Huh. I wouldn’t have expected The New York Times to refer to “federal” relief spending in an article about Japan. (The wording here is copied from the linked article.) The existence of prefectures notwithstanding, Japan doesn’t have what is generally considered a federal system of government, so it should say the…

That’s right, Randy had sex with a bat, but that’s not what created COVID-19. Oh no, what created COVID-19 had to do with Randy having sex with an animal that 2020 couldn’t even have predicted. I was more surprised at the random animal choice...

Presumably, it’s directed at every bit of the state that isn’t the Portland metro area, Eugene, Salem, or Ashland.

Is there another Hitchcock film you’re thinking of? Rope is the one that’s basically the Leopold and Loeb case; the two protagonists very much believe laws shouldn’t apply to them, but it’s not about a society in which that actually is the case.

@UmmDavid, you seem to have some strange beef with @IGotLeyd, as demonstrated by your interactions in the comments on other articles. I can’t say definitively what IGotLeyd believes, but nothing in their comment history that I can find seems particularly damning:

I don’t think you can reasonably infer MiraiQueenBriefs’s post as a death threat, at least in isolation. I think the world would be a better place without Donald Trump; that doesn’t mean I think assassinating him would be either a good idea or moral.

Yes, but, as noted previously, the standard of proof is only 50% + 1, not beyond a reasonable doubt, as in a criminal case. Also, while in both civil and criminal proceedings, the defendant doesn’t technically have to present any exculpatory evidence to win, it’s still a good idea to do so to the extent possible,…

Not a very original MO.

The laws on the books (Labour Standards Act + Civil Code) most certainly do allow employees to sue companies for not paying overtime wages, and workers have, indeed, brought and won such suits. Granted, the Japanese legal system moves even slower than the US system, and people in Japan are overall much less litigious…

Uh, are you serious about why there is only one (consecutive) “s” in “misuse” but two in “misspell”? The prefix is “mis-,” and the words being prefixed are, respectively, “use” and “spelling,” the latter of which already has an “s” at the beginning, so when the prefix is added, the same letter happens to come twice in…

Sure, but nothing in Million Ants’s comment contradicts that fact, and you completely missed their point: It would literally take 13 hours to convert all the tapes to digital files, and none of the characters in possession of the tape have any incentive to make them widely available online, even if the process to do…

They sell it in Japan, at least.

Are you seriously having a stroke? Your first paragraph is bizarre near-gibberish. Your second paragraph is vague and faintly threatening. Your last paragraph makes less sense with each passing word.

There is nothing lowlier than a shoe in Japanese culture. Not only do they not wear shoes at home, you also won’t find shoes in their offices. This is disrespect of the first order.

I know. Sorry I wasn’t clear.

I believe Japan does have a lower rate of salmonella-infected eggs, to begin with (though you are right that the odds are already quite low, even in the US), because vaccination of chickens against the bacteria is much more widely practiced (as is also the case in the UK). Just another thing to factor in, though, as…

Restaurants in Japan generally post both a “Closing Time” and a “Last Order Time” (generally somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour before the former). That would seem to remove any ambiguity and allow everyone to know what to expect.

In Japan, the fire department also generally runs ambulances and are the ones you call in case of medical emergency.

Sushi restaurants in Japan still give you chopsticks, so I’d say it’s up to personal preference.

Yeah, you’re totally wrong. It’s in the very name: “Su” is Japanese for “vinegar.” Your malapropism of “sushimi” (s/b “sashimi,” meaning “sliced [from a] body”) doesn’t help your credibility, either.