garymalmgren comments

Didn't Tokyo just have an election?

Why wasn't this a bigger issue then?

I would be really interested in knowing how she was found.

The photo shows her being winched up from a coastal vessel.

Talk about lucky.

Gary

33% turnout.

Over 50 candidates.

A majority could easily be 5% of the eligible voters.

Every candidate was vetted.

Any real moderate has been eliminated.

If Pezeshkian was permitted to run, he is NOT a moderate, but a candidate that has been set up as a stooge for the Mullahs.

We won't get fooled again, No! No!

Well. maybe.

RE:

Case in point....decades ago the move was going to be to electric cars.

US , and many others , stood idly by.

No The US did not stand idly by.

GM developed the EV 1 electric car and produced, developed and tested hundreds of them.

Then a decision was made to turn away and scrap almost all of them.

This time the US is definitely standing by as the steel industry dies.

Here is a chance to do something radically different, but................

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIHDyB9bgbA

I totally agree with the previous three posts.

Where is the fundamental balance here?

I love my very old CUB. 62 kilo to the litre when I make an effort. 52 when I ride fast?

The attraction is that this is a bike the Honda Soichirou actually had a hand in designing.

History on two wheels.

I hope and expect Honda to come out with an electric CUB in the old tried and true design.

Gary

"It will be necessary to improve the efficiency of logistics in order to avoid serious economic effects," said Kazuyuki Kobayashi, the institute's logistics consulting group manager.

Most of the older retiring drivers started on a decent wage, years ago.

However, over the years those wages have remained stagnant, making driving an unattractive job at the present rates.

Basically, if you want drivers (Japanese or imported) you are going to have to raise wages. And this will mean and across the board increase in transport costs.

No other way out of this one.

The gate will be closed between 4 p.m. and 3 a.m.

So, the plan is to have a guardman standing there (and a bloke with a sign?) from 4 pm to 3 am.

Sounds about right.

The trial of Yamagami, 43, who was arrested for the shooting in July 2022 in the western city of Nara, is now expected to focus on how he grew up, as well as the lethality of the homemade gun he used in the incident.

It seem that the lethality of the gun has been proven.

Police said the incident occurred at an intersection with traffic lights at around 3:40 a.m.

What on earth is a 91 year old woman doing walking around at 3;40 am.

This maybe a little off topic as far as the Boeing/Airbus case is concerned but it is at least connected to titanium.

Titanium is tricky to work with. It anneals and can have internal defects.

The best material, machines, machine tools and techniques for working titanium is here in Japan.

Small specialist workshops produce the materials for Japan's aircraft, experimental scientific equipment, military gear and JAXA.

however if you were to type titanium manufacturers into a search (in English) only a few of larger firms (I.H,I, Kobelco, etc ) will appear.

This is an area where Japan is not promoting what they can do well.

All of these smaller companies need more contracts and none are within reach of the international market.

gary

So many places in the world are locked in to rules and regulations.

Go karting in Tokyo is not my cup of tea, but I have to hand it to the powers that be for letting it happen.

As for this accident: it could just as easily have happened on a bicycle.

Ban bicycles? No!

gary

Hi Berie,

From Wiki.

Yusaku Maezawa (前澤 友作, Maezawa Yūsaku, born 22 November 1975) is a Japanese billionaire entrepreneur and art collector. He founded Start Today in 1998 and launched the online fashion retail website Zozotown in 2004, now Japan's largest.

Maezawa introduced a custom-fit apparel brand Zozo and at-home measurement system, the Zozosuit, in 2018.[2] As of December 2021, he was estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of $2.0 billion.[3]

Hi Fighto re.

Hats off to Hirotsugu Kimura! His years in the Defense Forces would have taught him discipline and toughness.

"He served as an MSDF submariner prior to joining an industrial waste treatment company in 2020 that supported his circumnavigation bid."

He is 24 now, he left the Marine SDF 4 years ago at 20.

He probably joined at 18 , but I have no evidence of that. Even so His years in the Defense Forces were not long.

My friend's son just signed out at 22.

gary

I have been following him through a Japanese site.

Quite an achievement.

One thing of note is.

Hirotsugu Kimura, a former Maritime Self-Defense Force member,

The attrition rate from all branches of the Japanese SDF is an unspoken nightmare for them.

To lose someone of this ability at such a young age shows how chronic the problem is.

