Luis David Yanez comments

The apologism against a 1st degree cold blooded murder makes me sick.

Not because you didn't liked Abe, or even in an extreme scenario where you think Abe is directly responsible for the death of someone, that DOESN'T justify murder.

But in this insane world we live now, somehow killing disliked politicians is an OK for some people, which tbh is scarry.

The precedent of just allowing killings of people who are "bad" or "problematic" to society has never led to good outcomes, but people do never learn from history.

Yet another anti amyloid beta drug, so I don't expect it to do much.

The Japan's political establishment has a personal vendetta against Mr. Yamagata. (sic)

The way some of you talk about Yamagami, if you didn't knew he was a murderer, would give the impression that he did some minor misdemeanor and he is being unjustly treated for political reasons.

The apologism many are showing to justify a cold blood murderer is just sickening, and a sad reflection of how radical politics have gotten.

It really doesn't matter how much you dislike Abe, or how much he could have been a bad politician, it doesn't change the fact that he was murdered in cold blood and that fact must not be forgotten nor forgiven.

Yamagata must face the full force of the law, even if he killed someone you disliked.

Disliking someone, or blaming that person for whatever happened in your life, even if that happens to be true, doesn't give you the right to go and kill that person.

New study shows that obsessing over a mild respiratory virus for which you are already vaccinated and boosted for 3+ years is bad for your mental health.

I believe Yanagumi deserves a fair trail.

Like any other person.

It's pretty obvious what he did. He also admitted to it early, so I think the trial will be pretty straight forward tbh.

What gives me the creeps is how some people are almost wishing this guy gets away with murder.

Japan seems more and more isolated, broken and unable to fix itself.

Each time there is some crisis in the country, the country just remains broken, with rushed actions that just make things worse.

The bubble left the country with Zombie companies, that continue to get funds from the government, even though they have been non profitable for decades.

The Fukushima Disaster left nuclear power and energy policy in the country in a limbo, not really getting rid of it, but not bringing it back at all, with no real direction where energy policy will go, and just paying for plants for more than a decade that are just not being used at all.

The measures for the covid pandemic destroyed the country's booming tourism industry and left the country with crippling anxiety. Kids in junior high or senor high are about to graduate without ever knowing the faces of their teachers or fellow students. Now they feel embarrassed about removing their masks, and everywhere you go, even alone in the woods, people continue to wear masks.

Revenue of the central government is in an all-time high, but somehow money isn't enough, rising taxes with an stagnated income per capita means that the quality of life in Japan continues to go down every year.

If anything, I think Yamagami has shown how terrorism does work.

I mean, he committed a violent act, killing a person to destroy an organization, and he kind of did.

More people seem to care now so much about the Unification Church, even when before the Abe assassination there were already people talking about it, but no one cared at the time.

This guy will probably be glorified by some, which is just a reflection of how broken today's world is.

Unlike Japan, most people outside Japan have not got a booster shoot (not to mention that Japan has become the ONLY country in the world that is asking for booster shots for entering a country), which means that most people will need a PCR test to enter Japan, which has become more and more difficult for most of the world, with most free PCR test centers getting closed, places that do PCR test becoming more and more rare, with high costs, not always being able to get the tests on time, and also there is always the risk of testing positive before your travel.

Also there continue to be problems with airlines not being 100% sure of how the whole rules work (for example, there have been problems with the Airline not understanding that Visit Japan Web or the QR code you get from is ONLY for fast track, but they are not mandatory according to Japan).

I think these problems are one of the big roadblocks for Japan to get Visitors back, as it is seen as too much of a hassle and a risk to just go for a vacations in Japan.

Not to mention that in reality this is all for show, if you have got into Japan recently, you will know that they do not even check the QR code, they just let you pass if you show you have a QR code.

I don't see the same visitor numbers coming back to Japan until they remove all extra entry requirements, not even if Chinese people were able to come back again to Japan.

You mean the one were a crazy kid going insane in the bike hits you and then tries to flee with virtually no consequences at all?

It is pretty funny that if you are in a bicycle you can go as fast as your mucles allow you to without any real restrictions, even in the sidewalk, and depending on your strength and the terrain (for example, going downhill) you could surpass 40Km/h.

