This is why we must kill all Super Saiyans

A court has ordered the parents of a boy who accidentally kicked a ball into the street to pay nearly $200,000 in compensation after he, in the court’s view, caused the death of an 87-year-old motorcyclist who fell off his bike in an effort to avoid the ball, breaking his leg and later going senile only to die over a year later as a result of an infection stemming from a feeding accident.

According to the Osaka district court, the incident began in 2004 (Japanese link) at a public elementary school in Ehime prefecture, where pupils were practising their football skills by making practice free kicks at a goal.

One fifth year elementary student made a kick which went high, going over the goal posts and into the street beyond. There, it so happened that an 86-year-old man was driving down the street on a bike, and swerved to avoid the ball, crashing and breaking his leg.

He survived, but became senile soon after, and then died some 15 months after the accident as a result of pneumonia contracted after some food accidentally became lodged in his windpipe.

5 members of the man’s bereaved family decided to sue the boy for causing his death, demanding ¥50,000,000. As the boy was a minor at the time of the accident (he is now 19), he could not be held legally responsible, but his parents could, and so the family sued them instead.

In their defence, the boy’s side argued “nothing illegal occurred as he was just normally kicking the ball at the goal.”

The court was having none of it – the judge’s verdict was that “he could have predicted the ball would land in the street and cause an accident,” though he did at least stop short of ordering him to pay compensation, saying “the boy was a youth and bears no legal responsibility for the accident, but his parents do have a duty to pay compensation.”

Accepting that the dead man’s life was drastically altered by his encounter with the stray football, the court ordered the parents to pay up to the family, but reasoned that as the man already had neurological problems prior to the incident they would only have to pay ¥15,000,000 of the ¥50,000,000 demanded of them.

Such a fine example of jurisprudence has not escaped criticism:

“Don’t they normally put up nets around these places?”

“The issue is not the kid, it’s the lack of safety nets.”

“Shouldn’t this responsibility lie with the school which didn’t bother to put nets up and could have predicted the ball would land in the street themselves?”

“If they can sue anyone it’s the school, not the parents!”

“Couldn’t they sue the school and city?”

“Asking 50,000,000 for an 87-year-old man who died as an indirect result of an accident seems a bit much.”

“This old guy was driving a bike at 87? And they sue the boy’s parents? What kind of Japanese are they?”

“Poor parents, suddenly plunged in debt like that.”

“It seems a bit odd that they are attributing his death by misfeeding to this…”

“All ball games in Japan are going to get banned as a result of this, no doubt.”

“Common sense would tell you to expect balls flying out of schools occasionally.”

“Anyone with a car or bike must predict that they could encounter a ball like that. Doesn’t anyone in the court have a driving license?”

“So this 86-year-old man with a known neurological condition was riding a motorcycle around a school?”

“This poor kid and his family have been left worrying about this stuff throughout his childhood for the last 7 years, with no end in sight if they continue to fight the ruling.”

“This verdict is nuts.”

“If he had died right there it might be justifiable.”

“Don’t steal a child’s future for the sake of a dead 87-year-old.”

“I wonder if the bereaved family will be satisfied now the school has banned all ball games?”

“Remember: when you kick a ball you might cause an old man to fall off his bike, go senile and have to be nursed only to be misfed and die.”

Before we get to that here’s some stuff to read/watch:

1. Another opinion similar to mine

2. Should you cancel your trip to Japan?

3. Watching news in Japan

4. A report from Tokyo

All read up now, you big-nosed, gundam-loving fiends? Without having to go into depth about what is fucked up about the US/UK media (easily a 400 page book), let’s just take a look at the headlines and crazy shit said by newscasters, headlines, and the those that were brought on to discuss the incident. Let’s start with the easily most egregious example, The Sun. Now you could say “That’s not fair!”, but, sorry, I don’t give a shit. Highlighting the worst gives us a better view of how far the average viewpoint spread will be. Below is one of their headlines after the earthquake.

