Bryan Villados comments

Pray tell why the park did not have safety measures in place to prevent this from happening? There is an archery range in one of the public parks here and the walls are plenty high enough that errant shots would never go over them. The park needs to be held accountable for this accident.

Wow, what a western point of view. Chances are he'll sue no one - not the park not the beginner archer - no one. That's the way it should be. People make mistakes. Let it be.

These people have to understand that these lawmakers aren't going to the shrine for the 14 war criminals. They're there for the other 2.5 million people who died.

There are two possible reasons for the brouhaha. One reason might be ignorance of the shinto faith. The kami isn't something that can be handled. The kami at this shrine is a mixture of the 2.5 million plus 14, all combined. It is impossible to sort the kami out and therefore remove the bad ones from the shrine. That's basically what the Chinese and Koreans are asking for, which again shows a sign of ignorance for the faith. 14 bad apples will not prevent the Japanese government from recognizing the millions of other war dead.

The other possible reason is what I like to call "the joy of hate." The Chinese and Koreans do absolutely nothing - NOTHING to prevent conflict. All they do is bicker and whine. I don't blame the Japanese government for apologizing. I think even if the government did, it would not change things between these governments. They would receive the apology, but then go on further with the bickering and whining, and there's nothing that would make them happy. Actually, the bickering and whining does in fact make them happy, hence "the joy of hate."

The U.S. will never send Knox back to Italy to stand trial. Italy will try hard to have her returned, but it isn't going to happen. The U.S. as a country believes that a person can't be tried twice for the same charge, as in this case. Italy already had its chance. It can't keep trying over and over again until it gets a verdict it wants. The legal system isn't perfect. If the prosecution makes a mistake, it has to pay for it. Simple as pizza! Knox can never return to Italy, but that is the very least of her worries.

North Korea is definitely Class-A alright... A Class-A nutjob if you ask me.

Is that true? You can't bring a cane to the floor? What if you really need a cane?

@BarryMcCokkiner - publicity for Sky Tree is a good thing. Tourism is a part of rebuilding Japan. Rebuilding doesn't mean just construction or food. Rebuilding means bringing things back to normal - which includes investments to business and such that generate REVENUE to the country. As for whaling, I'd need proof that the recovery money is being spent on that because whaling is totally a private effort.

"violating federal wiretapping laws".... That only pertains to telecommunication systems like telephone or cell phones. A few years ago, Col. Powell's son, who headed the FCC at the time, regulated cable Internet as an information system. Information systems have a different set of regulations, such as allowing cable companies to see if you're using a descrambler or an illegal cable device. Therefore, tapping into Internet traffic is fully legal.

Japan has always been a culture of dubbed over subbed. It has nothing to do with the fast pace of the video. For example, all the Korean dramas aired on NHK and such are dubbed. Korean dramas are nowhere close to being fast paced. Also, when NHK aired Little House on the Prarie back during the 1970s, it too was dubbed in Japanese. And so on and so on. You won't hardly see any television shows from outside Japan that are subbed rather than dubbed.

Many westerners don't understand that it was her husband (thankfully now ex-husband) encouraged the drug abuse. Not making any excuses for her, but with him out of the picture and in prison, she should be fine.

Not being able to speak English despite years of learning it?

Totally, totally wrong. Japanese learn to "read" English. They never learned to "speak" Japanese. I can read Japanese kanji, but I can't speak Japanese, so I can reason with them.