zones2surf comments

The death toll will eventually exceed 500, according to some on the ground. And this will include a huge number of children. Who were sent home from school. But, of course, their parents weren't there.

Then there is the issue of the emergency sirens. Why didn't they sound?!?! They ALWAYS sound.

And let's not forget the firefighters. Where were they?! Reports say they were sent home in the a.m. and were not activated when things escalated.

Keep an eye on the properties that were destroyed. It seems the properties of wealthy landowners were spared, amazingly. Watch to see if the rich try to buy the land of the ordinary residents on the cheap!!

According to Climate Change Fanatics:

Maui burned b/c Americans use too CARS!!

According to Conspiracy Theorists:

It was b/c of a directed energy beam from HAARP or some other American weapon.

According to Average People:

It was dry, the winds kicked up and really bad things happened!

Biden economics working just as planned.

Deprive 5he working class and force them to depend on the government.

While the connected elites prosper and the politicians and bureaucrats pocket money from corruption.

Led by The Big Man Himself, with his millions from Ukraine and #CCPChina!!

USD100 billion sent to Ukraine by the U.S. and pocketed by corrupt politicians there, in Europe, and the U.S. sure could have bought a bunch of A/C units for poor Americans!

A small step in the right direction.

If you think the burning of a book should be punishable by death, you do not belong in the civilized world!!

There is NO justification for punishment of free speech, regardless of the nature of the free speech!

Anyone that defends ANY restriction on free speech doe not believe in free speech. At all.

What do you expect if you launch drone attacks on Russia?!

War is war... and paybacks are a b**ch!

The Eagles were not The Eagles without Randy Meisner and Don Felder.

Those arrogant POS control freaks, Don Henley & Glenn Frey, forced them out because they were domineering a-holes!

Meisner and Felder were better off without having to deal with those losers.

RIP, Randy Meisner! You were a legend!!

Keep in mind that that the obsessed Ministry of Justice prosecutors act so righteously indignant because Lebanese law shields Carlos Ghosn from their vindictive vendetta....

But then turn around and say. "We can't do anything" when a Japanese citizen violates a legal agreement in another country, just because they are Japanese and, make no mistake, the Japanese legal system protects its own.

To be clear, the Japanese legal system will ALWAYS protect the Japanese citizen if the case involves a foreigner.

WareWare Nihonjin and all of that!!

International custody disputes highlight the complete inadequacy of Japanese family law.

Which is, literally, stuck in the 1800s, when the bulk of the family law code was written.

TheJapanese family register system is, fundamentally, to blame. Until is is modernized or abolished by law, everything we see is a consequence of the Japanese legal system doing acrobatic gymnastics to try to merge modern reality with archaic Japanese law that the conservative bureaucrats and politicians are desperately trying to ignore!!

They say that gun violence in the U.S. is due to not enough gun control laws governing gun ownership by legal gun owners.

You know, the legal gun owner types, that possess NRA membership, that support Trump, that are America-loving patriots.

I am guessing that not too many of those were responsible for the gun deaths in Chicago.

But, hey, more gun control laws for the legal gun owners who don't actually commit these crimes....

Anyone that grew up watching traditional local newscasts would understand the fundamental issue here.

Most viewers would tune into local newscasts to get "just the news". As the old Joe Friday expression went, "Just the facts, ma'am".

They didn't want opinion or editorials or any of that sort of stuff. Just the news.

Not dissimilar to people tuning into NHK News.

People were not looking for advocacy journalism in their local news. When it came to traditional national newscasts, then there was more acceptance of advocacy / opinion journalism.

Which is why there is pushback. Whether I am tuning into the 6 p.m. news in Iowa or to the evening NHK newscast in Japan, I don't want or need the weatherman to opine on climate change. I don't need that. Not the time or place. Just give me the darn weather forecast and make sure it is accurate, please!

But, instead, we have local meteorologists and newscasters who feel they need to burnish their advocacy journalism credentials rather than just doing what viewers want from them.

Viewers don't want to be lectured / indoctrinated / preached to. Just deliver the darn news & weather in a factual manner.

What's so hard about this?!

I respectfully disagree with Ms. Sasaki that the refusal to listen to logic is the biggest obstacle.

The biggest obstacle is that most politicians and bureaucrats don't feel any real pressure to change things.

And this is important, because making this change is not a simple thing. This actually involves a complete rewrite of the various family related laws / acts and has the added impact on the practical day-to-day matters of recording / maintaining changes in the family registry.

So, for example, if a female marries a male and wants to keep her maiden name, how does that work in terms of the family registry? Does she become part of his registry, but with her maiden name? Do they maintain separate registries? What if they have children? Which surname would they adopt?

Anyone familiar with the Japanese system immediately understands the issues involved.

My point is that this can be figured out, but it is time-consuming and problematic and controversial.

And without overwhelming political pressure, why would ANY politician or bureaucrat want to deal with that, particularly when it is not really important to them?!

Terribly sad.

She was a woman who seemed to have everything, but, in the end, had nothing.

And marrying Bruce was a poor substitute for the love and belonging she sought.

I met her in HK in 2012. She was an effevescent but extremely guarded person.

May she rest in peace.

Whatever I think of Ghosn and his tenure at Nissan and Renault, there is no question that the law was weaponized against him in Japan. It's called lawfare and there is absolutely no question that Japanese individuals at Nissan conspired with the government to oust him to prevent Nissan being folded into Renault.

The events of this year have proven this to be absolutely beyond doubt. Their mission has been accomplished.

In terms of the offenses that France is investigating / charging him with, there may well be offenses he should answer for. However, the reason Ghosn is in Lebanon is to remain out of the reach of the Japanese prosecutors who have weaponize the law to pursue lawfare against him.

