Moonraker comments

Oh great, I can efficiently use the same comment twice today: "Hilarious coming from a spokesminion for the CCP."

I don't think there is a concept of hypocrisy in China, or at least that it is something you might reveal in yourself. Maybe there is no self awareness. We find the greatest hypocrites and liars seem to have no self-awareness. It's like a general rule. But, I guess to lie repeatedly and unselfconsciously you have to somehow believe your own lies. Maybe nothing is real in China. How do they trust each other? With the way things are going, they may even represent a rather dismal future.

“We urge the U.S. to respect the Olympic spirit, abide by international law and basic norms of international relations, stop talking to itself and refrain from artificially created false narratives,”

Hilarious coming from a spokesminion for the CCP.

Can't disagree with you, factchecker.

a Japanese warship brazenly entering Chinese waters on an unannounced mission to spy on military drills, which is a blatant provocation.

Great, wasn't it? A thing of beauty. Because the one provoked was China! The world rejoices. China can only bleat hypocritically.

Only when the Earth is reduced to desert, ashes and smoke will some people believe we have attained our zenith. Then we can move on to the next Earth just nearby ... oh, but there isn't one.

Nationalism is a disease.

Hypocrisy is the stock-in-trade of any peace observance in Japan.

Even to lose in the final against an excellent Spain side would still be a very good achievement and beyond expectation after the Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia games.

Keep up the grey-zone tactics, Japan. It's time. Never let China rest. Ever.

What's happening in Japan? After decades of covering the country in ugly, polluting and destructive buildings, cement, roads and factories there is suddenly some interest in preventing it. It's encouraging in some ways that people are waking up to the devastation that has been wrought but it is it that this is a foreign enterprise?

On Friday, meanwhile, Kihara instructed the launch of a special investigation into the alleged use of slush funds by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. to provide money and goods to MSDF submarine crew members under the guise of transactions with subcontractors.

Nasty stuff. If corruption infiltrates the armed forces, in no time it will resemble and be as ineffectual as the PLA, only good for keeping its own people in order. Nobody wants that.

Having grown up with a menacing USSR, I think I would trust it more than the current Russian autocracy. It's always surprising some people will defend it. Nobody really believes they - or Putin - can be trusted. He's a rat. Even if the US has its own interests in mind too, well they overlap more with Japanese intentions than Russian ones do. If I were Japan, of course I would be suspicious of Russia and China and North Korea and would seek defensive alliances with them in mind.

With a continual female succession - a matriarchal line - you can always be pretty sure the child belongs to the mother, because she gives birth to it. So a succession of daughters makes sense. With male lines, there is less chance to know who impregnated his mother. It may not be his nominal father. There were no DNA tests. Wonder how many times this happened in Japanese royal history. Nobody can be sure. There were always shady male characters around the court. There is too much doubt for the conservatives to have unbroken male line as an article of truth.

Happy news for the life haters but depressing for those who love the beauty and diversity of this living planet.

Me too. If they went extinct, I'd be happy

And when was the last time you were actually bothered by a Komodo dragon?

Keep ya moralising to yourself buddy.

Now why should he? I don't agree at all with what he says but it's just an opinion like yours or anyone else's. It's even quite mystifying to hear the kind of things my great grandparents would have said in this day and age.

They hugged to the sound of the squelch of slime.

Rightist nationalism moves in, independence of judiciary is undermined, rule of law moves out, politically-managed appointments and corruption increase. Almost an iron rule of politics.

Such a big furore at the beginning too. But all for show.

It's a bit funny. Maybe the culmination of the inanity of an election. I can't lie, I always wanted to put up a poster of Mickey Mouse or Kitty-chan in one of the spaces.

Japan and the Philippines signed a key defense pact Monday allowing the deployment of Japanese forces for joint military exercises, including live-fire drills, to the Southeast Asian nation... The Reciprocal Access Agreement, which similarly allows Filipino forces to enter Japan for joint combat training,

Surprised to see this day. Unthinkable just 20 years ago. Maybe even less. This is what having a bully in the region will do. Of course, China will bleat patronisingly about it and throw accusations of war-mongering around but it's clear who is in the wrong.

I think the women are making the right decision, albeit unconsciously.

Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, said the latest evidence showed that the traditional markers used to measure success did not correlate with happiness – particularly marriage and raising children. “We do have some good longitudinal data following the same people over time, but I am going to do a massive disservice to that science and just say: if you’re a man, you should probably get married; if you’re a woman, don’t bother.”

So, there it is. Look after number one. This will be congruent with the imperatives of the market too. For the men, there are still plenty of women in poorer countries, still with the conventional mindset, looking for husbands, so find one and marry one. Lots of Japanese men have done this before you.

Yes, Jimizo, I think it is some kind of insecure machismo behind it (maybe too much working out at the gym) but I would be happy to have a good conversation with someone not so emotionally driven and be proven wrong.

And, of course, curiosity is verboten. Those who hold the views don't want to look too deeply into the emotions that drive them. It always seems easy to upset them.

If you don't like meat, don't eat it and mind your own business. There does seem to be a strong link between cc alarmists and penchant for authoritarianism under the misguided claim of the "greater good".

Clever avoidance anyway. As if minding one's own business is the business of anyone on this site. And telling someone to mind their own business sounds suspiciouly like authoritarianism to me under the misguided claim of everyone to their own (or everyone do as you are told). So, maybe too much machismo then.

What is the psychological connection between advocacy of meat and climate change denial? Is it an abhorrence of life? A severe conservatism? I am genuinely curious.

The "woke" parties of western Europe have made a grand mess of things, and the tide is turning toward (literally) the right side.

Like the Tories in the UK? Oh, wait a minute ... Dream on anyway. Well, you can always go and live in Russia if you wanna see where "the right" works corruptly and anti-democratically.

but despite being around for three whole months, the world is still yet to know about it.

Perhaps there is a good reason for that.

Of all the crappy, ultra-processed food we eat, including copious meat-based or meat-adulterated ones, it's kinda suspicious that fake meat has suddenly gained such a high and unhealthy profile these days. Now, I wonder which well-funded industry would have an interest in promoting that line. Fake meat is certainly healthier for cattle, pigs and chickens.

Maybe you need to read it again, sakurasaki.