bonword comments

Thank you Yubaru for the informative and also personal information in regards to respirators and QL decisions.

I greatly appreciate these types of comments.

Brain dead for seven years. Poor family. I wonder who made the decision to keep him on life support for the seven years? I am assuming it is a family decision in Japan but I really don't know. Anyone?

Great picture thanks to the Juxtaposition of the Buddhist monk and the Christian. Happy Holidays to all and I wish us all happiness and the spirit of compassion and tolerance.

Way too late, way too late.

Well I hope that he's the one that did the two attacks and just isn't delusional and is admitting to them. This reminds me slightly of the Kobe Killer of about 16 years ago. It seems that in these cases the attacks escalate in serverity. Hopefully people in Chiba can rest more easily.

Adoption was brought up by several posters. Does anyone know or have firsthand experience about adoption in Japan?

Great title!

Drug money? Bet someone is not too happy with the fella who left the money there.

Seem to me that what is needed is an international fixed standard for children car seats. I'm just dreaming here, but imagine if all seats and all cars had the same, simple locking procedure and safety features for the child seat. Then training on how to use them could be simple and standard and there would be no learning curve if you switched cars/seats.

Tragic for this family. Hopefully someone will notice and learn and secure their children better.

Spray painting on someone else's property is wrong. It's an intrusion, it's invasive and it can have a negative impact on others.

I hope these offenders are caught, are fined for the clean-up fees as well as any other costs associated with their acts and then are sentence to something appropriate - say community service and cleaning up litter.

The bottle of water, whistle and flashlight are a great idea.

I actually have a "grab bag" located in the closest next to the bed. It's basically what I "need" if I want to dash out the house and leave all behind. Some change of clothes, passport and other things.

Always worth to review emergent plans with your family when these things happen. Where is your meet up place in case of a fire for example? Same for earthquake, god forbid.

Interesting Comment zichi..good point about the clear change of seasons in Japan..but maybe it all depends where in Japan you are?

Of course, having lived in Kansai and Kanto I have to agree with you so I am curious to hear from people from other regions. Do the seasons mix, or is there an abrupt change?

Great pic by the way! Let's enjoy it's beauty and thank JT for posting it.

I am in shock...for once I actually have to say that Elbuda Mexicano has a relevant post. Right on the mark about the self defense courses. There is also Judo and Aikido (now being promoted strongly for women) as self-defence.

Hope they catch this sick person soon. He is obviously in need of treatment.

Cheers to Zichi, fact filled posts with no emotional bias. Makes for compelling reading and a serious tone. Also actually made me want to read the report, which I've just started.

tokyokawaski - It might take an hour to clean up the mess, inspect the tracks for damage and try to find every single part of the bicycles. Might sound crazy but I am sure there is a regulation somewhere calling for an extreme clean up when tracks are obstructed to ensure that there are not further accidents (like a derailing) from the first accident.

Please note, I am not saying that a bicycle part would cause a derailing. I am saying that in the event of an accident, regulations would require thorough checking of the area. No matter what the accident.

On a related topic of old age and crime, I heard that the number of seniors committing petty theft is rising. Some of the reasons reported was loneliness and a way to relieve boredom. Does anyone have info related to this?

I believe that you get a medal, a pension and a special meal for the 25th time caught. Excuse my flippancy but this is really ludicrous.

I found the Munya Times comments to be quite good in this thread. I don't like the fact that minors are drinking nor that people are driving drunk, but as Munya Times pointed out, we (as society) can not expect bartenders to police this behavior...

Maybe the simple answer is to install a breathalyzer in each car? They have the technology for repeat DUI offenders...if this was mass produced for all cars then the cost would come down. After all, as some of the JP people have pointed out, cars are basically deadly weapons, so wouldn't we all feel better if aside from the basic license, you also had to prove you were sober each time you wanted to operate this "DEADLY WEAPON" as Elbuda Mexicano has called the car....

Well said アメリ フセイン. Amazon is not truly competing with ipad. I think these two new pads (Nook and Fire) are far more specialized tablets. And they will do very well as niche products.

If you are in America, then the Amazon fire has to be really appealing given Amazon's vast catalog of movies and tv shows. I really think Amazon has a winner on their hands. I wish the best to the Nook as well.

That does seem like a low number - perhaps they mean cartons and not individual cigarettes?

Has anyone asked their Japanese friends about this? I asked around last week at a table of 10 of us and not one actually knew about it. Of course, it's not like I find finance issues of great interest to me back home either but this one did stand out because of Mr. Woodford.

The shares are down 70%. Do people feel this is because of panic or is it well deserved?

Right I am quite tired of reading some of these comments posted by people who do not take a few moments to think about what is reported.

Let's see here:

Police are continuing to investigate the exact cause of the accident.

Some people ask why the investigation?

Other people assert that the first flyer, Nakajima-san, deserves a darwin award...

Well, let me throw a wrench into your works.

1) They were flying in formation. 2) Nakajima-san turned. The other pilot did not. 3) We do not know if their plan called for turn at this point or not. 4) We do not know if Nakajima-san turned on time or if the other pilot failed to turn in time 5) We do not even know if Nakajima's craft suffered a mechanical failure 6) Taking it even further, we do not know if Nakajima-san suffered a heart attack, or other type of attack causing him to twitch at the controls, and crashing his craft.

There are a lot of things still unknown about this event, hence the police are investigating. What we do know though, is that some people decided to assume and judge immediately without all the facts.

Forced suicide is actually a term that can be found on wikipedia. It basically means where the victim is coerced into committing suicide to avoid facing an alternative option they perceive as much worse.

But it's meaning is not used properly in this article. Considering that this is a translated article, I would guess that they meant to say multiple murder and joint suicide...or multiple murder and suicide (in the case that one parent did all the killing).

There is no excuse for killing innocents.

I assume that bicycle lane marks on sidewalks means that it is actually a "bicycle path"... of course I might be wrong!

I found Tamesu-san's info very helpful. It basically states that violence is not committed due to stress but due to some underlying personality problems. In other words, this man that committed the violence was not because of stress, (or just stress) but because he needed to feel in control.

Disullusioned and hokkaidoguy: Excellent reminders

Agree with the scam comments. Only donate to reputable charities please. Let's make sure our donations actually reach the people in need.

I agree with Apsara.

I have no had one blackout yet despite the warning that I would everyday. Each day it was cancelled due to "low energy demand/usage". The stores I went to had reduced electricity and our household is running with one or two lights on at night.

It would be nice if this leads to long term changes in power usage and energy conservation but I doubt it.

As for food. There was a shortage the first day in some places as people went on mass buying sprees. But by the second day everything was pretty much stocked up - except for batteries, flashlights and portable gas stoves. So, enough with the doom and gloom postings please. Life the last week could have been so much worse for Tokyo. It's up north where the true suffering is.

Radiation levels on the 17th in Tokyo were below the average Radiation for cities worldwide...

0.14 vs 0.2

Will people stop the fear mongering and arm themselves with facts instead?

Rated for 10 hours of video or 9 hours of 3G browsing but the writer only got 6 hours of youtube (does that count as a video/3g hybrid test?)

How does this compare to the ipad?

Well, perhaps the Xoom 2 will be a better competitor with Apple.