I have never seen a report on actually how close the Chinese vessels are coming to the Senkaku islands.

That photographs shows them very close indeed.

gary

WesleyToday 12:37 pm JST

Nothing impressive.

Made with stolen technology.

That is exactly what the Big Three said about Japanese cars in the '70s.

3 down votes Bertie.

Oh boy.

Doesn't compare with,

4,000 hole in Blackburn, Lancashire.

The L. A Olympics are in 2028 and the Brisbane Olympics are in 2032.

I wonder what the local Olympic organizing committees are making of Toyota's (totally sane) move?

The smugglers must be buying the inflatables in France somewhere.

That would be the choke off point, I would have thought.

British agents (Bond?) can go to France and buy up EVERY Zodiac on the market.

Utter madness.

Sorry Matt I disagree.

For $30, 000 the producers of these melons get national and international coverage.

This story will be picked up by many news organizations around Japan and the world.

In Japan the notion of buying and eating melons has been implanted.

This goes for cherries, grapes, peaches, and of course blue fin tuna.

It Works! That's why it is done every year.

Denali is the same mountain where Uemura Naomi died.

Dangerous as the weather changes unbelievably fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMELHp0IV7Q

In some cases, conservatives have attached even more meaning to plant-based meat substitutes. Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, for example, produced a documentary in 2022 featuring the Raw Egg Nationalist, a prominent far-right influencer, who said that Impossible, Beyond and other plant-based companies are part of a “soy globalist” conspiracy to criminalize meat consumption and weaken citizens through poisoned food. The Raw Egg Nationalist also wrote in 2022 that plant-based meat substitutes and eggs are “perverted” products pushed by elites to bring civilization to “the brink of madness.”

It is hard to argue with that (logic?).

Some of the most vaxed in the world and they just keep on getting COVID.

Tora, the reason that they just keep getting COVID is that the vaccine does not prevent infection.

It reduces the fatality and severity of the symptoms.

In waters around Japan, significant drops in the catches of saury and Japanese common squid, for example, have been observed lately, while the northward shift of yellowtail and Japanese Spanish mackerel has been observed.

This is true. However if you talk to a fisher up here (Sanruku coast) they will tell you that the places where the fish are caught is not a constant.

Every few years (10 or so) the currents and varying oceanic temperatures push the fish so far out that it is not economical for coastal fishers to go after them.

That being said the depth sounder on my boat read 30 degrees C this year for about 3 weeks.

If this is the new norm, it will mean that fuel costs will make it too expensive to catch so species and hopefully that will result in a rebound of stocks. I am trying to be positive about this, but...........

Gary

We often see claims that the "trainees" are cheap laborers.

Yes, there are many problems with underpayment, deductions and so on.

These problems are not restricted to just trainees or just Japan.

I would like to clarify the situation of the Indonesian and Burmese fishers working on the tuna boats in my area (Tohoku). This is concerning a research paper that I am doing. I have spoken to a dozen or more of these guys and I can speak Indonesian so they felt quite relaxed in telling me their situation. With the Burmese I spoke English.

Compared to situation in their home countries, they (100%) consider working in Japan to be very good.

The ships are much cleaner and much much safer. (with all safety equipment up to date and operational)

Their wages are good (in yen terms they receive the same as a Japanese would).

The food is very good and on many vessels there is an Indonesian cook who prepares halal dishes.

Their contracts (including insurance and time at sea) are strictly adhered to. Here the government agencies and local fisheries co-ops oversea the employment systems locally.

There is a reasonable system for lodging complaints , but the guys i spoke to had none. I suspect that they would keep quiet anyway to avoid being laid off.

If they complete a contract they are repatriated to their home countries and almost guaranteed employment with the employer paying the transport to and from Japan. In this case their are out of the clutches of an agent or money lender and are dealing directly with their employer.

Some of them worked in Japan before the Covid close down and suffered severe hardships in their own countries due to unemployment there.

None reported a serious injury on their vessel.

Non said that they had money troubles with their Japanese employers, however they all had problems with money lenders and even government officials (who wanted a cut) in their own countries.

All said that they will be back next season.

Gary

But some have also chosen to leave Japan because they could not get responses from their employers about when their operations would resume, she said.

How can they be expected to stay if they have no income?

Ah.... but someone is sure to take a photo of the black screen and post it.

Then every one will want to do that.

Can't win either way. LOL