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I live in Osaka and nominally follow the political scene here. This is a city that's cracked down on dancing in nightclubs (as "unlicensed dancing") because of an obscure, outdated law that started getting selectively enforced last year out of nowhere.Nine of Eight posted:The mood on US bases is pretty bad in Okinawa, the moving of the Marines base has been a contentious issue for the last few years and unless I missed something, still hasn't been resolved. Here's a link for some required reading about Toru Hashishita^H^H^H^H^Hmoto. Guy is an all-around horrible person. He got elected based on support from the poor suburbs.
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Jun 26, 2012 14:44
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Results are in, LDP/Komeito took 326 of the 480 seats, giving them the outright majority with no other coalition needed. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss! (unless the TV is lying to me and it's pure speculation)
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Dec 16, 2012 12:04
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Bloodnose posted:How much more does rice generally cost in Japan compared to other places at the supermarket? It's enormously expensive and people grumble about the cost since it's been steadily rising since I've been here, but they'll buy it because white rice is considered the main dish in every single Japanese meal that has it. Everything else is considered a side.
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Mar 15, 2013 09:08
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Reverend Cheddar posted:I think it's more to do with a wariness to stand out on the radical left at all, no matter who you are. Ultranationalists are notorious for poo poo-shaming anyone suggesting something left of center and they've been that way ever since... erm, forever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KROpdUkrM
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Oct 12, 2013 10:05
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The NHK board member refusing to pay the fee is just  Samurai Sanders posted:Though I suspect more slowly in Japan than other places, unless they have awakened to streaming internet video and I don't know it.
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Feb 28, 2014 12:00
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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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Apr 5, 2014 15:17
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Stringent posted:So your impression of the Japanese people is that the heretofore silent majority shares the same views as the zaitokukai or whatever? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxL383jN484 The head of Zaitokukai, Makoto Sakurai, and Osaka mayor Hashimoto got into a shouting match the other day. Notable is that Hashimoto, who I don't agree with 99% of the time, straight out says "we don't need your kind in this city" and calls Sakurai racist, to which Sakurai gets defensive.
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Oct 22, 2014 12:18
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Ultimately, as usual in Japanese politics, the olds sunk the measure. The margin of defeat was farily narrow (just over 10,000 votes) but the "for" rate was highest in young people and gradually became more opposed per 10-year gap, with a sharp turn at the high end of the curve. The over-70s opposed by over 60% and singlehandedly were the difference maker. This is going to raise a shitstorm on the national level, though, because aside from Ishin no To (Hashimoto's party) every single local political chapter opposed the measure, up to and including the LDP and the communists banding together, to the ire of Abe and his central government. e: found a chart to back up my statement, every age group but the over-70s was in favor 
Navaash fucked around with this message at 15:29 on May 18, 2015 |
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May 18, 2015 15:22
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LimburgLimbo posted:Target or primary concern makes it sound more like the act is specifically mean to curb the parties activities.
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Mar 23, 2016 09:42
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Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllp. The Upper House election was today and early reports are saying that the LDP crushed it, with Abe not only winning a majority for himself (so they can cast off the Komeito if need be) but also being very close to, if not over, the 2/3 line, which would give him a 2/3 majority in both houses, which would enable him to possibly amend the constitution. (Turnout was 0.5% lower than the last Diet election, which was already a historical low, and widely viewed as a cynical ploy by Abe to tighten his stranglehold on power.) For those not paying attention, this is the process in which Abe wishes to rewrite Article 9 to eliminate the "no aggressive military" clause and also rewrite the rest of it to enshrine  and other heinous poo poo into law. The Wikipedia section on it is a good primer.If he decides to go for the brass ring, the last bulwark against this all coming to pass is the Japanese people themselves, who have long opposed revising the constitution in general, especially A9.
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Jul 10, 2016 14:31
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NikkolasKing posted:So Icantfindaname did a good job of explaining the history of the LDP, and I'll be reading the linked book as soon as I have money, but what exactly did the Democratic Party do that ruined their chances for coming to power again in the near future? When it really boils down to it? They raised the consumption tax. The seeds were sown in 2010. This article gives a good summary about the situation. If Kan had kept his mouth shut, they wouldn't have lost the upper chamber. This became crucial in 2012 when Noda was PM. He staked his political life on pushing through the consumption tax increase to the point where he had to weather a no-confidence vote from his own party. However, the voting public was pissed off enough that they threw the DPJ right back out of power after a scant 3+ years - and as people struggle with even 8% (from 5%) now, when it's supposed to go to 10% soonish, nobody is forgetting who did this to them.
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May 27, 2017 00:10
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NikkolasKing posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmsBk70RrbE 1) Many houses and apartments still have at least one room with tatami flooring. Pets tend to gently caress that poo poo up fierce. And in really crowded areas, there's no practical way to let the pets run free. 2) Apartments don't really have insulated walls and so pet noises can carry, and dogs are the most annoying. (I have two stupidly cute cats in my apartment that is normally no-dogs-or-cats and that's because I "negotiated" by sending a message to my landlady via my broker that either she let us have cats or we would move immediately, and my apartment is a remodel with all hardwood floors and no tatami mats.) 3) Japan is cat country. Cats abound in traditional iconography, and the term 負け犬 (lit. "defeat dog") means "loser". Also the term 野犬 specifically exists to refer to wild dogs while all others are simply 野生.