But if you try to use anything with an electric motor on it, even if that thing can do more than 15km/h, you need to get a gentsuki license, get number plates, get a back mirror and directional lights, and even if you could, you cannot legally go over 30Km/h... for that you need probably a full bike license.

They should turn off the lights of people who are against nuclear power since they have been partially responsible not only for the constantly rising costs of electricity since 2011, but also for the Hokkaido Blackout, and the current energy crisis in Japan.

Extremely skeptical, especially because just a few months ago there was a bombshell article from Science magazine ( https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease ) that exposed what seems to be fabrication and falsification by researches on what had become the main theory behind what causes alzheimer's disease (The amyloid theory), which this drug is trying to attack as many other drugs did since this theory was published, and drug after drug that tried to tackle this main problem didn't actually solved alzheimer's disease or even slowed it.

While Japan is completely outdated in its practices, moving at its normal pace of been 20+ years behind other countries, this would appear to be a correct reading of the law.

It isn't.

This article isn't in the constitution with the purpose of restricting marriage to heterosexual couples, but to ensure that both sexes have the same standing and rights within marriage.

The article from the constitution's draft by GHQ has more text and explains with detail what they meant:

"The family is the basis of human society and its traditions for good or evil permeate the nation. Hence marriage and the family are protected by law, and it is hereby ordained that they shall rest upon the undisputed legal and social equality of both sexes, upon mutual consent instead of parental coercion, and upon cooperation instead of male domination. Laws contrary to these principles shall be abolished and replaced by others viewing choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes"

The kind of reading these anti-gay marriage people are doing of the constitution has absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of the article.

I've always found fascinating how much the Shibuya ward doesn't seem to have an idea of what to do to avoid chaos when people do what people do.

It's hilarious how they seem to prefer to block the way to everyone to avoid "chaos"... basically creating chaos to avoid it, instead of just understanding this is going to happen, and try to take control by investing that same money and effort in having a more controlled celebration without just banning things.

Legalize marijuana edibles.

Pretty cool to see completely unrelated comments to the subject rarely getting removed as "Off-topic", except when the moderators dislike the content of the comments, even if they are really not "Off-topic."

Japanese people in general are not that religious in a formal religious sense, but they are extremely superstitious.

That superstition can be religious in nature, believing a little bit in spirits, ghosts and sometimes gods, but it is usually more common the lower type of superstition, like believing in the power of words, good luck, bad luck, and that kind of stuff.

That's why people who are really not religious still go to the temples to get good luck for whatever they want in their lives, and people liking things like tanabata, in order to get something they want just by wishing for it, which is actually a pretty universal type of superstition, which has been painted by the brush of tradition.

It will be interesting to see what ends up being protected, and what is not.

Let's see what the Japanese court system considers harassment, which somehow makes me wonder if this is really to protect some random Suzuki Taro that was harassed because of his sexual orientation, or to protect some LDP politician from criticism, and silence criticism, getting that criticism labeled as harassment.

I mean, I know that politicians try all the time to sue newspapers and TV programs because of, "slander" when they talk about some scandal.

This is one of the most ridiculous excuses I've seen to try to reduce costs.

Those cheapso chopsticks are way cheaper than plastic forks, and if they really cared about "the environment" they would just change their forks to wooden ones, but that would cost even more money, so as many corporations do nowadays, they claim that measures they take that are just to reduce costs and also lower the customer experience are for (insert progresive cause here).

Just because of this, even though I usually don't care what I'm given, I'm going to tell them always to bring me a fork.

What measures being implemented that go against the scientific consensus?

Science has nothing to do with policy, that is the realm of politics, that was the whole point.

Science can tell you facts about the world, what you do with that, how you react is in the realm of politics and social sciences.

Science will not give you the answer to any of these questions, and people who pretend science do, they are nothing but charlatans.

what contradictions between them are you talking about?

Never talked about contradictions, so don't put words in my mouth.

But for example, current politics around energy, which as nowadays always prefaced by talks about climate change, somehow have a lot of trouble considering things like nuclear power, and many times they even bring things that really do not help at all with climate change, like biomass fuels, but they get painted with the same "green" slogan.

Also, there is a lot of talk about solar, but then very little discussion about the fact that solar requires battery cell farms in order to be usable during the night, and those things have their own environmental problems.