Let it all sink in, all the bullshit, fearmongering, and lack of knowledge. They write turgid articles such as that one and this one which, even if you neither read nor subscribe to the less-than-bathroom-reading quality rag, can affect any passerby that sees a shocking headline such as those.

What about the other papers and new stations? How about ABC. They had Michio Kaku come on to Good Morning America to talk about the nuclear power plant. Although he’s of Japanese descent that’s not why they brought him on the show, it’s because he’s a physicist; the problem is that he’s a theoretical physicist, which has fuckall to do with nuclear reactors. Besides that, he goes on to say that this could be worse than Chernobyl and that we should just dump sand and concrete on it. If you think this could be worse than Chernobyl or that dumping sand and then concrete on these would be a good idea you really need to read more about nuclear power plants, second generation nuclear reactors, and what actual nuclear engineers are saying and recommending.

It’s shit like this that causes people to worry much more than they should. News stations should be telling us what is likely to happen but for various reasons western coverage of events comes down to the most horrible and unlikely being described with a short paragraph about the actual situation. They almost made up for bring on Mr. Kaku by showing this clip. However, they just couldn’t help themselves and they had to throw in some worst case scenarios because, like most western media, they’re sluts for chaos and horrible, but interesting, situations.

The effects of this type of reporting can be seen in the following two clips.

No one outside of the eastern seaboard of NE Japan is in any real danger and yet you have people running around in California trying to buy iodine pills and worried parents calling their children (300 miles away from harm) in western Japan. How are any of those people informed? What useful information have they learned that they could put to use? None. Maybe if Fallout wasn’t just a game they’d have a use for iodine pills, but I doubt the Chinese are going to actually cause the world to turn into a nuclear wasteland.

They’re just being “realistic”.

Another thing I don’t understand is that within the reporting no one is bringing up the fact that the United States detonated atomic bombs in the pacific and took radiation samples afterwards. Since these tests were done to the east of Japan and the fallout didn’t hit mainland why aren’t the newsmedia quelling these retarded fears? They’re doing even more harm by just blurting out numbers with no baseline and thus no possibility for comparison.

Then again, the western news media is correct. Just look at this horrible footage from Tokyo.

Learn more:
Radiation comparison chart
A report from another teacher
A short explanation of radiation
And a marmot thinks it’s smarter than real people

Me and my wife are having some sexual troubles.
This happens every time we try to have sex.

Sometime today, cordite, a lowly New York born lady that made ends meet by cleaning up crime scenes, and uranium-235, a tough-as-nails Massachusetts bred punchfighter detective that drowned his constant everyday sorrows in vodka and peaches, fulfilled a promise that was made a long time ago in Manhattan. None of their friends or relatives really expected that anything like this would happen to either of them, but no one really ever expects events like these.

After jumping from the plane, the met mid-air and their “love collision” caused a bomb of pheromones that has rarely been seen since. Although the locals were not pleased with this PDA there was little they could do about it, you know (flames of love are sometimes overly passionate). Today, because of this overt, but sexy, display of affection there is a museum that displays artifacts that existed at the time of this love-boomshakalaka. Although many were damaged by the shock of hip on hip action there are still some in non-shitty condition. I suggest, if you’re in the area (and you should be), you should stop by and visit this wonderful area of love and seamen.

Everyone who cleans up crimes scenes looks approximately like this.

Probably cheering himself up by stabbing chickens.

Futenma is a US military base in Okinawa. There was an agreement back in 2006 between the US and Japanese governments. At this time, the majority party in the Japanese government was the Liberal Democratic Party (自民党). Since last year, when the Democratic Party of Japan (民主党) became the majority party, this agreement has been in shaky waters, the DPJ, Okinawans, and many other Japanese citizens didn’t really agree with the plan to keep the base on Okinawa and (with this in mind) the DPJ informed the US government that it wanted to renegotiate the already signed agreement. While the US gov’t was annoyed since this type of thing usually doesn’t happen, anywhere, I get the feeling that hardly anyone in America even knows about this.