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Jun 8, 2017 04:43
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Taro Aso as PM redux 
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Jun 30, 2017 00:57
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Bloodnose posted:drat. I tease Japan goons for their sometimes zealous insistence that everybody know "no really I really don't like anime!!!" But cheering on dozens of people burning to death because they work in a sector of the entertainment industry you don't appreciate is beyond what I ever could have imagined. I had to leave the goon LINE group months ago because (like Slack) there's no functionality to ignore people in chat groups and he (Stringent) was being a titanic rear end in a top hat to the point where I couldn't deal with it anymore. This is pretty par for the course for him and I'm glad he got his comeuppance for once. quote:What sort of statements has the government made about this? I assume both local and national officials have said something by now. Abe made a tweet about it and got instantly trolled because, well, it's Abe. I suspect though that it's going to be a while before everything is sorted out - they're trying to make sure the suspect doesn't die so they can get as much of the motive out of him before they inevitably neck him.
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Jul 19, 2019 11:16
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Tesseraction posted:Isn't there usually a pretty long lead time between conviction and appeals running out? I know not every case will be as long as Shoko's 23 years but I figure they'll have a good half a decade to question this piece of poo poo. Sure. Asahara was unusual in that they could never get him to talk right up to the end. This guy was pretty glib in copping to it while on fire, though, so they maybe won't wait too long.
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Jul 19, 2019 11:32
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stephenthinkpad posted:What manga do you send to the person who shot Abe? Easy.
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Aug 27, 2022 00:56
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captkirk posted:To my understanding stimulants like Adderall are completely prohibited. You do have non stimulant options for ADHD but, as someone on bupropion, they aren't as effective. Yeah. The amphetamine ban is over 70 years old at this point. Furthermore, Japan had an issue with speed being rampant in the 80s due to the yakuza and therefore doubled down. They allow a Ritalin variant called Concerta, but it's strictly controlled (you have to both hold a health insurance card in Japan and have a physician's referral to receive it, and a tourist isn't going to have the former). Japan's Narcotics Control Department is extremely clear that Adderall is prohibited so petitioning them in advance isn't going to get you anywhere. It does suggest Vyanse as an alternative, though.
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Sep 13, 2022 00:34
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Tesseraction posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Corporation It's more like KakaoTalk, which makes sense as LINE's parent company (Naver) is the same company that makes that. Also with a vastly superior sticker game. Funny you brought up WeChat, since LINE did get into trouble last year when it came out that some of their data was going through a Chinese server, which got egg on the government's face because right up until that point they had been using it to do checkins on people who had arrived in Japan and were under procedural quarantine. That ended quickly and forced LINE to stop using those servers, and I distinctly remember push updating being wonky for weeks and weeks afterwards, presumably due to domestic servers now having to process higher loads they weren't configured to handle. (It's basically back to normal now.)
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Nov 15, 2022 00:42
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The bars for the public getting fed enough to actually vote the LDP out of power are Kiichi Miyazawa, he whom HW Bush vomitted into the lap of, after he was ousted in a no-confidence vote and the subsequent election ended up being a referendum on government corruption; and Taro Aso, who sucked so bad that they lost overwhelmingly while he was still in the PM chair, and is still a malign influence on Japanese politics to this day (in addition to his innumerable gaffes, he's largely the reason the public only got the one ¥100,000 COVID stimulus check in 2020 and no further).
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Feb 15, 2023 10:18
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I mean - as Naoki Yoshida said recently when solicited for comment on the matter - they thought of them as just RPGs. RPGs developed in Japan. Dragon Quest was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima. Wizardry itself became more popular in Japan than its home country, so uh, I guess it's the Mister Donut/Lawson of RPGs  . Final Fantasy was a literal unlicensed AD&D1E product that only avoided legal action in the West because an unnamed QA employee flagged the Beholder as something that would get them sued by TSR.They certainly were more accessible to a general audience than computer RPGs, which stuffed in as much system cruft as their developers thought they could get away with (and being a tangible illustration of complexity != depth), but which were both niches in their respective markets.
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Mar 28, 2023 14:21
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Mr. Fix It posted:Aso is a conniving shithead and only ever became PM due to controlling a large faction in the LDP and power-brokering when the LDP's stock was down. LDP's stock is way down again and he probably sees a path to power that involves being at the locus of international relations between a Trumpist US and Japan. One would be remiss to not note that Aso was such a hated PM in Japan that he oversaw the LDP losing total control of the government for the first time since the end of WWII. The public already loathes Kishida enough as is for being perceived to be a bespectacled tax hiker, but Aso has consistently topped opinion polls for most hated politician in Japan for decades. Does he think people are suddenly going to love HIM, of all people, if he pulls a palace coup now???
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Apr 25, 2024 06:02
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