Things like "carbon credits" and the like, which are nothing less than modern time indulgencies and for the most part just scams that get promoted as ways to "help climate change", and they are pushed by governments.

scientists have good understanding of science

Yeah, that's not my point. A population that continues to get more and more illiterate in things of science, when the government more and more tries to justify their actions with science, in a democracy, it is a recipe for disaster, because in the end no one knows if what the government is saying is actual science or just things they made up.

That's why I made the comparisons with theocracies, because even en theocracies, in times when no one could read the bible and knew nothing about their own religion, kings and the clergy would just make up stuff to justify their actions, and there was almost no one who could call them out.

If we were talking only about the current known data and evidence, I mostly agree, but if we talk about how the media portraits this, and how politicians try to implement policy based in heavily hysteric portraits of the current situation and what their policies are supposedly going to do, then I would mostly disagree.

That's the problem there is always with this mixing of politics with science, because sadly most people are completely scientific illiterate, do not understand what science actually is, and politicians have taken the science flag as a new way to just push for their already pre-conceived ideas with this almost dogmatic "science says we should do this" approach, which is very similar to how back in the day when it wasn't science but religion what most people trusted in, how the governments talked about "this is what god wants" or "god says" to justify their policies.

The mix of politics and science will continue to be toxic and bad for science and politics unless most people have a good enough understanding of basic science... which sadly is probably never going to happen.

Thinking that the determination of risk comes from one single source is something that should be obviously invalid.

Never said that

Thinking that the determination of risk comes from one single source is something that should be obviously invalid.

There really haven't been. There have been a couple of preprints that claim this, but the data they use is usually not that robust, and many of them, like the one you presented, were done before we actually knew exactly how the health signal worked, and we had actual numbers of the rate of incidence.

The study you gave didn't actually compared the vaccination and infection with similar groups, it basically calculated the risk of myocarditis from some cohort they created, and compared it with "existing reports", and the reports they are talking about, are early reports back in July of 2021.

So no, you cannot compare a small preprint from back in 2021, before we knew what we know about myocarditis for mRNA vaccines, that doesn't even do the do diligence of having similar groups of vaccinated vs infected patients, with a very big study published in Nature magazine in 2022 that actually tries to answer this question by comparing actual groups together, and not just "reports".

Myocardial problems are a well characterized complication of covid, specially on children, and described as having a much higher incidence than any report on vaccines

It is not, since complications in children from a SARS-CoV-2 infection are actually pretty rare.

Not to mention that the report you posted was about older adults, not children or young adults.

risk of cardiac problems without the vaccines which is much higher, unless you can prove children are not at risk of infection

What are you even talking about? Are you trying to imply that if someone gets infected, even if they are asymptomatic, they are at the same risk of developing myocarditis than people who get a serious infection? Because that's just not supported by any data.

Once again, this question has already been researched, and the answer is, the very low risk of vaccination with mRNA vaccine, SPECIALLY Moderna shot 2, is higher than the also very low incidence of myocarditis in children.

I don't even understand why people like you want to fight that. I mean, lets asume that somehow, even though the data doesn't support this, that you are right, and children not vaccinated are at a higher risk of myocarditis than those vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine, it is still irrelevant, because I'm not suggesting that those children shouldn't get vaccinated at all, I'm saying that they should get a vaccine that doesn't have that risk at all, so I'm actually trying to eliminate completely the risk of myocarditis, WITH vaccination.

But that's the thing here, you are fighting an strawman of an argument I'm not even doing. In the end, it is better to have interventions that have the lesser risk, I don't understand why saying that get some people so defensive.

When you have the scientific and medical consensus about something it is because they are doing their jobs, you are not refuting what some nameless person on the internet is saying but what many well recognized and respected institutions of the world openly promote

Dude, you always talk as if you are talking consensus, and you almost always fail to show that is actually the consensus of anything. I mean, you are claiming that the consensus is that the risk of myocarditis is lower for young adults who get an mRNA vaccine, than those who get infected.

It is not, and that's why some countries in Europe have actually restricted the use of mRNA vaccines, specially moderna, for young males.

The consensus right now on the matter is more on the lines of "it is a very small risk, so it doesn't matter". I mostly agree with it, but I do think that lowering an unnecessary risk makes more sense than just keeping it because "it is low".

Hearsay does not prove this is in any way a common problem.

