Virtuoso comments

This is increasingly becoming like the Falkland Islands. Will China wind up like Argentina?

A US Marine who qualified with the M-1 carbine and was firing a rifle he was familiar with would not have much trouble hitting a human head at less than 90 yards. I won't be around to see the results, but I'm certainly willing to let the conspiracy buffs another 50 years to come up with a more credible explanation. So far they haven't.

They will take the cup and record your finger print.

And DNA from your saliva too!

Exactly one week short of 50 years from the day her father was murdered in Dallas. Can't help but take note of the timing.

Someday General Chang will be able to view his fleet while aboard a glass-bottomed boat.

Cell phones are as addictive as heroin and as far as I'm concerned the companies that make and sell them are drug pushers.

Childish narcissism

metto81@so you are blaming Obama and the west for the sad fact that Egyptians are culturally incapable of comprehending, let alone implementing, any form of functional government other than military-backed dictatorships? Personally I'm in favor of reincarnating Rameses the 2nd and whipping everyone back into line by making them lug and tote enormous sandstone blocks until they croak of starvation and/or mistreatment.

The airline business in Japan essentially remains a government-protected, privileged monopoly for transporting the affluent to their deluxe destinations, and everybody else can take a walk.

“After watching this parade, I feel our country could defeat anyone,” he said.

Try invading Vietnam and see what happens.

This guy badly needs to see a shrink.

and some officers aboard the vessels are believed to carry sidearms.

"Are believed"? What's the mystery? Either they do or they don't. Maybe the reporter could have picked up the phone and asked the Coast Guard's PR spokesperson, "Do officers on your ships carry sidearms?"

It was reported that Kim Jong Nam, oldest son of North Korea's Kim Jong Il, was a big fan of Yoshiwara and used to visit his favorite masseuse there when entering Japan on a forged Dominican Republic passport. He was eventually recognized, detained and deported.

Apparently it's illegal?

They are quasi-legal. It's the last vestige of commercialized prostitution (in the conventional sense of the word) in Japan. One way they get around the law is that officially the girls who work there are treated on the books as "free agents" who rent rooms from the "landlord," who also supplies them with clean towels, soap and various paraphernalia, which the girls "buy" from the shop. Areas where soaplands do business are restricted and no new business licenses are issued, so when one goes out of business, the total number drops by one.

For God's sake! At least have the common sense to drop the damn tax on food items and rents. Otherwise half the country's pensioners will be doing prison time in order to get three meals a day.

This is a case where miniaturization defeats its own purpose, as the design is not ergonomic -- unless the targeted consumer is given to stealing data and concealing it in a bodily orifice.

The environment, particularly water resources, are straining under the enormous population and horrendous environmental pollution. Mother nature can only take so much abuse, and then there will be hell to pay. Likewise for India methinks.

That's a great photo too. Always nice to see people willing to pitch in! Everyone must have felt elated that no one got hurt and they could get to the office on time.

I can hardly wait until the new infant turns 18 and scandal coverage by the paparazzi commences!

I think he's saying that because the elderly feel rejected by the society they helped to build, they try to justify the acts of theft (as "getting even"), i.e., it's done out of spite and not because they are stealing in order to survive.

I wonder if people realize that because the "ruling coalition" is dependent on Komeito for its majority, no new laws will be passed in Japan without Soka Gakkai's Chairman Emeritus Daisaku Ikeda pulling the strings.

Elbuda@he was a just a figurehead, so there was no power for him to cling to, so to speak.

partly on the grounds he had been tortured on the flight that brought him to the United States.

Well yes, since 9-11 one might indeed say that the quality of service on the airlines has deteriorated considerably. I often feel the same way when flying tourist class.

The stability will last until China occupies the Senkakus, and then all bets are off.

When the real estate "bubble" in the late 1980s forced up land prices, out of sheer greed the then-governor of Tokyo anticipated a windfall by filling in Tokyo Bay with a huge man-made island. In so doing, he basically unplugged the downtown waterfront areas natural air conditioner, which resulted in summer temperatures rising even more than could be attributed to climate change. Oh well, the good news is that at the rate the sea levels are rising, Odaiba will probably be under water by the end of the century.

These women are doing what they do because they're hurting for money. When government policies drive people to desperation, and then sends the cops to arrest them when they sell their bodies in order to live, it's hard to blame people like the man who tried to burn down the city office in Hyogo the other day. In fact, it's a wonder more Japanese aren't tossing Molotov cocktails at government buildings.

How about a half portion if I pay my taxes?

The great firewall of China is still climbing. It's really remarkable to see the amount of manpower and resources that China is pouring into keeping its people from cybering.

I saw the same story in the late 1990s or maybe early 2000s. It's not new, and there's no evidence it's widespread.There are also women who like to wear men's jockey shorts. Writing "more and more" is a cheap generalization with no evidence to back it up. The reporter should have at least phoned Wacoal or Triumph Japan for a comment.

If you wind up getting featured on CNN's breaking news and the front page of the NY Times, you're a celebrity, and it doesn't matter what you did to achieve that status. Rolling Stone is a perfect example of how people who figure in the news command more news, and badness, unfortunately, is just as essential to the equation as is goodness. Maybe even more so.