North Korea fires two short-range missiles –July 2 (Bloomberg) .

Nyah, nyah, nyah, missed me!

If you loved “Tokyo Gore Police” or “Machine Girl” you must watch this.

Link idea via a tweet from my friend, “Mulboyne.”

Leave it Japanese officials to inject a bit a humor into a death…

Japan gov’t spokesman retracts Jackson gaffe
abs-cbnnews.com 06/26/09
Japan’s top government spokesman hurried Friday to retract potentially controversial remarks about the late pop icon Michael Jackson, who he said did not appear to be black because of his pale skin. “My knowledge (on Jackson) was very poor, but I didn’t get the impression that he was a black man because his face was all white,” Takeo Kawamura told reporters…more…

Last moonwalk

Giant President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso terrorize Tokyo!
embiggen photo to 610×320.

For the above photo’s rest-of-the-story from the AP read this.

Also refer to the previous 3Yen reports warning of the invasion of the, “Bobbleheads, those aliens from another planet” and “Free Big Willy!”

SCOOP!
The 3Yen’s crack correspondent, Gaspard de Coligny, just sent in this EXCLUSIVE report and photo…

Saddam Hussein is not dead,
he was doing his shopping at Top Value in
Toyohashi Japan all this time.
(Picture taken yesterday.)

Click to enlarge to full size photo, 576×767 pixels.

For more details about Saddam Hussein in Japan and the Mel Gibson connection…continues…

This month’s “Train Manner” (sic) awareness poster of the Tokyo Metro subway reminds Tokyoites to reserve romance for the office.

May’s poster above is one of the monthly series for the Tokyo Metro subways aimed at cajoling the so-called ‘rude’ Japanese public to have better train manners. In previous months, posters reminded riders to:
–Don’t read newspapers
–‘Please refrain from snotty…’
– The official start of the Japanese Vomiting Season
And many, many, more….

The funniest yearly event* here in Kanto, Tokyo’s mega-sprawl, is the May Day march of the unions and disaffected. Unlike workers’ May Day parades in other countries, NOTHING fun ever happens here in Japan—no riots, no firebombs, and nobody is ever arrested, meh.

enlarge

Marchers carrying papier-mache likenesses of Prime Minister Taro Aso, top left, and major opposition Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa, top right, and a placard reading: Taro and Ichiro grow from the same [rotten] root.

via daylife.com/AP Photo - May 1, 2009

Read between the lines about the boring-to-tears May Day “demo” parading through Tokyo streets at Tokyo unDamaged Report.

Learn more about Japan’s Mickey Mouse government here (3Yen, April 21, 2009).

*Actually, Kanto’s funniest yearly event is the Penis Festival–(3Yen 2006).

For the price of a mere 12 trillion yen–more than the GNP of most countries–Tokyo is proposing to demolish 50km of its expressways and replace it with a new 200m-underground network.
pix thanx: midorisyu

Green idea: Bury Tokyo expressways
AP—The Japan Times, Friday, May 1, 2009
Business executives proposed Thursday burying Tokyo's elevated and aging expressways 60 meters underground, thereby creating an eco-friendly urban environment and hundreds of thousands of jobs….The proposal calls for the elevated sections of the Metropolitan Expressway network in the heart of Tokyo, officially called the Inner Circular Route, to be demolished and replaced by the new underground network…more…

Having been stuck for hours underground in a Tokyo traffic jam and having carbon monoxide poisoning so bad I had to go to the ER, my opinion is:
DEMOLISH THE EXPRESSWAYS–DON’T BOTHER TO REPLACE ‘EM.

As the Porcine Plague Panic pervades the Japanese news 24/7, the one thing Japan has prepared for welll in advance is their looove of wearing masks.

As I wrote about in 2005 in Get well soon masks®, Japan already has designer masks ready for the Swine Flu Pandemic created by the artist Samira Boon who describes them as follows.

Studio Samira Boon …the very sterile looking white gauze mask inspired to make it more cheerful and funny while still serving its purpose. This new mask is no longer masking, but transforming the part of the face it is hiding…

News reports about health mask wearing in Japan (and the Japanese themselves) mistakenly attribute mask wearing as Japanese politeness. For example:

Hello Kitty part of Japan’s mask craze
thewest.com.au -AP- 27th April 2009….[Mask] wearers say that, more than a health issue, they wear the masks almost as a fashion statement. By wearing a mask, the thinking goes, people are showing that they are being socially responsible.
“It comes from kindness, thoughtfulness - Japanese characteristics,” said mask-wearing Shuichi Yamamoto, a surveyor. “Wearing a mask is socially constructive. If I get a cough, I should have to wear a mask because everyone should think of others.”…more…

In reality, the main purpose of the mask is protection from hay fever. More importantly, masks are worn to the office as a way to “prove” to bosses and coworkers the wearer’s diligence in coming to work while being sick. (There is no such thing as “sick days” in Japan—Days taken off because of illness are deducted from vacation leave.)
“Zipper FACE!” via iMorpheus‘ flickr
Often masks are worn in Japan for personal reasons:
—young housewives slap on masks to pop down to the store without bothering without laborious makeup efforts;
—salarymen and OLs wear masks and blaring iPods to “escape” the crush of commuter trains packed at 250% of capacity;
—socially-withdrawn, reclusive otaku, the Hikikomori, wear masks the rare occasions they venture out of the house to buy pedo-manga;
—and, sometimes masks are just a fashion statement.
See the flickr pool of photos: MASKED Harajuku Girls

Shibuya246.com has a detailed explanation often ignored habit of Japanese wearing masks for fashion in the blog’s coverage of the Japanese DIME Magazine review of the 27 different types of masks available for sale in Japan….

Japanese DIME Magazine Review of masks–Shibuya246.com….
1. Masks focused on ones image
2. Masks focused on functionality
…As well as helping to protect you from the spread of flu, colds and hayfever, these masks also take into account features such as protecting you from dryness of air, fresh aromatic oils and menthol sheets in the masks…
3. Professional masks
Designer Masks, Original for you
…a “Mask with decoration”. It allows you to put on a design seal and rhinestone to make the mask an original for you. The Japanese name for this mask is “DecoriMask”…more…

As you see in the photos below, they are freaking out in Tokyo’s Narita Airport since this is the start of the Japanese Golden Week holiday and international air travel is the highest point of the year while the Pork Plague is just starting to hit.

…quarantine officers wearing a protective masks… checking the body temperature of passengers at Narita International airport…daylife.com — April 28, 2009