![](\"http:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/images\/photos2007\/nn20070202a1a.jpg\")
<\/a>Today's example from Japanese politics, long a juicy<\/span> source for\nmind-numbingly stupid political speech, is from a talk<\/span> given the other day\nby the Japanese Minister of Health, Hakuo Yanagisawa, about Japan's\nlong-declining birthrate:<\/p>\n\n \n The number of females aged 15 to 50 is fixed. The number<\/span> of child-bearing machines, apparatus, is fixed,\n so... (saying “child-bearing machines” is.... how shall I say.<\/span>... well,\n anyway), so in the end, all we can ask is for each to do their best.\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n It's bad enough that a person would even consider referring to women as\ndevices like this, but it might not be unexpected from a 71<\/span>-year-old pig\nlike this man apparently is, but it's so shocking<\/i> that someone\nthat's risen to the cabinet level of national politics wouldn't be smart\nenough to keep his mouth shut<\/i>. It's just amazing<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n Of course, he's getting roasted for it, with many calling for his\nresignation. I asked<\/span> Fumie what she thought about it, to which she said\n“I'm just glad I'm not married to him” \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n One thing I do find a bit odd about the coverage I've seen is that the\nparenthetical part of my translation above, where he apparently realizes\nthat perhaps he's made a mistake<\/span> by voicing his “machine”\nopinion, is one sometimes not included in Japanese news reports covering\nhis quote, or in any of the English translations I've seen. However, I do believe<\/span> that this is the \n\u300c\uff11\uff15\u304b\u3089\uff15\uff10\u6b73\u306e\u5973\u6027<\/span>\u306e\u6570\u306f\u6c7a\u307e\u3063\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002\u7523\u3080\u3080\u6a5f\u68b0\u3001<\/span>\u88c5\u7f6e<\/span>\u306e\u6570\u306f\u6c7a\u307e\u3063\u3066\u3044\u308b\u304b\u3089\u3001\u6a5f\u68b0<\/span>\u3068\u8a00\u3046\u306e\u306f\u4f55\u3060\u3051\u3069<\/b>\u3001\u3042\u3068\u306f\u4e00\u4eba\u982d<\/span>\u3067\u9811\u5f35\u3063<\/span>\u3066\u3082\u3089\u3046\u3057\u304b\u306a\u3044\u3068\u601d\u3046\u300d\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n In any case, it's pathetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Politicians the world around often put on the most brazen displays of stupidity in what they say, and those in Japan are no exception. <\/p> Today's example from Japanese politics, long a juicy source for mind-numbingly stupid political speech, is from a talk given the other day by the Japanese Minister of Health, Hakuo Yanagisawa, about Japan's long-declining birthrate:<\/p> It's bad enough that a person would even consider referring to women as devices like this, but it might not be unexpected from a 71-year-old pig like this man apparently is, but it's so shocking that someone that's risen to the [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}