Edward Venn comments

My guess is all the major players will be spending time behind bars. That means the new CEO, his senior staff, the accountants and the legal people as well. And very likely there will be a few tell all books that will cause Nissan's board and senior people to become very nervous concerning extradition overseas and limit their travels to the Japanese archipelago.

R&D is never a waste of money. Yes, some $1 billion was invested in a computer design and soon other computers of this type will be bought and installed at NTT DoCoMo's server farm, at airport air traffic control centers and wherever there is a need for fast computers to process lots of data in real time. Currently there are thousands of these machines in use just to keep the internet running and to handle phone traffic and many hundreds more will be needed.

So, yes the machine is expensive, the government and the university has spent a lot money designing a computer that can do the same thing as 1 million PS3's linked together with a distributed computing software package. But, then again the K computer takes up only 1/100th the space that 1 million PS3's would take up.

I'm sure the university already has buyers lined up and all the programmers and designers already have locked in good jobs to go to once they graduate.

let's see, multinational company with offices around the world, stock traded on the TSE, NYSE and LSE gets caught redhanded by former CEO for committing fraud in the UK, the US and in the Caribbean. Said company is currently being investigated by UK, US, Japanese and Interpol police agencies. If said ex CEO is killed while in Tokyo to discuss the matter with the J police and the J govt that would sound the death knell for the company and cause all these agencies to file warrants for the arrest and extradition of the board, the major shareholders, current and former Presidents and CEO's, the shutting down of all overseas offices and confiscation of documents and bank accounts.

The UK, given that Woodward as a British citizen and former CEO of a major Japanese company would not rest until all the evidence was dragged out into the open, everyone involved was thoroughly tarred and exposed and blame was heaped on every Japanese regulatory agency that had oversight. The fallout would destroy the government, gut the bureaucracy and cause billions if not trillions of dollars worth of contracts of companies associated with Olympus to be put under the scrutiny of the regulators.

Could these people be that stupid?

Somewhere in some abandonned farm in Chichibu there is a small stand of ganja-fenced off from the deer and pigs by an old fence overgrown by weeds it protects a secret. Came across one of thes plantations years ago near a campground, undoubtably there are others. The climate is ideal, countryside cops are fat and lazy and tend to look the other way for a bottle or 2 of sake.

So that's what happened to it! I live down the street from the plantation and was keeping an eye on it. And the buds were just forming too.

Yes, they have some big Putzmeisters in Japan and now they're getting bigger ones.

Scary thought for the people in Kansai, if TEPCO is this bad the KanDenko must be worse. They're famous for being even more scroogelike with expenses than TEPCO is.

smithinjapan, good idea and she could have insured he was off the bus like a rocket just by asking "Is that a wienie in your trousers or are you happy to see me?"

Look on Rakuten, you can find the same thing in futon size for around ¥2,000. It's made of some sort of material developed by NASA that cools whatever is touching it.

In the US and Canada it's SOP for the first responders to take photos of the crowd and of the fire itself. Faces are run through a face recognition database and the forensics people can use the digital photo images to help ascertain how the fire started.

I don't know about you but I've noticed the firetrucks are rolling as often as 2 or 3 times per station in my area of Tokyo, stats on the number of fires happening have also had a significant spike. Want to bet the fire was set deliberately and the perp was the guy who punched out the cop?

Potential organ donor material, expect him to go missing shortly after his reentry to China.

Suckiness and the lack thereof is very important when persuading adolescents to part with the wads of cash in their swety hands that their parents worked overtime to earn.

Should you be a game producer with a game that sucks or a fashion designer with a frock that sucks no amount of bribery, graft or PR will sell the bloody thing.

Likewise in Japan should you utter the word dasai in connection with something and if there is a bishonen or bishojo type that agrees with you said product is instantly doomed.

They need to have an example to show the commoners.

Horie was their designated whipping boy to keep the upstart entrepreneurs in line-no sense in having some smart aleck inventor put Nisseki or Toyota out of business.

They needed someone from the geinokai, the hard rockers who use drugs can't be cowed, they just sit back and say nothing, take their 6 months to a year jailtime in stride and get back to making music, doing grugs and popping groupies cherries. With Nori P the police have the perfect victim, they've destroyed her image, now the only work she'll be able to get will be hooking on the streets and you can bet the media will follow her and question her johns as to how she was in the sack.

I guess Peter Horvath will be happy, Terrie will have given him a good buyout package.