Recently, the Japanese government (headed by Hatoyama) agreed to keep the recolcation within Okinawa, to the ire of both DPJ members and Okinawans. Since this time members of his party have been calling for the resignation of Hatoyama, which is finally here. Although, like many recent PMs, there have been some small scandals but I liked Hatoyama as a PM much more than some of the recent ones. One of his biggest issues, I feel, is that he just wouldn’t get rid of the scummy meatbag liked by very few, Ichiro Ozawa. While I don’t really know the details as to why they finally decided to keep things the way they are, I have a feeling that pressure by both the US and Ozawa could have been the cause. I would say the best thing about this resignation is that Ozawa has also resigned; may he constantly have kidney stones.

Hopefully nexty has a better fashion sense.

Foreigner stabbed to death at apartment, Filipino man faces arrest

TSU, Mie — A foreign man was stabbed to death at an apartment in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, law enforcers said. They are seeking an arrest warrant for a Filipino man in custody.

According to police, at around 7:50 p.m. on Sunday, a foreign-looking man came to a police box in Suzuka city, Mie Prefecture, saying there had been a fight in the apartment next to his and a man was lying in the corridor outside.

Police went to the apartment and found a man in his 40s to 50s lying in the corridor with stab wounds to his left abdomen and chest. The wounded man, also a foreigner, was taken to the hospital but confirmed dead. No weapon was found.

Investigative sources say that prefectural police questioned a Filipino man in his 50s who lived in the apartment building and had fled but was found nearby, and are now seeking a warrant for his arrest.

According to investigators and local residents, the victim was not a resident of the apartment complex, but was an acquaintance of the man now in police custody. From around 10 a.m. on the day of the murder, several foreigners had apparently gathered in the room to drink, and at around 7:30 p.m., when a neighbor who had heard quarreling stepped out into the hallway, the victim was found lying on the ground. An autopsy is being performed to determine the exact cause of death.

The apartment, about 1.5 kilometers southeast of Hiratacho station on the Kintetsu Suzuka line, is located near an auto-related factory. According to a former resident of the apartment building, some 80 percent of its residents were foreigners.

(Mainichi Japan) April 19, 2010

So what happened?

It’s a me, Italian stereotype.

Sumo wrestling is very Japanese. Along with other very Japanese things (kendo, judo, tea ceremony, etc.) sumo has rules and etiquette that should be followed. Some of these rules seem to be inconsequential (winning celebration rituals, how to accept prize money) and yet if you break them you will still be penalized. In the world of Sumo, when a wrestler becomes a grand champion (yokozuna) there is another set of responsibilities that they should follow. This can cause problems with your naked career if you sometimes feel punchy and other people are in your vicinity.

Asashoryu, one of the best sumo wrestlers, has had a great career filled with a flurry of incidents. Besides breaking some of the rules mentioned above, there was a big lawsuit alleging that he paid other wrestlers so that he could get a perfect victory and an incident where he faked injury. While it’s unknown if he actually paid off people (I say he didn’t), he definitely overstated his injuries since he was seen playing soccer.

A picture from sumo’s short-lived, but hilarious, breakdance competition.

There are people saying that people have been unusually harsh towards Asashoryu because he is from Mongolia. Like every country, there are old cranky people that hate others because they’re different (and sumo fans are older on average), but this doesn’t factor in to anything said by the Sumo Association or any new programs. The reason why they’ve been so harsh are easy to understand given correct context; sumo is waning in popularity, there have been other scandals with sumo recently, and the rules for sumo and yokozuna are many and the punishments are strict. These issues cause more and harsher punishments to try and keep order in fat man world; the situation is further exacerbated by the fact that Asashoryu has broken lots of little rules and some big ones. Given all this, I would say that even though some of the punishments have been more severe than they should have been, it’s easy to understand the reasoning behind them.

It’s sad that he’s had to leave the ring and start wearing normal clothes again, but if he wanted to stop having episodes that lead to embarrassment of himself he needed to quit. Now he can do all the things that he did before without repercussions. Well, maybe except for the breaking the nose thing (this is the one that made him quit).

