Japan Strikes Again

The mind swirls. . .

Any ideas outside of the most blatantly obvious?

Japanese Bagel Heads

I post this for Burnt Toast.

Man, I think we do indeed owe an apology to Japan.  Those bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have really messed these people up.

Extreme body modification has taken an interesting turn in Japan. These lovely people above have had saline pumped into their foreheads for about two hours, a process that creates a rather, um, well... it makes a lump. And if you press your thumb into your forehead while the saline is pumping in, it makes a bagel, which is awesome?

Rugree

The troubled waters between Japan and China just got a little murkier.

Japanese Coast Guard vessels fired water cannon to turn away about 40 Taiwan fishing boats and eight Taiwan Coast Guard vessels from waters Japan considers its own on Tuesday in the latest twist to a row between Tokyo and Beijing. 

Japan protested to Taiwan, a day after it lodged a complaint with China over what it said was a similar intrusion by Chinese boats. Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply this month after Japan bought disputed East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from their private owner, sparking anti-Japan protests across China.

Taiwan has friendly ties with Japan, but the two sides have long squabbled over fishing rights in the area. China and Taiwan both argue they have inherited China's historic sovereignty over the islands.

 Leave Japan alone!

Photo courtesy of Japanisweird.com

The Drums of War

The Chinese and Japanese do not like one another.  That goes back a long way.  I've been saying for years that Japan (and Germany) need to militarize and do it in a hurry.  The Axis is way ahead of us this time around.

Seen in Shanghai's Baoshan district along Jiangyang North Road some time after 10am yesterday: A man unfurls anti-Japanese banners ("Defeat the Japanese devils!", "Japanese devils return home!") outside a Honda dealer, and sets fire to his own Honda Civic.

About half an hour after I wrote the above, I stumbled across this article...

China’s most powerful military leader, in an unusual public statement, last week ordered military forces to prepare for combat, as Chinese warships deployed to waters near disputed islands and anti-Japan protests throughout the country turned violent. 

Protests against the Japanese government’s purchase of three privately held islands in the Senkakus chain led to mass street protests, the burning of Japanese flags, and attacks on Japanese businesses and cars in several cities. Some carried signs that read “Kill all Japanese,” and “Fight to the Death” over disputed islands. One sign urged China to threaten a nuclear strike against Japan.

And by way of background, Maps published in China and Taiwan in the 1960s clearly show the islands as Japanese territory. There was little interest in the islands until a geological surveys released in 1968 and 1972 reported their might be oil and minerals around the islands.

Japanese Not Sold on Hope and Change

Of equal importance as the Japanese skepticism of Obama is this WaPo reporter's surprise at such skepticism. Oh, and the fact that his entire story was compiled by surfing the internet. Hell, that's what I do. I would expect a "real journalist" to actually put his boots on the ground.

Surfing Japanese news Web sites for commentaries on the Obama victory from a key U.S. ally, I was taken aback by the skeptical, even negative, tone that prevailed. "Obama Likely to Stress Importance of China," read one headline in the mass-circulation daily Yomiuri Shimbun, implying that the new administration will relegate Japan to the foreign policy back seat. The economic daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun fretted about the likelihood that the Democratic president and Congress may concoct a massive rescue package for troubled U.S. automakers and about the potential fallout for the Japanese car industry. Everyone seemed to agree that Obama, who has talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq to concentrate on Afghanistan, may well put pressure on Japan to send ground troops to the latter country -- something the nation's postwar pacifist leaders don't feel prepared to do.
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The most astounding article appeared in Sentaku, a monthly magazine with a reputation for objectivity and solid analysis. Writing in anticipation of an Obama victory, the magazine raised most of the same charges the Republicans had leveled against the Democratic candidate, including Obama's associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former Weather Underground leader William Ayers and "communist and socialist professors." It called him "the most dubious character in history to occupy the White House." Criticizing Obama's foreign policy statements as "abstract" and "strings of empty words such as 'consultation' and 'cooperation,' " the article concluded that under Obama, the United States would lose its position of global leadership and drag the world into "enormous chaos."

Why are the Japanese feeling so much less positive about an Obama presidency than the rest of the world?