Nope, it doesn't, and I wasn't trying to prove that it was a common problem, but that it is an actual problem, even if it is uncommon, but you are too focused in winning some absurd and heuristic argument. Once again, what exactly is the benefit of insulting and treating people as the pest because they have medical concerns?

Why are you even trying to fight that point?

My only guess, and this, once again, I have no evidence of it because it is my personal opinion, which most of your comments also are, even when you claim you represent "the consensus", is that you like people getting insulted if they say something you find ridiculous, dumb, or whatever you think gives you the right to insult others.

Elevated compared with a world without covid (or when comparing between vaccines) yes, but not compared with not vaccinating.

That's actually incorrect. That idea that the incidence of Myocarditis is higher with covid than with vaccines is a misinterpretation of a Nature paper that wasn't stratified by age, but the idea spread as gospel in the net.

https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myocarditis-stratified

The risk of young men developing myocarditis from mRNA vaccines compared with getting covid 19 is way higher.

The cases are not serious when compared with those presented by unvaccinated people because of contracting covid

Once again, you are comparing apples with oranges. We are talking about people at the least risk of developing any problems because of covid. If you are at risk, then yes, it would make all of the sense in the world, so it is a case by case thing, not a one size fit all policy which have been extremely popular in the covid-19 policy groups.

So demonstrate this is common for people that choose one vaccine over another, because that is what you are quoting in your response.

Funny that the guy who never gives any sources for anything he says, always saying thing like "experts say" asks for sources of attitudes of people, which is way more difficult and abstract to quantify.

Me, my parents, and many friends have been called antivaxx at some point for something that has absolutely nothing to do with being antivaxx. In the case of my parents, their doctor told them they were antivaxx that for showing concerns over being a new vaccine, they actually got very mad about that, and then refused to take any vaccine for a long time because they couldn't trust someone who would told them they were basically make fun of them for having concerns.

It has been a pain in the ass trying to change their mind.

Anti Vaxxers…sorry, tough luck.

Small children that cannot get booster shoots, I guess they are antivaxxers as well. Tough luck for their intentions of a family trip.

Just print out their pdf, fill it out and send a picture of it. You don't need a signature anymore.

Problem with that is that some airlines go beyond just what the government is asking, so it isn't really a safe choice to do that, because some airlines will ask you to show them the actual signed result of the test.

Not to mention that if the Japanese government gets the fact that you are making false statements, you can get in legal trouble.

Interesting. Mexico is on the blue list, what makes you think that Mexico's vaccine certificates won't be valid? Japan accepts a wide range of vaccines, what did your folks get?

About the source of the vaccine certificate, it is because the Japanese government had a list of limited places from where the certificates were accepted ( https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/100244504.pdf ).

This list was latter replaced with a list of vaccines they allow ( https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/covid19/certificate_to_Japan.pdf ), which are Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Janssen, COVAXIN and Novavax.

Most of the vaccines given in Mexico (you cannot choose) are Sinovac and Sputnik V.

People would be antivaxxers if they misrepresented that risk as anything different from what is has been proved, a tiny fraction of the risk that comes from not being vaccinated.

No one has said it isn't a small fraction, and that it isn't rare. In fact, that is part of the risk valuation that people need to take into account. What I'm talking about is that people do not want to even acknowledge that there is actually an elevated Myocarditis risk, especially for young men.

Also, it has been very upsetting seeing some of these public health people trying to brush away Myocarditis as "nothing really serious", even when most of these cases end up in the hospital.

There is no age segment where this is true, the risk is much higher for all ages from COVID than from the vaccines, and by several orders of magnitude.

I don't know how you can say this for young men, which have one of the lowest risk of bad covid-19 outcomes, tbh, specially when there are safer alternatives that would completely eliminate any myocarditis and pericarditis risk these young populations have.

Opting between vaccines is too obviously not a reason being used to call people antivaxxers, irrationally exposing yourself and others to unjustified higher risk by rejecting all and every vaccine is.

Aggressive and dismissive responses to people with real concerns, calling them antivaxxers for not wanting to put themselves to the, even if very small, risk of myocarditis, is what really push people into transforming into antivaxxers.

It should be the job of public health to understand that people have different risk assessments and priorities, and try to reach a compromise that is better for their health, but with covid-19 related stuff, these people get the bottom of the stick and are treated beyond poorly.

Who do you want to benefit the most then?

