ex-christian here, so i sympathize with you, however if the basis of your argument relies on the dismissal of contrary evidence as personally not-believable, then you have no argument.

japan isnt turning into america, the japanese are just like that about foreigners, and they've been so for a very long time.
if you think visiting is tough (its not), then emigrating (including citizenship to get away from paying US taxes when you dont live in the US) is impossible (in reality it is merely very difficult).

its just one of those (little) things you need to get used to as a foreigner here.

not to excuse any of it, but is the groping really so prevalent? i flew recently and didnt have an issue.

in japan i get groped at the airport security line, but it is by cute girls (the only kind of girls japanese airlines will hire, it seems).
six different girls have stuck their hands down the front of my pants to feel my zipper or something. i dont know, i dont complain. dont have to take my shoes off, either.

wouldnt like for a male TSA agent to do it though.

Speaking of brain damage, you may want to finish your thought before hitting the SUBMIT button...

What have you spent money on in your life?
Got that frivilous upgrade for your car?
An expensive graphics card or RAM upgrade to make your game run better?
Purchase a large television?
Upgraded your smartphone?
Faster internet??

How about getting worked up? I wonder how many things you find exciting that billions of people across the world dont give a shit about.

Unless you have never wasted money or energy on something needless that you nevertheless enjoyed, you're no better than someone who because they bought a seat to enjoy themselves at a sporting event.

Football on slashdot is for everyone:

-Those who want to complain inanely about the name as though it somehow mattered
-Those who complain about marijuana being illegal yet want to ban violent sports
-Those who hate sports, probably because they...
  a) were tortured by sports players in high school and hold a grudge against activities in response
  b) are physically unable to participate and feel the need to mock those who are
  c) need to feel morally and intellectually superior to those who enjoy disgusting and barbaric physical competition

-and the ten or so of us who have fun watching and/or playing sports

im on an Army flag football team.
its only "flag" football if you have the ball, the rest of us are hitting each other, HARD. its "flag" football, so we have no pads or helmets.

trust me, some people (myself included) will play as hard without pads as with them. a torn quad (two places), dislocated shoulder (hurts a /lot/ more than it looks in Lethal Weapon), sprained wrist, perpetually (during the season) sprained thumbs, concussion (elbow to the head), broken nose (looks like it never happened!), and bruises all over my body are not enough to take away from my love of playing.

pads extend players' careers. having only played without pads, i'll burn out in the next few seasons (might be next season, the shoulder may preclude any more). some things you can only do when youre young.

im not following the "news" de jour, so i may be misunderstanding you when you say "cha-ching".
This Neely fella doesnt pocket any of the lodging money. if he cant even claim it via receipt, then he has no opportunity to even get at it. its not like they give us wads of cash, its all on a govt travel card or a personal credit card. if its not on the govt travel card, it doesnt exist. if its not on your personal credit card, it would be silly to ask for reimbursement.
if you're getting at the hotel giving free rooms in exchange for business... well, at least thats a good deal for us taxpayers.

RM (resource management) is tough to work around. hell, getting some new DOORS (regular solid doors) in a few buildings here requires 20 pages of paperwork and a cost-benefit analysis that only a few in our Battalion have the expertise to complete correctly.
skirting rules is /very/ possible, but you have to be a good liar and be willing to take a lot of risk. the only real times having 'juice' matters is when you get caught in your lie. that determines if you get punished according to regulation or are allowed to live another day (figuratively speaking). if others are enabling your lies, it will be even harder to escape with just a warning.

im not saying there are no ways around, but theyre very risky and the benefit (some measly TDY money?) is not usually worth it.
and im a cynic, one who understands the position i've risen to in my favorite Theater is not worth the $15k/yr or so i could (50/50 odds) scam off my various TDYs, or $20k/yr for housing (100% odds, too easy!), etc... there are better things to lie for.

That is incorrect, though you are probably just speaking as an ignorant cynic and are already aware of the fact.
I can book any hotel room i want, below or above the area lodging rate (most hotels know what the rate is and lock their govt rate to it). however if i go above that rate, i pay the difference out of my own pocket (and you dont get to keep unused lodging funds). you must provide receipts for lodging, so anything billed to the room that cant be proven to be in direct support of your work (internet, hookers, etc) comes out of your pocket.

on my last TDY i didnt want to stay in the same backwoods hotel the guy with the authorized vehicle was staying at, so i booked another hotel (at the govt rate) and rented a car. that car was not authorized, so i paid for it out of pocket. no way around it.

there is no "pull", and if you lie on your trip report to justify having spent over the allowed rate, that is simply defrauding the government.
other people's jobs rely on you doing it accurately and within reg, so unless you know someone in the RM chain that is willing to lose their job and possibly face jailtime for you, you are bound to the TDY allowances.

a lot of this stuff is more going to virtual servers (consolidation) than a massive centralized data center.
for instance, my battalion has three data centers (over three physical installations) and theyre dumping one of them by relocating as many physical servers to virtualized ones (and physically moving ones that cannot be virtualized at this time) in one of the other two. gets rid of a lot of servers and saves a lot of money on electricity/lifecycle/service contracts/backups/etc, but doesnt get rid of any sysadmins (though a few have to move offices). regardless of manpower, thats $datacenters - 1 in the grand DoD scheme of things.

other stuff like the "cloud" (bullshit term for a DoD owned centralized data center) exchange server migration does remove a lot of servers, but most working IT in the DoD know that everyone does dozens of jobs already and losing one server (even an exchange server) just means you have more time to focus on all your other projects. we also get bigger mailboxes and it costs a lot less, seems like a good deal.

iED

Not certain where you work, but I believe there are laws against firing or making life unlivable if you are selected by jury duty. Somehow millions of people a year seem to do jury time and not come out the other end selling window washes at the stoplight.
My previous employer paid me my regular salary during the time I was on jury duty. YMMV, but I would talk to a lawyer to be certain.

I agree that some of the decisions that come out of high-profile jury trials are absolutely baffling, but we also have idiot judges ruling on stuff they dont even comprehend, lawyers arguing technical cases with information that makes no sense, and "expert" witnesses that present illogical conclusions to sway that judge or jury member that doesnt know any better. the whole thing is a roll of the dice.

And your comments about the people who serve on juries... what the hell? because you arent "clever" enough to lie or think of some excuse as to why you cannot participate in jury duty, you are "not smart enough"? i hope you never go to trial, if all the people you would deem intelligent enough to entrust your future were also "too smart" to serve.

Some of us are IT professionals working for the US government... seems kind of relevant to me, even if it doesn't to you.
I don't own any apple products, yet I don't complain about all the apple stories that get posted.

Get over it and move on.

Yes, the right wing media's vicious anti-insect meat campaign. cant get away from that one...

it is worth it to save the planet? i dont know if it tastes good or not (havent had the opportunity to try it yet), but what is the point of living if you're forced to eat things you think are disgusting? its one thing to be forced to use a different vehicle technology or lightbulb, its another to mandate a new way of life, especially one that eschews a large part of a person's culture.
what other ways should people have their lives made unenjoyable to save the planet?

For those that dont know, this guy (among others of course) has been integral to opening up the Wii and now the PS3 for homebrew.
Very interesting writer too, explains on his website much of the details of working around the various "fixes" Nintendo applied to try and close the holes in their code.
He is definitely not an asshole, and those of us who care about openness on these consoles (or just enjoy running homebrew on them) owe a lot to him and the teams he works with.

</deserved asskissing>