to negotiate with ISIS was directly the fault of Abe, though. I'll buy that it's unlikely he would step down, but what's posted in the articles I linked is pretty damning. Not that I hold it against him, but Jake Adelstein has a raging hate-hard-on for Abe. You can pretty safely ignore his takes on stuff until you see other outlets picking up his narrative.
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Feb 2, 2015 05:02
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Zo posted:What you're describing is the みなし残業 system I mentioned in my post. I interviewed at about 12 companies recently and only 2 of them used it - tiny sample size and biased field (engineering/law) but there you go. I think it's because there's no overtime exempt positions like in the US so no one's purely salaried. みなし残業 is a way to get around that. That's what my position is. I'm lucky, though, as I'm the only person on my team in my office (so no bosses to look good for) and I pretty much never put in more than 8-9 hours a day.
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Feb 6, 2015 06:56
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Kenishi posted:He hasn't made as many xenophobic gaffes as Ishihara, I don't think. But Tamogami is very invested in the idea of militarizing Japan again. The wiki on him even mentions that in his book he is open to the idea of making Japan nuclear. So, maybe to the Japanese, he's his own brand of crazy. He's a full-on "World War II was a war of defense, Nanking never happened, nananananananana can't here you" pants-on-head right-wing warmongering imbecile. He's every bit as bad as Ishihara, imho, with the added bonus of not being ready to keel over at any moment from being old as dirt. The poo poo he says is so dumb and out there that Taro "My Family Fortune was Built on Slave Labor" Aso had to fire him.
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Feb 8, 2015 23:32
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mystes posted:NHK is now reporting that the votes against the Osaka Metropolis plan are confirmed to have the majority. Hashimoto had said that he would quit politics if this happened, so it will be interesting to see what happens.  All we need know is for Ishihara to kick the bucket and we'd be having the best week ever.
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May 17, 2015 15:29
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MediumWellDone posted:Could someone tell me the story behind Terry? Everytime he opens his mouth he sounds like a belligerent arse, but apparently he was part of a student uprising? テリー伊藤? Not sure about the particulars of his story, but he seems like your typical Japanese (or American) boomer: was all fiery and idealistic in the 60s and 70s, then got old and conservative.
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Aug 19, 2015 03:33
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Bro Dad posted:thats why they killed tom clancy It's Eco-Terrorists. Definitely Eco-Terrorists.
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Aug 25, 2015 02:21
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mystes posted:For some reason, even though Hashimoto is totally really getting out of politics like he promised, he's now starting a new political party. He's totally going to say people demanded he stay and back out of that promise to quit. Edit: Posting this on request 
Mr. Fix It fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 31, 2015 04:13
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ErIog posted:He's gonna be termed out in a few years, and these are all long term goals.
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Nov 13, 2015 10:21
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hadji murad posted:I've never seen anything more wrong and racist about everything in my life than this thread. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3693893&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 ?
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Dec 7, 2015 09:12
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Chomskyan posted:This isn't true on either count. The group which represents surviving comfort women would probably accept a settlement if it included legal responsibility. Japan doesn't want this because it would set a precedent where they might have to pay out damages to individuals from other countries like (horror of horrors) China. Also, as recently as 2012 a left-of-center party was in power in Japan, and seemed more willing to mend relations with China and Korea. Obviously things didn't work out then, but there have been a lot of left-wing protests recently and it wouldn't be terribly surprising if a coalition of opposition parties took the upper house in 2016. Abe's move to strike a deal with Korea is probably an attempt to resolve the issue before a more left-wing government makes a compromise that's "worse" (from a right-wing war-crime-denialist perspective).
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Jan 20, 2016 09:14
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Chomskyan posted:If you ask Japan's right-wing they'll say that legal responsibilty was resolved with the 1965 agreement. Ask the actual victims of Japanese war crimes and they'll say that no, the matter is not resolved, because that agreement was negotiated by a dictator without their consultation. That's all there is to it. This matter will not be resolved until Japan is willing to engage with its victims (or all the victims die of old age). I think the right would say that even if they did engage the victims, that politicians in South Korea would still use the past crimes to drum up anti-Japanese sentiment. And what about the Kono Statement? There are nutters that tried to get it nullified, but it wasn't, and it seems like a pretty direct acknowledgment and apology. It being apparently forgotten in Korea just gives the Japanese right ammunition when they claim the continues complaints are just political. It does give me great pain the lengths that the Japanese right is going to whitewash crimes against humanity committed during the war. However I think attempts by politicians in countries that were victimized to drum up anti-Japanese sentiment for political purposes just plays right into what Abe and his ilk want: an image of a Japan surrounded by enemies that needs a real military and a strong authoritarian government to protect itself. My heart bleeds for the real victims who have, if not legal, moral grounds to demand something of Japan and are just used as pawns by unscrupulous politicians.
