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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2020 8:17:05 GMT
Wata, do you have any comment on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's resignation? How do you think he fared as PM, and what do you think lies ahead? I'd love to hear your observations/opinions. I was honestly taken by surprise when PM Abe announced resignation, although there was a rumor of him doing so since he visited hospital earlier this month. Even the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga spoke to Bloomberg on the day before Abe's resignation that he would serve until the end of his term next year. As for his nearly eight year of term, in my opinion, he left a lot to be desired as a Prime Minister: his career was totally tarnished by seemingly endless scandals he was allegedly involved in, and it disappointed me how he seemed careless about preserving official documents and adhering to the Constitution. He wasn't able to get around to working on all the big political issues that he always said he would be tackling on, either. One of them was the return of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean government in 1970s-80s, and the amendment of Japanese Constitution was another. Constitutional amendment has been the biggest talking point among conservatives in the postwar Japan, especially because the current Constitution involves Article 9, which has put much limitation on what Self-Defense Force is allowed to do (and the reason the existence of SDF itself has been questioned by scholars and left-wing activists as unconstitutional). Although I think I'm rather left-leaning in Japanese political spectrum, I'm fundamentally in favor of amendments as long as it serves to protect our lives from external threats and our rights from unwarranted governmental oppression, but unfortunately, the draft amendment the Liberal Democratic Party proposed in 2012 (shortly before Abe's administration started) was a huge cause for worry regarding civil rights, i.e. the government would be able to ban any speech or gatherings that would "harm public interest and order". Besides, I couldn't help but have an impression that LDP lawmakers lack the basic understanding of how Constitution works - something you're supposed to learn in high school social studies class - for example, in this comic published by LDP to promote Constitutional amendment cited Darwin's evolution theory as the reason why we should amend Constitution. After all, I think PM Abe ruined the chance of amending Constitution by acknowledging that the Constitution grants the government the right to collective self-defense in 2014, which all previous administrations had negated, proving there was no urgent need to amend constitution. (This is such a complicated mess of an issue, so excuse me if my explanation is not sufficient.) And here's some observation on why he decided to quit: although Japan has done fairly well (in comparison with other big countries of the world) during the ongoing pandemic, his coronavirus policies were not very popular: reportedly there were a lot of defective ones among the cloth masks the government distributed earlier this year (whose size was not large enough in the first place), and he encouraged people to travel by subsidizing travelers last month, when the second wave was starting to kick in. As a result, the disapproval rate of his administration increase, reaching half of the population. Although I still think his health is the biggest reason he quit (as he said), but probably the receding supports he receives from people had something to do with his final decision. That being said, I have to give a shoutout to him for one thing: though his party had a great majority of both parliaments, he at least didn't seek outright authoritarian regime unlike Putin and Xi. And that's what I worry about my country's future. Once a competent and popular Prime Minister, who has authoritrian agenda in their mind, gains the majority of the parliaments, I don't think it would be all too hard for Japan to stoop to an authoritarian country where civil freedom is oppressed, especially when I see the worrisome news of people being vigilantes over coronavirus pandemic i.e. harassing coronavirus patients, vandalizing their houses and threatening businesses to close; in other words, I think we still have a hotbed to support authoritarian/totalitarian regime, and it's not to be taken for granted that our society has never really been thoroughly authoritarian in the past 75 years.
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Post by Kapitan on Aug 30, 2020 13:08:34 GMT
Thank you so much! This kind of first-person insight is a treasure to me.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 2, 2020 15:03:57 GMT
Sure is a coincidence that Putin's political opponents keep ending up sick or dead with a rare, Russian-developed poison in their systems. In what comes as a shock to precisely no one of any sense, Alexei Navalny has been found by German experts to have been poisoned with Novichok poison.
Some day decades from now, when the relevant participants are dead, there will be amazing histories written about the evil and corruption of Vladimir Putin. (There's actually a good bit about it already.)
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Post by B.E. on Sept 4, 2020 15:16:21 GMT
Sure is a coincidence that Putin's political opponents keep ending up sick or dead with a rare, Russian-developed poison in their systems. In what comes as a shock to precisely no one of any sense, Alexei Navalny has been found by German experts to have been poisoned with Novichok poison.
Some day decades from now, when the relevant participants are dead, there will be amazing histories written about the evil and corruption of Vladimir Putin. (There's actually a good bit about it already.)
I actually used this article as a conversation starter at a family dinner last night. What I found interesting is how inefficient their poison attacks have been (the ones we know about, and are listed in the article, at least). So much so, that I wonder if their aim is more to scare than kill (although, a coma is the next worst thing). But then you've got the 'door handle' UK attack which didn't kill the intended target(s) but a British woman who became exposed to the poison (gee, how could that have gone wrong?).