Even though Japan is much better planned for earthquakes there was lots of preventable damage that occurred during the Kobe earthquake. You would have thought that the even would have caused people to make some obvious changes (bury power lines), but unfortunately that hasn’t happened. They have made transportation routes safer, but for some reason they refuse to acknowledge the glaring defect.

For Haiti, Kobe, and everywhere else that has been hit by an earthquake in January let’s shake our tables in remembrance.

Is Sean Hannity a cross-dressing hooker in Thailand? Why won’t he tell us?

Fortunately, this isn’t the only True American™ that is outraged by this. Genuine Patriots like Bill Brasky Bennett also disagrees. Of course, there are people on youtube who are also angered that Obama would even try to respect any other culture. How dare he? Doesn’t he know that we are better than anyone else and that we will stay that way for all time? This is exactly why it’s important to have a whi, er Republican in office.

By the way, Hannity isn’t correct when he said that a newspaper in Japan refused to show the picture because they were embarrassed. However, there was probably no need for me to say that as you most likely knew that (I hope you don’t expect truth from someone like him).

You can read the story and comments at Japan Today or you can just read below if you don’t feel like clicking.

Photos of U.S. President Barack Obama bowing to Japan’s emperor have incensed critics in Washington, who said the U.S. leader should stand tall when representing America overseas.

Obama on Monday was in China, having wrapped up the Japan leg of his Asia trip two days earlier. But Washington’s punditocracy was still weighing whether or not the U.S. president had disgraced his country two days earlier by having taken a deep bow at the waist while meeting Japan’s Emperor Akihito.

Political talk shows have played and replayed the moment from the second day of Obama’s week-long Asia tour, which set the blogosphere on fire and chat show tongues wagging.

“I don’t know why President Obama thought that was appropriate. Maybe he thought it would play well in Japan. But it’s not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one,” said conservative pundit William Kristol speaking on the Fox News Sunday program, adding that the gesture bespoke a United States that has become weak and overly-deferential under Obama.

Another conservative voice, Bill Bennett, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program: “It’s ugly. I don’t want to see it.”

“We don’t defer to emperors. We don’t defer to kings or emperors. The president of the United States—this coupled with so many apologies from the United States—is just another thing,” said Bennett.

Some conservative critics juxtaposed the image of Obama with one of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who greeted the emperor in 2007 with a firm handshake but no bow.

“I’ll bet if you look at pictures of world leaders over 20 years meeting the emperor in Japan, they don’t bow,” Kristol said.

Some said the gesture was particularly grating coming after Obama’s bow to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah at a G20 meeting in April.

The U.S. president’s Asia trip comes just over a year after he won election to the White House, and is designed to shore up U.S. power in a region increasingly dominated by rising giant China.

But back home, Obama’s bow in Japan seems to have grabbed much of the attention being paid to the trip.

The gesture appears to have touched a particularly raw nerve among Obama critics who said the president has hastened America’s decline as a world superpower by being too apologetic and too deferential in his dealings with other world leaders.

While most of the commentary about the bow in Japan was decidedly negative, some political observers, like longtime Democratic activist Donna Brazile, came to the president’s defense.

“I think it’s a gesture of kindness,” she told CNN, adding that the bow appeared intended to show “goodwill between two nations that respect each other.”

Meanwhile, an unnamed, senior Obama administration official told the Politico.com news site that the president had simply been observing protocol.

“I think that those who try to politicize those things are just way, way, way off base,” the official told Politico.

“I don’t think anybody who was in Japan—who saw his speech and the reaction to it, certainly those who witnessed his bilateral meetings there—would say anything other than that he enhanced both the position and the status of the U.S., relative to Japan,” Politico wrote.

“It was a good, positive visit at an important time, because there’s a lot going on in Japan.”

Article below.

ICHIHASHI ARRESTED BY POLICE IN OSAKA
Tuesday 10th November, 09:10 PM JST

OSAKA —
Police on Tuesday night arrested the suspect in the 2007 murder of a British woman after fingerprints confirmed he is Tatsuya Ichihashi, a 30-year-old fugitive wanted in the case.

