Laguna comments

A border dispute with some long, fascinating history behind it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon_Line

Let the people decide.

No. Basic human rights should not depend on the ballot box, and abortion was considered that once until the rightwing extremists on the Supreme Court decided otherwise. The arc of justice is long, and eventually this right will be somehow again enshrined in American law, In the meantime, there will be untold suffering, both for mothers and children.

TaiwanIsNotChina, their website is garbage, too.

For most Olympic sports, unless you're a die-hard fan, once every four years is sufficiently frequent; still, watching niche events such as the triple jump can be fun on occasion.

As for nationalism, having lived abroad for the vast majority of my life, I certainly feel no knee-jerk urge to cheer for my native land's team. I focus on the individual athletes, no matter where from. As such, stories about their background and how they ended up in the Olympics tug at my heartstrings. Behind every athlete is an amazing support team of family and friends.

We've got TSMC moving into Kumamoto with associated, similar problems, but at least its facilities will provide some 5,000 jobs. Data centers? - Nada.

Sadly, I've noticed this pattern repeat: man or woman kills spouse for whatever reason, then the kids as "it would be too cruel for them to go on living without the spouse that I killed."

Reminds me of the guy who'd killed his parents and asks the judge for leniency as he's an orphan.

Thanks for the posts, Hawk and falseflagstever. Memories of the time my kids, now in their late twenties, were tots are precious.

When I bought my son his first bike, a generic model from the home center, to instill confidence, I emphasized repeatedly that it was a "special" bicycle made just for him. We're at the park practicing, and here comes a boy with the EXACT SAME BIKE! My son didn't say anything, but his gaze at the other boy's bike was long.

Heard they can run faster than humans. They should add a female to aid in population increase. This would at least mitigate somewhat the horror which is the zoo.

CNN featured an article on China's "monster" coast guard ship this morning. There is no way either the US or the Philippines will be able to counter this - except through shunning and offshoring. As China finds itself increasingly excluded from the international world, including from its own neighbors, and as it finds attracting western manufacturers to its shores increasingly difficult, it may moderate. Remember, due to the multitude of challenges China faces with its aging society and post-property bubble economy, the last thing it needs is further isolation.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/08/asia/china-monster-coast-guard-ship-philippines-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

Glad the article referred to the legume as "edamame," which is how they are referred to in the west, rather than "branch beans," which would be met with a blank look.

They're my go-to summertime snack. Available frozen at most large supermarkets, you can boil 'em, refrigerate 'em, douse 'em in the salt that you lose sweating, and consume 'em at leisure. And they're healthy.

Pretty hard to consume 93,000 yen in food and drinks if a place is ligit. Stupid of him to go there.

Cool. Now let's get rid of shaken.

In a democracy, voters get the government they deserve. Americans dug this pit. It'll take a generation to dig themselves out - if they ever do.

The Myanmar junta is making that classic authoritarian mistake, ordering that staples be sold at prices below cost to curry public favor. Both food wholesalers and retailers work on razor-thin profit margins (usually about 3%). The logical outcome is plunging rice production and consequent shortages.

My daughter moved from Tokyo to the US, now earning in dollars. But she'll return to Tokyo to marry in December. She's lovin' that weak yen!

Shouldn't 10 million yen in dollars not be $6,200 but $62,000?

Another wonderful thing about being an expat is avoiding this wearing-patriotism-on-your-sleeve love fest. And having worked at Disneyland, I've seen enough fireworks for several lifetimes.

The likelihood of being a victim of a mass shooting is still extremely low

That may be true, but the psychology of its possibility has indelibly scarred America. It doesn't have to be a mass shooting - it could be some random 1:1 or some kid finding his parents' gun or a suicide facilitated - but Americans tend to have guns on their mind all of the time. It affects their behavior and is psychologically damaging.

Too bad he didn't wait until AFTER he'd done the "favors" before accepting the bribes. The Supreme Court has recently ruled that such "gifts" are totally legitimate.

Good advice about canine heatstroke - and short-haired dogs like my whippet can also get sunburnt!

But I don't think he would have put up with those shoes. Dogs derive a huge amount of info regarding their environment from their feet. Also, each dog's feet have a unique smell, and their olfactory sense is sufficiently sharp that they can track the path of their friends!

It's not a sport, it's recreational a pastime. Just anther event added for only the rich countries to participate in.

Most sports are. An attraction of skateboarding is its low cost. All you need is a smooth road (that not a given in most of the world, though) and a small investment (anybody remember the Banana Board?) and you're set to go. Skateboard parks can be built with scrap wood. The skills these acrobats on wheels learn through trial-and-error (lotsa errors, and they are remembered) are certainly transferable to the real world after competitive days are over. And it indicates that the Olympics are paying attention to youth. It is a well-welcomed sport addition, IMHO.

I brought up two kids here. One now lives in Tokyo, the other in the US. It is the US one who is thriving. The Tokyo one is just getting by.

Raising children has become impossible for most people. When my kids were born a bit less than 30 years ago, I could (and did) earn up to 800,000 yen a month depending on my schedule. Granted, I had to work 30 days a week to do so and managed that for eight years (I almost had a nervous breakdown), but it was doable. Now, I don't think that is possible.

Most animals seem to have a genetic imperative to curtail reproduction when faced with overpopulation. Humans do not seem exempt from this. The next 50 years or so will be challenging as the world adjusts to going through this - and no advanced economy is exempt - but it is the new reality, and a slimmed-down global population will pay off in spades in the longer run.

Jeffrey Epstein's hanging "suicide" in jail remains highly suspicious. Likely he simply got what was coming to him.

And still made out of paper.

Lindsay, American banknotes are made from cotton. That's why they don't disintegrate if you leave one in your pocket when you launder your pants.

Oh - and I asked him, "Wow! Is it really worth THAT MUCH?!" He answered, "The price is right if the customer pays it."

Banknotes are government-issued IOU's.

Wallace, perhaps that was true when currency was tied to gold, but in the age of fiat, that is no longer the case. Money is three things: a liquid asset used to facilitate transactions of value; a store of value (sans hyperinflation - when people are paid daily and race against the clock to turn their fiat into any sort of hard asset as quickly as possible); and a unit of account that can measure the value of goods.

My grandfather, who worked in various Asian countries in the '70s, bought a hand-carved Chinese canopy bed (it was gorgeous!) for $10,000 (which in 1970 was the equivalent of about $81,000 today) and sold it in the mid 80s for $50,000, the equivalent of about $151,000 today. He almost doubled the real value of his purchase price on that bed. Inflation calculators are available free on the Web - they're kinda fun.

particularly among foreign "bullet climbers"

Was the qualifier "foreign" really necessary here?

Diagonalslip, 一 can too easily be modified to 二 or 三 in legal documents or currency, so the more complex character 壱 is often used - same meaning and pronunciation but impossible to alter.

Could those "experts" chime in now and explain how Russia is capable of producing precision guided weapons.

The article specifically mentions that they are remnants from the Soviet-era arsenal. Along with their tanks and pretty much all other weapons, Russia is having to dig deep into their arsenal to conduct this war - and when that arsenal is gone, it will be difficult (if not impossible) to replace.

‘Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.’

Spot on.

Joe has been one of the most consequential presidents in a generation, cleaning up the messes Trump had left and redirecting domestic policy towards greater productivity. Economically, the US is the envy of the world. Clearly, Biden is not young, but he's devoted his entire life to government, and his decades in the Senate continue to serve him well when it comes to moving legislation. I'll be voting for him (particularly given the choice) and look forward to another four years of what will be the last hurrah of a noble, patriotic, capable man.