I promise you that Ghosn would much rather be free, but "stuck" in Lebanon than be in Japan being abused by the Japanese legal & penal system. Every day he wakes up free rather than in a country that used the entire weight of the law to persecute him.

Just to "save" Nissan from the foreigners.

I climbed it with my dad back in '85 and it was an amazing experience, particularly since it was one that I got to share with my dad.

Back then, the crowds weren't too bad. We did the usual night climb, to make it to the top for sunrise and even though it was peak climbing season in early August, the line of people climbing to the top was not too bad. We made it to the top without issue, about an hour before it began to get light.

What made it particularly awesome was that a typhoon had just blown through the area 24 hours before, so the skies were absolutely clear and when sunrise came, the views were amazing.

The descent was actually harder on the legs than the climb, particularly due to the slippery nature of the trail down the lava surface.

Given the awesome experience I had and that I shared with my dad, I told myself that I would never do it again, as that first experience can never be surpassed.

Hey, they will do business with #CCPChina, who persecutes, tortures and kills Uyghurs and does the same to followers of Falun Gong or even worse, such as organ harvesting while still alive.

So why would they mind doing business with the Saudis?!

Hong Kong is just another Chinese city at this point. The 50 year 1 country 2 system framework is completely dead.

I lived there for nearly 6 years, I was there during Occupy Central and I have former colleagues whose sons have been arrested under the National Security Law.

I will NEVER visit HK again. Just as I will never visit #CCPChina.

Pence is irrelevant. No one cares what he does or says.

There was never any question that the whole Ghosn episode was nothing more than lawfare.

To prevent the integration of Nissan into Renault.

This was ALWAYS about keeping Nissan "Japanese".

In fairness, the French would have done the same if Renault was in the same situation.

Utter stupidity.

Form over substance.

And discriminatory.

They are discriminatory against smart, intelligent Japanese who are not bilingual!

So, 7 divers, including 2 instructors, went missing while drift diving....

This is not normal. Not at all. Particularly when they were found near where they were reported missing.

Seems to me that the diving company / boat operator needs to be investigated, as this should NEVER happen. So many people missing on a drift dive is unthinkable!!

Mutual consent? Doubtful. A face saving measure for the couple.

They are becoming increasingly irrelevant, without anything of value to offer for-profit entities.

The well-to-do and connected types never have to pay for their crimes. Doesn't matter the country,

Jimmy Jimusho in Japan.

Prince Andrew in the UK.

All of Epstein's clients wherever they may be.

I am sure we will never get the true reason for the price increase, but I have a feeling its not really about the money / revenue.

I know many Japanese who believe that the Rail Pass and its pricing is absolutely unfair and discriminatory against Japanese citizens because of just how favorable the pricing was / is for non-Japanese tourists. And they weren't / aren't wrong, as current pricing really is very cheap. Good for tourists, not fair for citizens.

I do think, however, that the magnitude of the increase is going to make it cost prohibitive or even uneconomical for most non-Japanese tourists. It really will only make sense for those visitors who plan extensive long-distant traveling during their stay. Which may only be a small percentage, especially for the 7 day pass.

If this was really about revenue, they would have done something like a 30% increase. say to 40,000 yen for the 7 day pass. At that price, many visitors might still actually consider buying it, reasoning that they could justify based on a mix of long distance and shorter distance travel.

But, again, back to my point regarding the underlying motivation / reason for the increase.

There was intense hand-wringing from that point on, in stark contrast to the situation now in Ukraine. Your memory doesn't seem to be serving you very well.

Silly man, you make my point.

The difference between then and now is that the famed "anti-war advocates" who dedicated themselves to questioning the war and the military propaganda are now....

In league with the military propagandists now, having sold their souls and their values for their 30 pieces of silver!

The underlying point is this: the military propagandists do what they do.

The difference between Vietnam and now is that the propagandists (aka, the "journalists") in the media are now nothing more than mouthpieces for the establishment military propagandists,.

Funny how things change.

But the truth is the truth!!

None of those in the know in the "allies" believe any of this drivel.

It is all one big grift, to pour more money into the Ukraine grifting machine...

The billions being funneled into Ukraine come out the back end to benefit:

-- Corrupt Ukrainian politicians like Zelensky.

-- Corrupt Western politicians like Biden, Romney, Pelosi, Graham, McConnell, etc.

-- The corrupt deep state, operatives in the CIA/NSA/DIA, etc.

-- The defense suppliers.

And they use their ignorant propagandists in the media to cover for their grift!!

I'm old enough to remember when the U.S. military predicted success in winning the Vietnam War!!

Never forget....

The elites HATE the peasants!!

They tolerate us as long as they need us for something.

But, in truth, they yearn for a return to the medieval / feudal age, when the ruling class ruled supreme and the masses were their slaves!!

What a shame that Toyota is caving to the EV cult.

Which has NOTHING to do with saving the environment and EVERYTHING to do with restricting travel by the masses and restricting consumption.

There is NOTHING about EVs that are environmentally friendly or that reduce the carbon footprint.

Producing the batteries in EVs involve massive amounts of child labor slaving away to produce the metals used in the batteries. These batteries, once dead, are so expensive that the entire vehicle has to be junked.

Producing the batteries and then recharging them over their life cycle produces a greater carbon footprint than traditional internal combustion engines.

Oh, and there are not enough rare earth metals available to ensure that everyone who wants an EV can get one.

One thing EVs DO permit?? The enslavement of the masses, since getting vehicles will be difficult and expensive and recharging them will be completely at the mercy of the carbon control police.

But, hey, you'll have less and be happy. Right?!