Empress Michiko turns 83; says Nobel award to ICAN meaningful

The Geneva-based nongovernmental organization has been working with survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings

Once again, please tell us the requirements to be considered an official "survivor of the bombings"

Quite an amazing woman. As a "commoner" who had to deal with the dowager for so many years, and overcome all the physical and emotional crap that the IHA tossed at her, she has earned the title she holds, not "given" to her by birth!

Happy birthday!

Quite an amazing woman. As a "commoner" who had to deal with the dowager for so many years, and overcome all the physical and emotional crap that the IHA tossed at her, she has earned the title she holds, not "given" to her by birth!

Absolutely. She has also earned the right to retirement. She should be living out her golden years with her wonderful husband doing things like travelling and going to onsen. She shouldn't have to continue in that role.

Is it just me, or does anybody else suspect the Emperor’s struggle to ‘retire’ and the Empress’s remark about the Nobel Peace Prize are veiled rejections of a nuclear policy of which we only see the tip? My reasoning is as follows:

1 - Motivation 

While North Korea’s behavior is in-your-face with its shenanigans, few Japanese or Americans realize that while Obama gave a good speech at Hiroshima, his administration was responsible for the highest budget devoted to ‘improving’ the nuclear arsenal since the cold war. If America is upping the stakes, you can be sure that Japan, as the nuclear cushion between the U.S. and China or Russia, will grow in comparable strategic relevance.

Trump has said and done so many audacious things, that it is easy to forget he suggested both South Korea and Japan go nuclear for ‘defense’, presumably to ease America’s responsibility abroad for maintaining an expensive nuclear umbrella. While the clown in chief’s comments were quickly brushed under the carpet, there were certainly a few nationalists in Japan who felt an implied permission to go ahead with research and make new policy that takes the ‘de facto’ out of ‘nuclear state’ as applied to Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program 

The Japanese ‘self defense’ force is ranked the world’s 7th most powerful military. Changes in the constitution to take a ‘pro-active defense stance’ are not just minor interpretations of wording.

And seismically active Japan’s choice to go with dangerous fast breeder reactors of course has NO connection with the fact that a waste product is the fissile plutonium necessary to make nuclear warheads (over a thousand at last count). 

2 - Opportunity

As stated in the wiki-read, Japan has had technology on par with the U.S., Russia, or Germany … and with nuclear weapons development program as far back as the 1930’s. My dad was a Green Beret specialist in the 1960’s, hinting that one of his jobs was to teach generals the use of back-packable, tactical, nuclear bombs. If this was in the 60’s, just think how much more advanced current Japanese technological capacity is.

The space program alone is up there with the best. 

I was asked, and then abruptly dismissed, to be a speaking coach for NASA rocket scientist Jonathan Cirtain and his recent TEDx-Birmingham speech one of NASA’s headquarters. Dr. Cirtain was also a team leader in Japan’s Hayabusa mission. 

His thesis was ‘to make a compelling argument that nuclear engines provide the best chance for a manned mission to mars’. I agree with him. But I don’t think anyone can make that argument within TED’s policy of keeping politics out of the 18 minute speech. The event was held last month, but try as I might, I can find no Youtube video of any 2017 TEDx-Birmingham speech, much less Dr. Cirtain’s. I thought it would be interesting to see how he could pull that off.

But rest assured, if Japan has the space technology to keep us with world leaders, it also has the missile technology. North Korea is playing with fire here.

The technology has long been in place, and despite China’s protests (the pot calling the kettle black), the necessary missing ingredient, fissile plutonium, is here in enough quantity to produce over a thousand ‘bombs in the closet’ or a mechanism which is only a ’screwdriver’s turn’ away from being an out-and-out bomb. 

Plausible (just barely) deniability.

What’s to keep the oligarchy from making a bomb? The people? 

The 18 year olds have now been granted the right to vote … but without the right to discuss either the military, nuclear policy, or the Imperial system in the classroom … ostensibly to maintain ‘political neutrality’ in the state-run schools. Is there even a Japanese word for ‘oxymoron’?

Another anti-nuclear demonstration or letter of protest? 

Investigative journalists? Oops, scratch that. Forgot about the new States Secrets Law. Such journalism would be illegal.

Or perhaps we can rely on the reassurances of the government that there is no bomb? They would NEVER lie to the people.

Then why, I wonder, that as the ONLY country who has been ravaged by a nuclear bomb … sided with nuclear arms bearing countries … and NOT signed this year’s nuclear weapons bans treaty? 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/07/10/commentary/japan-commentary/japan-wrong-side-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty/#.WemTkYZx2N8

Worrying times. 

And I think the little lady deserves much more than a round of applause.

Her family invented top ramen and cup ramen. It has factories in Irvine and other cities in So. Calif. Every time I eat cup Ramen, I recall her when her nickname was Mitchi.

Forgot to mention. A Happy Birthday Empress!

The time was when " only Crown Prince marrys with love."