B.B.Q.Demon comments

Really vague article. It could be that the truck driver only drove a few seconds before stopping, then going back, or the truck driver could have driven for an hour, then gone back.

@JapanGal: At that set price, and 44 customers per day for 36 days, the gross take is about 102.8 million yen, or about US$ 875,000. If he split it evenly between the 50, they'd get $17,500 each for the month. Figure half for expenses and their getting $8,750 for a month of solid work. Not great, but not bad. Probably more for promotion than the money.

So, we pay more taxes to allow tax breaks for corporations who will raise workers' pay , except they just took the money and are opening factories in China. Sounds like our taxes are subsidizing Chinese workers' pay.

Maybe a way to keep the roof constantly heated would work. That does sound expensive, though...

So, about 1 in 30 people will have dementia. Wow, that's a helluva lot of people out of it.

Hold in right near the N-plants in Fukushima, as everything is "under control".

Start with no sales tax on unprepared food. Pretty much everything in a supermarket except the "deli-ish" corner (Bento, fried chicken,etc.,). Take off all tax on beer, because I like Japanese beer.:-)

Japanese hospitals are only clean for the first five or ten years after they're built. After that, they become nasty quickly. I paid a visit to an old friend, that I hadn't heard from for a few years, who I heard was in a city hospital with late stage cancer. 12 years ago, when my two year old daughter had a benign growth removed there, it was only a few years old and quite clean. I was shocked how run down, dirty, and nasty it had become. It skeeved me out just breathing the air. Loads of Purell/alcohol spray stations, though, all of which I used.

Since a reporter would be jailed for printing the information, passing any information over to a reporter, even anonymously, wouldn't help, unless the reporter was willing to go to jail.

Post warnings about the threats everywhere possible, then show the movie. Call them, "Freedom from Tyrannic Little Mumfs", viewings. Add in that you attend at your own risk.

@Brandon: Not in Japan. Just look at all the violations Yuki Jirushu racked up, yet they never suffered from low sales.

The sinks where the kids wash their hands at schools here have really cold water. It really discourages the students from thoroughly and frequently washing their hands.

Nomad......sterilize.....

Just say no.

@sangetsu03: Exactly.

Having no sales tax on essentials like groceries is the kind of confusion I, and I think everyone else, would welcome.

@fxguy: An extra ¥50,000 a year in taxes? Try more like an extra ¥120,000+ per year. That's just the 3% extra sales tax calculations. Most things have gone up a lot more than that, so it's more like an extra ¥250,000 a year in added expense with no pay increase and nothing more to show for that money spent.

Magnum P.I. was great. RIP, Glen Larson.

@JoeBigs: Though Japan does pay some for the US bases, it would cost a lot more for them to field a real force capable of deterring the likes of Russia, China, and N.Korea. The only sweetheart deal here is in Japan's favor.

As a meltdown would affect a large area, art least put restarting an N plant to a prefectural referendum. It's too easy to buy off these small towns.

There was a car accident, a woman with no pulse, and a guy trying to revive her with CPR, who has the presence of mind to additionally call for an AED an properly use it. All the driver can come up with is to accuse this hero of being a pervert. No concern about saving the apparently near death passenger? What a waste of space this driver is. He/she needs counseling.

He was probably too embarrassed to dump all that porn at the local dump, thinking the people there might see it all and think he's a major perve.

Japan "taxes" imported cars using non tariff trade barriers.

Here's a link to an interesting article on the lack of funding for monitoring volcanos, and the lack of experts in the field (less than 40).http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001619874

@Batman is: Are you serious?

While the BBC puts out a lot of very quality programs, NHK doesn't. Now that the head of NHK is one of Abe's yes men, it's pretty much useless.

"The shame he'll face from Japanese society and his career is ruined are enough punishment". Really? A regular person would face both of these, plus jail time. A career as a swimmer is so much more important than a normal person's career? I don't think so. The SK cops should have arrested him, as he stole a very expensive camera. It wasn't petty theft, like shoplifting potato chips. That camera costs what some small cars cost new, here in Japan. Book him, Dano.

Perverts trying to get kids in their cars has happened at least twice here, just at our little elementary school alone, in the last five years, and we live in the sticks.

@darnname: The government and TEPCO don't seem to be listening or trying to get any quality advice, even from experts around the world, so posting great ideas here wouldn't make a difference. But, "whinging or trying to be clever" helps spread the word about just how lame this disaster is being handled, and how it is being used to milk huge amounts of money from the taxpayers. If just one of the sheeple reads and becomes enlightened to the shenanigans going on, they might just tell their friends and so on. The more people that "whinge" the better the chances are that the government and TEPCO may be held accountable and actually start to behave reresponsibly. Believe me, if someone put up a foolproof, perfect solution to the Fukushima problems, here on this thread, there is zero chance the government would implement it, even if they read it.

Probably along the lines of," WTF?! Let's drop the BS and get on with business!"