Non-residents. I mean, most of the people who entered Japan before 2020 were non-residents, temporary visitors.

Most of them cannot even come, and those who can, have to follow these ridiculous guidelines.

For example, my parents are from Mexico, and I'm trying to get them into Japan. Even being vaccinated, because of the vaccines they give in Mexico, and the fact that Mexico's vaccine certificates are not allowed, this rule will not apply at all to them just for living in the wrong country.

These measures were supposedly put in place for "health reasons", but have just become plain immigration restrictions with more to do with the country of origin than with actual health.

The fact that Japan right now has one of the largest number of infected people, yet pretends to be so worried about covid getting into the country, specially from foreigners, and they put so many restrictions to foreigners just for being foreigners tells the whole story.

If you don't have an specific contraindication against the vaccine get it, it can be proved objectively to reduce the risk even for young healthy people.

Are you also allowing people to value the risks like myocarditis and pericarditis in young males with mRNA vaccines and Novavax, or are those people still anti-vaxxers if they do not want to take that risk?

Usually the answer you get there is something along the lines that the risk of Covid is worse, but it is not always the case, specially in young people who are the people most at risk of adverse reactions for these vaccines.

The logical thing to do, if you really wanted to get as many people vaccinated as posible, and you do not want to cause unnecessary warm, would be to change the type of vaccine that is given to these groups, for example, not allowing mRNA vaccines for young people, and giving them AstraZeneca or Jensen, but I'm sure even if I say this, which is what some countries have actually done just to not put at some at unnecessary risks, I usually still get called anti-vaxxer.

The thinking around everything and anything that has to do with covid-related measures is so dogmatic and rigid, in which you are not allowed to say anything outside of what is the orthodoxy, that really has become proto-religious to be honest, specially the type of vitriol and anger you get just by saying something that is even slightly heterodox.

And it is because of that why the actual anti-vaxxer has become way bigger and stronger than ever before. People who are not anti-vaxxers, just have some doubts, have concerns or anything along those lines get called anti-vaxxers, insulted, and treated as sub-humans, they are just going to join the opposite side, of course.

Its required on almost Japanese airlines especially JAL and ANA! Check their website and it’s clearly stated that you can be denied boarding if you don’t wear a mask! Those with medical exemptions are required to wear a face shield. It’s all clearly written on their website.

Those sites usually say something vague like "should wear a mask at all times", and the so called "exceptions" they talk about include things like "Feeling pressure" or "Feeling anxious", meaning, anyone who dislikes how a mask feels can claim this.

Not only that, what those sites say is all for posture, specially to calm down people like the guy of this article so that they do not punch random people in the plane. The law, on the other side, is explicit in this regard, public transportation in general, and commercial planes in particular, are not allowed to be "selective" of their clients, just like with hotels, so they cannot prohibit a passenger to enter without a mask.

They can harass them so they give up, or provoke some type of emotional reaction, so to claim that they are not allowing them in the plane because of "security reasons", but they cannot, at least legally and properly, reject passengers without a mask.

Initial reports are saying that they will be asking for people to be at least 3 times vaccinated.

If they follow the same rules they are using for people from yellow and red countries to have less restrictions, they will also only allow a very limited number of vaccines, and a very limited number of certificates of such vaccines.

People who are fully vaccinated but not boosted are out of luck.

People who do not have access to the approved vaccines, but are still fully vaccinated and boosted with some other vaccine, are out of luck.

People who are fully vaccinated and boosted with some approved vaccine, but happens to live in a country for which Japan doesn't recognize their vaccination certificates, are out of luck.

Who this is going to benefit the most is Japanese travelers, like most of the so called "lifting of restrictions".

No, in fact I have insistently pushed vaccines to my parents who completely lost any trust in public health, and did became kind of anti-vaxxers for covid-19.

But that doesn't stop people from saying I am when I criticize the lack of evidence for masking, when I criticize "covid measures" that are more about showing that you are doing something than actually doing something, like the acrylic boards there are everywhere, or even worse, when I criticize things like vaccine mandates.

Before 2021, anti-vaxxers where people who were against vaccination in general.

But now, if you criticize policy broadly around vaccines or covid policy, not vaccines themselves, you are still called an anti-vaxxer by many, even if that's not what the word actually means, rending the word rather useless lately.