AEROCASTER comments

A good start for Mizuho would be their online banking website.

Let's destroy the reputation of the doctor before all the facts are known.

Sad incident, but what is a 10yo doing out alone at 4am, especially in what sounds like an entertainment district?

Sounds like profiling to me.

Having recently been mired down for months in the red tape of Softbank Japan on their mobile and internet divisions (switching payment sources from Credit Card to Bank), I can only hope that Softbank Japan will learn and benefit from the ease in which consumers stateside can access their accounts online and by phone to effect simple changes.

I can't imagine any 'best practices' on the consumer side being transferred to the USA.

Robert S. McNamara from the 2003 Academy Award winning documentary film, 'The Fog Of War'... talking about the US firebombing of Japan in WWII...

"LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

... Anyway, this Korean guy was out pushing the wrong buttons in the wrong place. He's lucky to be able to talk about it.

I ripped my entire collection of DVDs to a RAID drive. I shredded the discs. I never want to see another disc as long as I live.

A good friend, US born Thai, Berkley grad, returned to Thailand a decade ago and won't return to the US for the same reasons.

Back in Thailand his world is an open book, but stateside he grew up being 'China boy', 'Chopstick', and a thousand other racial slurs... and this kid is cool, grew up in Laguna, surfer, plays ball, smart, good looking, but American culture can push against you if you're not white.

The bamboo curtain exists, and America lost another good one.

don't you need to be a citizen to purchase real estate in this country?

If you have the money, you can buy. No need to be Japanese, but having a Japanese to help in negotiating the process will be necessary.

Smart kid. We also discovered the ingredients for gunpowder in our school's encyclopedia... picked up sulfur from the railroad tracks, charcoal from the barbeque, and saltpeter in cans ($0.19 cents at the time) at the drug store. We had a lot of fun making firecrackers and crude fuses, etc.

Unfortunately, those days are gone for kids. Everything has become a federal offense.

Unsweetened drinks in convenience stores!

One effect of the tax, especially in the cases where there is a pile of cash sitting in a bank, may be to actually USE the money by spending it, employing it somehow, lending it... and that may be better for the economy than sitting on it.

At this point in time, who gives a ra tsass about what Ichihashi wants. If mom and dad want to come for a visit all the power to them. They may have some sway over their skunk of a son and help this to a quicker resolution.

And the restaurant owner? This guy witnesses the whole thing and keeps the old guy there until evening when he starts to die. I suppose if pop stars can get away with criminal negligence so can the owner of the Thai restaurant.

Let's see... I can watch J-TV show showing girls in short skirts getting judo-flipped to see if the camera and show hosts and audience can catch a glimpse of their exposed panties as they land; I've seen women walking with skirts so short I can see their panties and butts hanging out below their skirts as they walk through the busy concourse of Yokohama Station (and I'm 185cm!!), and been exposed to panties of all sorts by J-women who seem very comfortable squatting with open legs, changing their socks on the train, etc, etc. This action by the J-police is laughable. If the prudish moms didn't like it just just ask the guy to move... it's not as though he was having sex with her.

I side with Noriko and her children on this one. The children are Japanese citizens and spent most of their lives in Japan. They should definitely be in Japan, not America. To hell with the twisted entanglements imposed by te American judiciary.

bquadry - drugs are illegal in Japan? Hardly. Alcohol is most certainly a drug, and far from illegal. And a number of over the counter medications contain opiates in Japan. Unfortunately for this kid marijuana is most definitely not legal, and he's definitely screwed his chances of getting into KU.

... and was the train operator also arrested? Sounds similar to the little boy that crossed the road through stopped cars into an oncoming truck earlier this week...

I agree with earlier comments - where were the parents?

I have two kids in grades one and three, but if it happened as the driver said I'm afraid I have to side with the driver... a kid just walks out into traffic from between cars... it's sad, makes be cringe, but the if it happened this way the kid did something very dangerous...

Unfortunately the world is chock full of neanderthals that live in a polarized black or white reality - and these boneheads often get to interpret or make the laws on behalf of the rest of us.

Mom did the right thing in taking the child to the hospital. Good luck to her, as she's probably having a hard time coping with her new reality.

As for papa bear, he miserably failed a number of key character tests that night. Unfortunately he'll probably abscond from any further responsibilities toward his wife and the child he fathered. Maybe he'll grow up some day in another life. Tough lesson for all.

Great inspirational speech, and a fair, inclusive and centrist framework for a reform of American health care. Most initiatives were already on common ground, he extended a few olive branches to some substantive Republican ideas, and gave some overdue clarifications and reassurances for the balance of the program - perhaps not perfect but still damned good! It looks like he's going to get it done.

~

BTW... Whatever happened to Southern Hospitality?

At what point can a person start making decisions about what they do with themselves? The law may be clear as mud, but here in Japan it seems there are many 15 and 17 year-olds who are educated and focused and seem mature enough to make decisions for themselves, and perhaps 18 and 20 year-olds who aren't. I say allow it and deal with complaints, if any, on a case by case basis. Perhaps those under 18 or 20 should need a parent to sign off permission. I suspect there will be few complaints because the actors seem willing. This is Japan, and these days Japan is starting to shed some the Western ways and morals it's adopted since the war. About time!

McDonalds in Japan beats the hell out of McDonalds in Canada.

Canada has legalized growing, possession, and use of pot for health reasons. Individuals can easily apply for and receive a license from Health Canada. A majority of Canadians now believe it should be legalized or decriminalized for personal recreational use. I'm for legalization and I'm not even interested in smoking it. It simply makes more sense that keeping it illegal.

Japan, wake up! The longer it's criminalized, the sooner your underworld will take up the cause. Look what's happening to Mexico to see the true ugliness of drug prohibition in action.

The obese need only to fly Air Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has recently required airlines to provide double seats for the obese at the regular rate.

I agree with providing a couple of 'supersized' economy seat for the big ones...

I also like the idea of having a maximum total weight for passenger and luggage.

I like the horizontal seats idea... I'd gladly go for a berth on a long flight. Just like taking the train, and perhaps could be made more efficient than regular seating.

Canola is not exactly rapeseed. Rapeseed oil has high acidity. CANOLA a derivative of rapeseed developed in Canada to produce a very beneficial oil with low acidity, hence the name: CANOLA - CANadian Oil Low Acid.

A few weeks ago, walking down Yokohama's walking street about 8pm amid the teeming well-dressed crowd of new year's shoppers, a scarecrow of a man danced nimbly through the throng. His rags were so completely tattered, no shoes - he looked like what I can only describe as perhaps, Ben Gunn. I've seen all manner of street people in Japan, but this creature was so completely and utterly strange that many of the Japanese stopped to look and point at him as he hopped his way down the street... very surreal, especially to see Japanese stopping to take notice.

I wondered where he could have come from and where he was going, and what on earth propelled him to do emerge from his shadow in the midst of such a brightly lit crowd. He looked terrified, and moved as though he was walking on hot coals.

At the margins of this society there must be some real horrors hidden in the darkness. One can only hope this little girl has found a place in the sun.