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 4, 2020 15:28:10 GMT
I think intimidation is ALWAYS a huge piece of political hits. Just having someone die is one thing; making it very, very clear to everyone else who might be thinking of opposing authority (while maintaining at least superficial deniability) is another.
Twenty years ago, I never would have predicted that Russia would have so thoroughly failed to capitalize on its opportunity to proceed into the free first world. In hindsight, I can see how and why it happened, and it's much more predictable. But back then, I guess I was caught up in the romance of the potential of a free and prosperous Russia.
It's also quite a good lesson: destroying something--even something bad--is no guarantee that what comes next is good, or even better. I take that lesson to heart as I watch the destruction of our political and societal norms, the calls for unrest and even violence. Careful what you wish for.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Sept 7, 2020 11:03:22 GMT
Novak Djokovic disqualified for hitting a ref with a tennis ball:
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 10, 2020 13:31:07 GMT
Minneapolis's sister city St. Paul is planning to launch a Universal Basic Income (UBI) pilot program. I have nowhere near the expertise that would be required to know whether UBI is a good idea or not, but I do see the problems that are leading to people like Andrew Yang to propose it. I'm really curious to follow this story as it develops.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 12, 2020 13:11:17 GMT
Delegates from the Taliban, from the Afghan government, and other non-government leaders have gathered in Doha, Qatar, to begin peace talks aimed at ending war that has not just been going on since the U.S. invaded after 9/11, but really since the Soviets invaded in 1979.
It seems like a monumental task to achieve peace after 40 years of killing--and the grudges, competing interests, opposing alliances, and dramatically different ideologies that led to or grew from that killing. But hopefully all parties recognize that the violence won't ever solve the problems and lead to any side obtaining a lasting peace. Hopefully they're just tired of it.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 14, 2020 14:58:28 GMT
Over the past few days, news broke that phosphine--a compound that generally occurs only by biological means (e.g., generated by life forms) or industrial processes--has been detected in Venus's atmosphere. This could be evidence of life on Venus, which is of course amazing!
Here is a fun little article that runs through some of what this could mean, or how things got to be that way.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 17, 2020 17:20:17 GMT
Well, two things can be true at once. It turns out, it's the apartments and condos in those new, often luxury buildings in the center cities and inner-ring suburbs that have the vacancies and are offering discounts (not in lower rent, especially to existing renters, but in one-time deals to sign leases). There is still a shortage among low- and middle-income housing options, especially in the cities ... which is, of course, where people want to live and work.
While I'm no real estate genius, I often wondered just how many upper-income people we had looking for apartments in this town that we could build and build downtown, in Uptown, in Northeast, along the light-rail corridors, etc. (Meanwhile I have a brother who rents a one-bedroom apartment with a rent that's comparable to the mortgage on my house.)
The answer is, not as many as those developers dreamed about, apparently.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 21, 2020 16:58:23 GMT
Archaeologists have unearthed more than two dozen previously unknown, still unopened coffins near the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, Egypt. This is just the preliminary announcement, with details expected in the coming months (and probably years). The site is known to host materials ranging from a broad span of time: as early as the 1st Dynasty (nearly 3000 BC) to the Coptic period (roughly 400-650 AD).
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Sept 26, 2020 14:24:16 GMT
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 29, 2020 14:42:54 GMT
A company that spun off an MIT-led effort say they could create a nuclear fusion reactor within a few years and use it to generate clean, safer electricity within the next decade, per NYT. Obviously it's far from a sure thing, and many people still have very serious reservations about any nuclear power. But fusion is considered a safer option than the current fission and a cleaner option than other fuel sources. www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-reactor.html
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 3, 2020 15:31:32 GMT
Archaeologists have unearthed more than two dozen previously unknown, still unopened coffins near the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, Egypt. This is just the preliminary announcement, with details expected in the coming months (and probably years). The site is known to host materials ranging from a broad span of time: as early as the 1st Dynasty (nearly 3000 BC) to the Coptic period (roughly 400-650 AD).
Update! There are at least 59 coffins!
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 26, 2020 17:44:58 GMT
Scientists have confirmed the existence of water (in the form of ice) in craters on the moon that never receive sufficient sunlight to melt or evaporate. Amazing that in our decades-long search of the skies for extraterrestrial water, it is right there under our noses.
It's also a pathetic commentary on our media that the story is practically buried in places like the NYT, which has dozens of mostly divisive cultural-political stories and columns above this groundbreaking scientific finding. They'd rather fan the flames of division for profit than celebrate remarkable achievements of humanity (and increases in our knowledge).
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