Bungle comments

Motor vehicles and pedestrians should never share the crossing. I do knit know why Japan allows this.

London has the oldest underground network in the world, and suffers for it. It is not fair to compare the original underground to more recent subterranean metro rail.

Well, after the spaghetti incident it seems they now have a problem with alcoholic beverages.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 2:30 a.m. in Mukojima.

The driver, Kiyoshi Sekine, was arrested on suspicion of reckless driving resulting in death. He was quoted by police as saying he had no memory of causing an accident.

That’s because Shochu-san, the pink elephant, was driving.

An 82-year-old man fell into the sea while mooring vessels in Hiroshima

Was this during or before the winds?

A lady should always cool herself with a traditional folding fan. It is both elegant and mildly erotic...

A quarter century later, Kono's son, Taro, now foreign minister, is on the front lines of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's escalating feud

I love the smell of nepotism in the morning.

Abe should visit NK at earliest time, and put forward a four party initiative: NK+SK+Japan+China = hard core prosperous northeast Asia. This will address historical problem, economic problem, and security problem, forever.

I have read that story. It didn’t have a happy ending.

Japan would be at a competitive loss with an ascendant Korea.

No doubt because the Koreas would be blaming Japan on their partitioning, and then sending the reunification bill to Tokyo.

Realpolitik. If NK wants to punt missiles into the Sea of Japan (or East Sea lest our crotchety neighbours proscribe exports of kimchi), there's b*gger all the US can do about it.

Looks like it's not easy to enforce anyway:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/01/dutch-police-signal-unwillingness-enforce-new-burqa-ban

There's a reason it's called Dutch courage.

If these allegations of plagiarism have some founding, KyoAni will be in hot water both in terms of their reputation as a producer of anime, and responsibility to their staff.

Frankly if I'm his lawyer I'll see if I can get some psychiatrist to agree he is insane.

In which case he'll still get locked up.

How come she crossed the median line-distracted?

She had four children jumping around in the car.

Funago, 61, is the first person with ALS to be elected to the national parliament. He cannot speak and communicates by blinking to his caretaker or using a computer system operated by his mouth.

I have several problems with this. Firstly, a person with such disabilities can not take care of themselves let alone the responsibilities of a pubic office; secondly, he'll need an army of assistants, all funded by the public purse; thirdly, it mocks the legislative process and turns it into farce; fourthly (and most seriously) the government may look at Funago and decide that if he is "fit to work", all disabled people are fit to work, and then adjust benefits accordingly.

We're not talking admission of wheelchair users, we're talking about people with very serious disabilities. What next? The comatose? Cadavers?

Each of the three, including two high school students aged 16 and 17, working part time, had been bound with tape and killed with a single gunshot to the head.

These women were not merely shot in the process of a robbery; they were executed by an experienced killer. This suggests to me that this was no robbery: either this was a case of mistaken identity, or they were deliberately targeted by persons unknown.

In Iwate Prefecture's tournament final, Ofunato High School's manager Yohei Kokubo benched flame-throwing senior Roki Sasaki after he threw 129 pitches the day before. Kokubo has been criticized by some for putting one pitcher's health ahead of the team's desire to win.

At any level, this is just poor man management. Don’t wear down your players until they are crock; rotate the squad so that you have a fresh team.

Pure trash of a husband.

Life doesn't always have a fairy tale ending, Jetplane. This man was at his wit's end.

After the occupied 6 counties are returned to Ireland and Scotland is free, the remaining entity will be part of the USA or whichever superpower is the highest bidder.

Anglophobic nonsense.

Who is this money for, exactly.? How will it be spent? Who is accountable for it?

I assume KyoAni is insured, so why are they being paid anything?

This ‘problem’ is exacerbated by the fact that Japan has the slowest escalators in the developed world.

Japanese regulations covering fire safety leave a lot to be desired.

Seen fire doors in Japan? Nope, me neither;

Fire escapes leading to the roof. Where do you think all the smoke(rs) goes, dimwits?

No, folks, thats not a SodaStream, that's the one working fire extinguisher;

It doesn't matter, we can't use it anyway;

Stairs are not a makeshift storage room.

throwing water (sprinkler system) onto an oil/fat fire make it worse.

Technically, gasoline is not an oil but a spirit. Hence the more accurate British name for gasoline: petrol(eum) spirit.

The risk of using water on a gasoline fire is that the water, being denser than gasoline, may spread the fire elsewhere. For me though, within the confines of a relatively small building this is a moot point. Had there been sprinklers, the water would have prevented the combustion of office fixtures and fittings, cooled the inside of the building, and reduced the build up of smoke.

Again for me, this is also a moot point. What was the provision of fire extinguishers in the building? Prompt use of one of those would have prevented this tragedy.

And yes, this also includes wrapping one around the perp's head.

I think the security at the company was bad, they just let him in. They should have waited until the person he was supposed to meet came down

Absolutely correct. Why wasn't this man decked at the first sign of trouble? Did everyone just stand around and gawk?

Well, folks, that’s certainly not the correct way to rekindle an old flame.

Nothing excuses what the accused did. Nothing. But has this president dropped a clanger by claiming financial generosity in his statement

The man’s in shock, Tigers. What should have been a routine day at work for seventy of his young workforce instead became a holocaust. Let that sink in for a moment.

There were over seventy individuals in this three storey building, and yet it seems that one man carrying two heavy twenty litre jerry cans of petrol managed to douse almost all the ways of egress unchallenged - and then escape.

I find that absolutely astonishing.

From Twitter:

Apparently the murderer burned the entire 1st floor, throw petrol into the windows of the 2nd&3rd floor so the fire spread too quickly. He blocked the exit stair and put petrol on people who ran to the stairs.

O.o

Johnny & Associates Inc, one of the most powerful talent agencies in Japan, is suspected of having pressured commercial broadcasting television stations to stop inviting three former members of popular boy band SMAP on their shows...

Is this supposed to be bad news?

What people are forgetting is twofold: the granting of any passport is discretionary, and said passport is effectively loaned to the applicant and remains property of the state. Freedom of movement is, in most parts of the world, not a human right.