Not exactly sure what the connection is, but the UK government said it will ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks. The complete ban on imports and sales starts next April but martial artists and collectors are exempted. “In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons,” Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said. Well, in the wrong hands a baseball bat is a dangerous weapon and they haven’t banned them yet? Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN1319327520071213

no comment on gun control laws, i have said enough about them in the past on various occasions and pissed too many people off.

UK is a shithole but that is beside the point.

heres a good one, what was the best gift youre buying anyone, including yourself, for Christmas. for my family and friends i have bought a copy of slackware 12.0, a winter coat, and a camera, among other things. although the coolest gift i saved for myself in the Canon Powershot G9. It has 12.1 megapixels, 6x optical zoom, dual stable shot image stabilization, will shoot in jpeg or raw, will allow up to twenty different settings including custom mode, has face recognition with multi point focus for up to ten faces.

what was the best video game of the year? my vote is tied between assassins creed and bioshock (big daddies are badass).

what was the most memorable post in japundit this past year?

more ideas as they come

Okaaaaay. Here is a topic I always wanted to talk about but never had the chance to :

Everyone who owns a satelite dish can aknowledge that he can get the TV channels from most of the developped countries. Here in France, we can get the channels from the US, from every european contry, from the arab world, and even from Korea (Arirang TV).

Now, the question is : WHY oh WHY, Japan, one of the richest nation in the world is unable to broadcast its channels to the world???

Man, I would kill to see Japanese TV in Europe.

The Japanese government must know that Japanese pop culture is highly demanded oversea. But despite that, they do nothing to tap in that audience. Are they stupid or is there something I don’t understand?

does anyone besides me use firefox? if so do they use stumbleupon? ive asked quite a few people about this matter and no one knows what i am talking about. it is this tool that i used to find japundit. its cool, you can select a topic and search for random pages within that topic by clicking on stumble.

if anyone wants to use it and has firefox heres the link
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
link to download firefox here
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

By your logic, does it mean that CNN, Aljazira, Arirang, etc. think they are better than the european channels?

Anyway, if they think they don’t have a channel that is good enough, why don’t they make one? France has launched one this year (France24) quite fast even while this country is less rich than Japan.

So, what is Japan thinking/doing?

BTW, you guys from the US, can you get Japanese channels?

If you want to pay even more money to the cable station ’round here, you can get Fairchild TV (I think they’re Chinese-language), Fairchild East (no idea what that is but it’s another Fairchild station so it’s most probably Chinese-language), ATN (Asia Television Network) (who knows… a mish-mash of Asian languages, I guess) and TV-Japan. You can also get a couple of Punjabi and Hindi stations, a German station, a Greek station and a couple from France (TV5 and, I think, a couple of other France-produced stations).

But I’m already paying enough money for what I have so I’m not feeling any desire to pay another $35 a month for those stations (plus digital box purchase or rental).

I’m still trying to figure out why Canadians are paying about such high rates for cell phone usuage. From a Nov. 29th article:

PAYING MORE IN CANADA

Source: OECD, the SeaBoard Group, CanWest News Service.

I bet the average monthly bill in Canada, what with charging for incoming and outgoing text messaging with some plans, is not over the $60 a month rate… .

That’s the one thing I overhear the Japanese ESL students taking notice of when they first get here. A colleague I play volleyball with works at one of those cellphone kiosks downtown and he says the Japanese coming in to sign up always have this confused puppydog look when they’re told the monthly rates. And who could blame them, really.

The UK is far from being a “shit-hole”. It has its flaws, but every country does. It’s a land of opportunity, which is more than can be said for most of the large European countries.

Mike, combat knives have been banned - not ordinary kitchen knives, unless they’re some outrageously large ones. As for being a third-world country, it’s not usual for people from second-world countries to move TO a third-world state. Look at where the eager, young Europeans from new EU states are heading to work - the UK. That says it all.

“I don’t think Americans really have the right to bear arms.”

Of course we do.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Of course, the same can not be said to be true of arming bears.

I was reading a story yesterday about a 10 year old girl in the US, who was arrested for taking a steak knife to school, to eat her lunch with. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but with so many school shootings in the past, you’d think they’d have a right to defend themselves. Yet it would seem in this case, that she didn’t have the constitutional right to bear arms.

Don’t you know? Steak knives don’t cut meat. People cut meat. Then eat the meat. Mmmm. Meat…. (Heard about this case. Occurred in Florida, if I’m not mistaken.)

The Second Amendment appears to me to be poorly constructed, especially in light of the fact that it is meant to be a constitutional provision.

The first part (”A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”) reads as if it only serves to explain, rather than qualify, the second part (”the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”). Bizarre in my opinion.

Yeah… but which are cuter? Kitties or puppies?

heres a state by state answer to your question riki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_%28Firearm%29_laws_in_the_United_States_%28by_state%29

Wow that looks complicated. You couldn’t just do the Cannonball run with a handgun in your glove compartment, you’d need to apply for permits along the way

the coolest movie trailer this year
http://www.atasteforthetheatrical.com/deathtrap/default.htm

My new favorite lunch:

vegetable or chicken broth
enoki mushrooms
buckwheat soba noodles
finely diced onion or scallion
finely diced cooked chicken or steak

combine, nuke, enjoy!

I don’t spend much time in front of the TV, but I do like Japanese TV and when we’re in America it would be nice to have it available. The only thing we can get is NHK, and it’s too expensive! We just settle for renting movies and whatever we can get on the internet.

cousin remora & all jupundit-ites I wish you all a happy & safe festive season.

robin