I’m sure that Japanese news would be broadcasted if Japan was dragging your contry into war, like USA did for many contries !
Being the news in Japanese or English doesn’t make much difference, things need to be translated for most of the people anyway 8P

If Japan politics is so weird, how come nobody cares about it ? 8)

There is a lot of BS going around in any country’s government, but only few (1 ?) can manage to go around sparking wars.

It looks like I’m now officially in the “links of african corruption” spam business. 8P I figured WordPress had done something to my post when I didn’t see it.

The fact that we hear in the news about the empress thing, doesn’t mean that the politicians are really wasting that much time on that rather than working on other things !

Oh man, you haven’t been looking at what’s going on in Japanese politics. I guess because one of my friends is studying Japanese law I get to hear about all the (at times bizzare) things that go on and decisions that are made.

rince: I’m sorry to hear that about S. Africa! :( It seems these days, folks in the govt. are more interested in their own personal bottom lines that running a country properly.

For example it took the South African department of home affairs almost 1 year to issue me a new passport since my old one expired! And I am not the only one this happened to, apparently its a common problem there now, because of incompetency of government employees.
This reminds me of an italian say: “it was better when it was worse”. Sometimes people say that referring to current democracy as opposed to Mussolini’s dictatorship between the end of the first WW and the end of the second.
The idea is that sometimes oppression is better than chaos.

Sorry or the post being delayed, WordPress by default puts comments on hold if they have more than 2 links (fearing it’s spam). I set that limit to 12 now (but no need to worry, worst it happens is that I have to validate the comment !)

Eh? Why are we talking about guns? I thought we were talking about how it seems people don’t care about what’s going on in some corner of the planet as long as it’s not affecting them; that’s what I meant by “it’s the same all over the world.” By the way, if you haven’t seen the movie Hotel Rwanda, I highly recommend it.

I brought up up the guns because it’s something that sticks in my mind. Apparently there are a lot of guns in Canada too, but over there people don’t shoot at each other that much.
I heard of Hotel Rwanda, it’s definitely on my list of movies to watch 8)

Not to slam Japanese politics, but it seems that (at least for the time being) people are arguing about whether a woman should be eligible to be an empress (something that probably is irrelevant for at least the 10-20 years). While all this is going on, the cost of living for the average person is very high, thousands of youth are choosing to become NEETs or finding each other on the internet to kill themselves together, and

The fact that we hear in the news about the empress thing, doesn’t mean that the politicians are really wasting that much time on that rather than working on other things !
To me politicians are dumb by default, but it’s hard to beat Bush.

Effectively, if you want to “succeed”, you become a politician (to make money). If folks get in your way, you kill them … I’m not kidding. I had a friend who went to Malawi recently and he was telling me about how the folks in Malawi think Nigeria is a dangerous place (and I think it is!).
[…]
Corruption’s not really going to improve the situation in Africa.

Killing for money ummm.. I’ve heard that before ;)
“I have an idea, let’s change regime in Iraq so that we can stabilize the region and get rid of nuclear weapons” = “let’s kill a bunch of people so that we make our citizens think that we are kicking terrorists’ asses and we go to some big business in Iraq while subduing the middle east”

The gun culture in America (unfortunately) reflects its past early history. Back when the cuontry was still being settled (and states like California didn’t exist), you essentially had to have a gun else risk being essentially killed by someone else simply because there was no real form of law enforcement in those frontier regions. Aside from that America was still relatively a new country, so you needed a gun (much like how you need a car).

Unfortunately, as time went on laws which affected guns never really changed which effectively lead up to what we see now going on in the country. Owning a gun is viewed essentially as a right (much as owning a car is). Most other countries on the planet don’t have a history similar to America … or at least those societies viewed owning a gun as a heavy responsiblity and not a means of power (as I think it is in the States).

Not to slam Japanese politics, but it seems that (at least for the time being) people are arguing about whether a woman should be eligible to be an empress (something that probably is irrelevant for at least the 10-20 years). While all this is going on, the cost of living for the average person is very high, thousands of youth are choosing to become NEETs or finding each other on the internet to kill themselves together, and the population is dropping. There’s also some bizzare wierdness about the decisions that the Public Works sector of the government makes and how these “projects” are essentially destroying regions of the country … obviously the folks in the government didn’t elect themselves (or did they?).