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Jan 22, 2016 06:07
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Chomskyan posted:
Who's mouthing off? It's really not surprising at this point when the government says one thing while figures in the LDP say something else. Little bit of two-facedness, little bit of the LDP being a fractious pile of poo poo.
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Feb 25, 2016 03:00
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Chomskyan posted:Shinsuke Sugiyama, Japan’s "deputy foreign minister". In this case he was Japan's envoy to the UN. Lol, is it just me or is everyone in the government with "deputy" in their title a complete asshat? I think Abe's been careful this time around at not putting his friends and loyalists into top cabinet positions and is sticking them all in deputy rolls instead. Probably not that uncommon a move regardless of a leader's political bent, but the upside is that when ever one of these deputies opens their mouths I think we're getting an unfiltered view of what Abe-chan believes and thinks.
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Feb 25, 2016 03:41
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Only the Japanese name of the party changed. They are still the Democratic Party in English. 民進党 wouldn't be DIP even if they did translate it. It would be Democratic Progressive Party, like the Taiwanese party they ripped the name off of.
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Apr 2, 2016 14:27
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mystes posted:The official English name of the 民主党 was the "Democratic Party of Japan" (DPJ), so it did change: they dropped "of Japan" from the name, and the abbreviation is now just "DP". I stand corrected.
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Apr 2, 2016 14:45
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LDP and Komeito are well short of two thirds on their own, but if you add in MPs that are independent and support revision and MPs from parties that do, they are one vote shy of it. I think the media figures they can find a single defector or flip another independent.
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Jul 11, 2016 06:14
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Teikanmi posted:So why is no one talking about how obviously Abe and the LDP are going to keep extending term limits forever? Isn't this one of the first steps to dictatorship? I swear Mussolini, Hitler, et all did the same thing. There are no term limits in the constitution. The LDP is just changing its rules. If the only barrier to Japan becoming a dictatorship was a party's rules, then poo poo was hosed to begin with. Abe is an authoritarian and enough of the populace is okay with that so he stays in power. It's possible that he's seeking dictatorial power and just slowing turning up the heat so he can boil the frog without it noticing, but I just think he's a boring rear end in a top hat politician that just wants enough time to push re-militarization and maybe some weakening of personal protections in the constitution. I do believe that if the electorate decides it doesn't like part of that, he'll be out. It's also possible that enough of the electorate is okay with all that. I'm not going to accuse him of anything more than being a regressive rear end in a top hat until he actually starts loving with elections (fraud, ignoring results, cancelling them).
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Oct 31, 2016 06:06
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lol http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...reign-tourists/quote:Kozo Yamamoto, the regional revitalization minister, apologized Monday for his remark the previous day in which he called museum curators “the biggest cancer,” saying they are not doing enough to make foreign tourists understand the nation’s cultural assets. As a an aside, the failure of the opposition to take advantage of the LDP's high incidence of foot-in-mouth disease really goes accentuate how pathetic of an opposition it is.
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Apr 17, 2017 04:11
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icantfindaname posted:Seems like the opposite if anything, it's one of the top 5 or so things on the list of stuff that's been constantly sensationalized and obsessed over by media in both Japan and the West for the last like 30 years, and considering that Japan's suicide rate is not actually higher than most Euro countries except for old people who skew it higher, ... I get that hating on old people is the J-Goon hivemind consensus and all, but why would you exclude them from the suicide rate when comparing between countries? Isn't the elevated rate of suicide amongst the elderly remarkable on its own as well?
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Jun 8, 2017 06:12
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icantfindaname posted:It is, but the way karoshi is usually framed (THE JAPANESE HAVE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WORKING TO DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) is about people who are implicitly young working adults/maybe later middle aged, not retired olds. Vice journalists don't care about the plight of poor/homeless old people in Japan, which is where the exceptionally high suicide rate is Karoshi isn't suicide, though?
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Jun 8, 2017 07:42
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icantfindaname posted:I thought it was mostly a euphemism for suicides ruled as being caused by workplace conditions? The case from a few weeks/months ago was a woman working for Dentsu who committed suicide I'm not sure what the breakdown is, but karoshi includes folks just dropping dead from stroke or heart attacks while working. Acknowledging that suicides can be caused by overwork let alone calling them karoshi is a pretty recent thing I believe.
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Jun 8, 2017 08:19
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All my Heisei 31 calendars are officially WORTHLESS. THANKS ABE
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Jun 9, 2017 23:13
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punk rebel ecks posted:How hosed up is the Japanese criminal justice system? Is it true that they have a 99% prosecution rate? How do people stand by this? "Only guilty people get arrested and charged." It's self-fulfilling and self-sustaining really.
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Jun 12, 2017 01:01
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symphoniccacophony posted:I believe so, but only because MacArthur insisted this be written into the Japanese constitution after 1945, at least this was what my professor said in class many many years ago, because no sane human should have to read through the Japanese constitution. I was under the impression that MacArthur fought to save the position of Emperor (as opposed to turning Japan into a republic) because the Japanese people wouldn't be able to handle not having an emperor for probably very racist reasons. That's part of why he kept Hirohito from being tried for war crimes.