Japanese media seem concerned that officials there have few contacts with Obama or his advisers and that Obama doesn't seem to know much about Japan. As the world's second-largest economy and a close U.S. ally, Japan should have no problem communicating its wishes and concerns to Washington. But the Japanese strongly believe that only personal connections can affect U.S. policies.

The Japanese may also be anxious about Obama because of his party affiliation. The last time there was a Democrat in the White House, Japan's huge trade surpluses with the United States made it a favorite whipping boy for many U.S. politicians. The Clinton administration, which had made fixing the economy "Job One," demanded that Japan set numerical targets for importing U.S. products. And it tasked its abrasive trade representative, Mickey Kantor, with keeping up the pressure as Tokyo resisted what it perceived as a demand for managed trade. Tokyo's then-ambassador to Washington, Takakazu Kuriyama, said he had never seen so much distrust between officials of the two governments in his 30-plus years of diplomatic service.

The Japanese strongly associate Democrats with protectionism, which may make Obama seem problematic. "Concerns of Resurgent Protectionism," a Japanese Industrial Daily headline proclaimed as it reported his victory. Japanese manufacturers with plants in the United States also worry that American labor unions' clout may increase under the Democrats. Many Japanese managers of U.S. subsidiaries "have had a hard time because of their unions' anti-management attitudes," a Japanese business analyst in Washington told me. "It's natural that they think Republicans are easier to deal with."

WHAT IN THE NAME OF THOMAS EDISON?

Japanese neon light fights. Something tells me they're destroying those lights at the instruction of Al Gore.






From Oddity Central.

JAPANESE COMPANY PULLS AD WITH MONKEY LIKENESS OF OBAMA

"Hope and change". Ladies and Gentlemen, don't be surprised if that monkey is Japan's next rising politician.

A Japanese mobile phone firm said today it had pulled a TV advert depicting a monkey as a political candidate amid accusations that it was a racist reference to Barack Obama, who is seeking to become the first black US president.

The ad, for eMobile, shows a monkey in a suit addressing an election rally, surrounded by supporters carrying placards carrying the word "Change".

The apparent intention is to persuade subscribers to other mobile phone carriers to transfer to eMobile.

But the combination of the monkey, and the resemblance of his message to the theme of Obama's campaign - "Change we can believe in" - prompted bloggers to accuse the company of making a racist slur against the Democratic hopeful.

Here's the video:

HOMELESS WOMAN LIVES UNDETECTED IN MAN'S CLOSET FOR A YEAR

Damn!

A HOMELESS woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his wardrobe for a year was arrested in Japan yesterday.

The woman was only rumbled after the man became suspicious about food mysteriously disappearing from his kitchen.

Police found the 58-year-old woman hiding in the top compartment of the man’s wardrobe and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura said today.

The man had installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen.

One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar.

However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all the windows closed.

"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said.

"When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."

The woman told police she had nowhere to live and first sneaked into the man’s house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.

She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman "neat and clean."

God knows what's hiding in this guy's sock drawer.

CRAZY MUSLIMS ARE THROWING A HISSY FIT OVER A JAPANESE CARTOON INSULTING ISLAM

Stuff like this won't happen when Obama starts talking with people...

A scene from an animated version of a popular Japanese comic book has sparked an outcry in the Muslim world, where some fear it could fuel a backlash not seen since European publications carried cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

At issue is a 90-second "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" video segment that depicts Dio Brando, a villain, picking up a Quran from a bookshelf and apparently examining it as he orders the execution of the hero and his friends.

Someone posted negative comments and a still from the video, sparking a groundswell. Messages on the topic have appeared in more than 300 Arab and Islamic Web forums, with some accusing Japan of insulting the Quran.

Sheikh Abdul Hamid Attrash, chairman of the Fatwa (religious edict) Committee at Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni authority, based in Cairo, called the cartoon an insult to Islam.

"This scene depicts Muslims as terrorists, which is not true at all," he said. "This is an insult to the religion, and the producers would be considered to be enemies of Islam."

Lemme see if I understand this. You swear the death of people who insult you with a cartoon, and you're pissed that normal people consider you a terrorist? Do I have that right? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you did not take debate in high school.
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