My point being that no country is immune from the election of bad leaders when the people are dumb and/or passive about their governments.

I think China’s actually in a very good position and will continue to grow quickly over the next 15-20 years. If a country has the ability to put it’s citizens in space (and do so regularly), it is essentially a super-power. Only 3 nations can do this.

I don’t know about the other African countries, but Nigeria has been essentially wasting it’s potential thanks to the culture of corruption. This isn’t something that is recent either. Check out BBC News’ The politics of Nigerian corruption.

Effectively, if you want to “succeed”, you become a politician (to make money). If folks get in your way, you kill them … I’m not kidding. I had a friend who went to Malawi recently and he was telling me about how the folks in Malawi think Nigeria is a dangerous place (and I think it is!).

Of course, Nigeria is world famous for it’s 419 Scams. This thing has actually been going on for at least 20 years, but gained momentum with the advent of the internet (it’s become a lot easier and a lot more lucrative). Given the fact that the average person in Nigeria is barely making ends meet, coupled with the rampant corruption (that’s not hidden), it’s hard for any human being to resist the temptation of easy money by duping some foolish person who’s all too eager to believe that they’ll instantly receive vast amonts of money. Some of these 419′ers are pretty dangerous individuals too! It doesn’t really help Nigeria’s public image when stories such as this break-out on the world scene.

As far as Nigeria goes, I’m pretty skeptical and pessimistic. From what I’m told, more people are trying to get out of the country than stay. Those who left then go back (because “East to West, home’s the best) essentially leave the country because of how things are. I haven’t given up hope for Nigeria (or Africa), but seriously the people have to change the attitude and mindset. Corruption’s not really going to improve the situation in Africa.

There were other countries in Africa that were colonized, but I think Nigeria was able to become as advanced as it has becuase it had some good leadership (that’s the secret here) when it obtained independence from Britain. Things went sour for Nigeria once the leadership became essentially made up of thieves, thugs, and hooligans. Unfortunately for many other African countries, as soon as they gained independence, such vile leadership took over the country and we see the results we see. My observation about Africa (in general) seems to be that “the people are only as good as their leaders” … essentially, the people see the leaders in their corruption, then they too follow suit … especially if it means they’ll be able to make ends meet. There are still honorable people there, but unfortunately, they’re not the one’s necessarily making the headlines in the news we read.

I’d definitely be cautious about those Africans with fishy connections (or anyone for that matter) though!

I think South Africa is different because the way it was colonized was different from most of the other countries in Africa. Colonized countries (like Nigeria) were ruled by the British through indirect rule which worked really well. I’m not very familiar with South Africa history, but it seems that the Dutch and Portuguese who went there initially for trade eventually ended up settling there and from there formed a government. When the government/leadership is not solely based on getting things and power (i.e. corruption) the foundation for making society work (and advance forward) is laid.

Anyway, I’ve written way too much on this! 8P I’ll be late for work because of you! ha ha ha!

I don’t think it’s all the same all over the world. I can see a big difference already between the US and Canada (I also remember Michael Moore asking himself how come that guns are such a big problem in USA but not in Canada).
US citizens tend to be a lot more.. well dumb really ! Dumb people are everywhere, but they are somehow pretty influential in USA I believe. Just look at how they elect presidents. I know very few of past presidents, but most of them were dumb or liars …or both. Being particularly intelligent is definitely not a plus.. some say it’s actually an handicap, because people will feel that their president is a snobbish ass.
As an American president, you can do all the weird crap you want behind the scenes. But if you are caught cheating on your wife, you are finished ! But don’t most people cheat on their partners anyway ?

As for Africa. I have no first hand experience, but it’s definitely in a worse situation than China and India. We often see images of starving children.. that’s definitely an hopeless situation. But then there are states like Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa that are a lot more advanced (perhaps as a side effect of colonialism.. much like for India).

I hear that some Nigerians are doing good business in Japan. I saw a lot of well built Africans working as bouncers in some clubs, but now it appears that some of them actually reached the point in which they are opening their own club/bars.
Some of them someday may go back to Nigeria, or in some way generally influence their own country towards doing good business. Well having a club in Tokyo possibly involves some fishy connections, but it’s definitely still a step towards doing business.

I don’t want to be too unfair and I’ll say that Italians instead, they are mostly just cooks here in Tokyo. They cook and cook.. and fool around with chicks… talk about stereotypes !