Jun. 6th, 2020
(no subject)
Jun. 6th, 2020 09:07 amThe Japanese can solve the COVID-19 problem
but they can't solve the fertility problem.
Why is that?
“I often got phone calls from (people) in other countries asking, ‘Do you guys have your own special medicine or something?’” Aso said at an Upper House finance committee meeting on June 4.
“I told these people, ‘Between your country and our country, mindo (the level of people) is different.’ And that made them speechless and quiet. Every time,” Aso boasted.
Mindo is a word often used by politicians and others to invoke Japanese nationalism and ethnic superiority and can refer to things like culture and social manners.
...
“We have kept the fatality rate very low, and it was done just by asking people to (minimize their infection risk). People in other countries can’t do that, even being forced,” he said.
“I guess everybody (in Japan) just took it and sweated it out. There were no fines, no violations,” he said. “I believe the Japanese should be more proud about that.”
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13432875
but they can't solve the fertility problem.
Japan’s fertility rate, or average number of children a woman is expected to give birth to in her lifetime, dropped to 1.36 in 2019, going below the 1.40 mark for the first time in eight years.
It marked the fourth consecutive year of decline, according to data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on June 5.
The fertility rate for 2019 slid by 0.06 point from the figure for 2018, significantly down from the 0.01 point level of the preceding three years.
The fertility rate of 1.36 put Japan far from the target of 2.07, the level needed to maintain the population.
By prefecture, Okinawa had the highest fertility rate at 1.82, while Tokyo reported the lowest at 1.15.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13436216
Why is that?
Productivity growth due to the pandemic:
Because pandemic practices created so much more time for shooting, conversion rates are up across nearly all of the Bundesliga’s best teams. Bayern has turned 19.1% of its shots into goals since the Bundesliga resumed on May 11, up from a league-leading 15.6% before the break, according to Opta Sports. Dortmund is up to 26.1% from 19.7%.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-soccers-lockdown-pastime-re-learning-how-to-shoot-11591444801
(no subject)
Jun. 6th, 2020 08:52 pm"I wish, with all my heart, that you may be the most lovable Prince in the world, and I bestow it on you, as much as I am able."
The Princess had no sooner pronounced these words, but Riquet with the Tuft appeared to her the finest Prince upon earth; the handsomest and most amiable man she ever saw. Some affirm that it was not the enchantments of the Fairy which worked this change, but that love alone caused the metamorphosis. They say, that the Princess, having made due reflection on the perseverance of her lover, his discretion, and all the good qualities of his mind, his wit and judgment, saw no longer the deformity of his body, nor the ugliness of his face; that his hump seemed to her no more than the homely air of one who has a broad back; and that whereas till then she saw him limp horribly, she found it nothing more than a certain sidling air, which charmed her.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_fairy_tales_of_Charles_Perrault_(Clarke,_1922)/Riquet_with_the_Tuft
Tyrion Lannister seems to be a version of Riquet, although the former didn't manage to bestow his wit on Daenerys.