Ichihashi, who had altered his appearance through cosmetic surgery, was taken to Suminoe police station. He is currently only wanted on a technical charge of abandoning the body of language school teacher Lindsay Hawker, who was 22 at the time of her death, at his apartment. Chiba prefectural police said they will upgrade the charge to murder.

Ichihashi was taken into custody on the second floor of Nanko ferry terminal after police received a phone call at 6:44 p.m. from another passenger at the terminal saying that a man resembling Ichihashi was sitting by himself. Two police officers arrived at first and approached Ichihashi who was wearing a gray jacket, black cap and sunglasses. Two other officers arrived shortly after.

Witnesses told NHK that Ichihashi remained calm and could be heard telling the police his name. He had been reportedly waiting to board a ferry for Okinawa after coming from Kobe earlier in the day.

Ichihashi was transported from Shin-Osaka station to Chiba by bullet train later Tuesday night.

NHK also aired comments from Ichihashi’s parents. His father said they were relieved to hear that their son had been taken into custody. They expressed sorrow for the Hawker family and urged their son to explain clearly what he did.

Meanwhile, Hawker’s father Bill told TBS in a telephone interview on Tuesday night that his nightmare is finally over. “I very much look forward to seeing Ichihashi across a courtroom, so I can look him in the face,” Hawker said.

The case has attracted widespread public attention as Ichihashi, who media reports once suggested had killed himself, was found alive and with a new look after undergoing plastic surgery on several occasions.

Ichihashi escaped from police officers when they called at his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, in March 2007 and then found Hawker’s body inside a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony. The police later distributed fliers and offered a 10 million yen reward for information leading to his whereabouts.

Hawker’s family also visited Japan to ask for help in resolving the case, but no significant progress had been made over the last two and a half years.

The case took a sudden turn when Ichihashi showed up at a clinic in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, in late October for another round of plastic surgery. The police soon released a photograph of his post-surgery face with double-fold eyelids instead of single, a higher nose bridge and thinner lips, and it was widely displayed.

It led to numerous further discoveries about him, including his attempt to receive another plastic surgery operation in Fukuoka Prefecture. He was also found to have lived and worked at a construction company in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, for over a year up until this October.

By the way

Builder James Anthony Dean-Willcocks charged held over race-hate killing

By Lisa Davies and Gemma Jones From: The Daily Telegraph Sun Oct 11 23:53:46 EST 2009

A BUILDER celebrating his 23rd birthday allegedly bashed an elderly man to death in a drunken race-hate crime.

James Anthony Dean-Willcocks, of Illawong, was yesterday charged with the murder of Magno Alvarado, 67.

Residents of Elouera Rd, Cronulla, told police of being woken about 5.30am on Saturday by a male yelling: “F … off back to Japan”.

According to a statement tendered by police to Parramatta Bail Court, a man was heard to cry: “Help, help”.

One witness said he went to his balcony and allegedly saw a man “fling the victim on to the footpath, pick up the victim, shake him and throw him to the ground”.

The accused then allegedly punched Mr Alvarado in the head and body as many as 10 times.

Another witness said he saw the victim thrown to the road, and Dean-Willcocks on top of him, punching him.

Police will allege Dean-Willcocks was heard yelling “Ya Jap”.

Another described seeing Mr Alvarado tackled, “body-slammed” and punched many times.

One witness told police he yelled at Dean-Willcocks to stop and asked what he was doing.

“Mate, he’s Japanese and he deserves it,” the accused allegedly answered.

It is understood Mr Alvarado was Filipino.

Stunned onlookers prevented Dean-Willcocks leaving the scene until police arrived. Mr Alvarado was taken to hospital but died about 2.30pm on Saturday.

After Dean-Willcocks – wearing no shoes, and only one sock – was arrested, police noted he was intoxicated.

He has since told police he has “no recollection” of the incident and his last memory was “some time in the early hours of the morning” while he was at the Mercure Hotel in the city.

Dean-Willcocks said he did not know how he got to Cronulla.

He made no application for bail and will appear in Central Local Court tomorrow.