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Jun 14, 2017 05:13
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Gonna be Kishida while LDP is the top party. Figuring that Koike's new regional party does clean up in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, I have to imagine they springboard to some sort of national scale thing. 国民ファースト党? I think Koike's got an axe to grind with the LDP and for mainline LDPers the feeling is mutual, so I think reconciliation and merger is a long ways off at best. I think we could be seeing the beginning of a wave that wipes out the LDP. Though the thought of political parties getting replaced and destroyed makes me giddy so I'm probably wrong.
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Jun 30, 2017 03:57
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mystes posted:Argh. Renho had finally been giving me some hope for the DPJ. Scuttlebutt is that it's gonna be Edano vs. Maehara in the new party presidential election and if Edano wins the conservative wing is gonna gently caress off and do something with Koike.
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Aug 2, 2017 05:50
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punk rebel ecks posted:I mean even factoring that in it still seems strange. Even American adventure novels and what not have a fair share of twenty something or even thirty somethings as protagonists. 食レポ is 90% of TV, easily
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Aug 10, 2017 03:06
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LimburgLimbo posted:In the west most people would lie to say they've had sex though. All those 素人童貞 screwing up the stats
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Aug 11, 2017 21:29
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Racist landlords are definitely a thing, but credit card companies profiling foreigners is reasonable. Most foreigners are short-timers and the risks of lending to them outweigh the benefits. See also: foreigners running out on unpaid cellphone bills when they go home. Definitely a tiny minority ruining it for everyone else, but I understand the calculation that the credit card companies are making. Once you've established some credit, you can get as many cards and other credit as you want with minimal trouble. I recommend Rakuten as a good gateway card since they don't ask for immigration status. Probably helps to use a driver's license instead of residency cars too.
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Aug 27, 2017 14:05
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Kilroy posted:Funny story: I was a customer of NTT Docomo for nearly 14 years. When I moved back to the US and canceled my phone with them they charged me a ¥30,000 penalty for ending my contract early. Their rationale was that I had switched from the medium plan for minutes to the lower one, about 18 months earlier, so that counted as a new contract which I was breaking. (The contracts are for two years, but I think they are rolling and no matter what you're violating the terms of the agreement unless you cancel right at the end of the two years.) Never made a late payment, paid a shitload of money each month for unlimited data which is still like a novelty over there. Also, I wasn't on the hook for a phone or anything either, because I'd been using the same Nexus 4 for years, which I shipped from US. Lol and goondolences. I bet talk about "excellent Japanese customer service" triggers you to this day. Company (and government) policies that refuse to consider the plight of folks that might leave the country one day are definitely a thing here.
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Aug 27, 2017 21:59
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Grouchio posted:Setsumei shite kudasai. Maehara is from the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. The party is going to go from having minimal ideological differences from the LDP to having zero ideological differences from the LDP. They're going to run on being more modest and circumspect than the LDP and evaporate like a fart in the wind. The remnants will roll into Koike's national party (whenever that forms) and maybe some new center-left party.
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Sep 1, 2017 08:19
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Koike's got her national party now: 希望の党 or "Party of Hope". My instant reaction: good branding for a right-wing populist party that wants to be able to downplay how right-wing it is. That they avoided the obvious "Japan First Party" might be evidence of level of savvy that's been missing from the opposition parties since the LDP retook power. They could really do some damage. This all but ensures the destruction of the Democratic Party in my view. Edit: Oh, and Abe's gonna dissolve the House of Representatives at the beginning of the extraordinary Diet session he's calling on the 28th. Election will be October 22nd. Mr. Fix It fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Sep 25, 2017 |
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Sep 25, 2017 08:24
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https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6255519 The Democratic Party may not even make it to the election. Maehara, the guy just elected party leader, has said he will run as an independent. There were reports earlier he was meeting with Koike to negotiate cooperation between DP and the Party of Hope, so my guess is that he failed in his bid to get his party to go along with it and is quitting the party because of that.
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Sep 27, 2017 13:11
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shrike82 posted:sounds like Koike wasn't interested anyway Pardon me if I don't take her at her word. All the better to have that sound bite out there now that any agreement, along with the party that was the other half of it, is falling apart.
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Sep 27, 2017 13:40
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shrike82 posted:
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6255574 loving lol. TL;DR/CRML: both the bit about DP working with PoH and Maehara running as an independent are true, though it seems that Koike and PoH give up absolutely nothing in the "deal".
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Sep 28, 2017 04:14
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Badger of Basra posted:So what are liberal voters going to do? Vote for DP candidates that don't get Hope endorsements, vote for JCP, stay home
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Sep 28, 2017 13:06
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