A bit of Japan news this morning:

-Japan’s tsunami warning system performed well earlier this week, but it was not without glitches.

-Hitachi has developed a device that allows people to control a model train with their minds!

-Trans-Pacific Radio takes a look at the Japan lobby and its power in Washington.

-The world premiere of Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” was held on Tokyo on the 15th. Hoga News has the details.

-A man has been arrested after posing as NTV’s chief of personnel so he could feel up a woman’s breasts.

-A woman has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for shoving a random person in front of a train, killing him. Apparently she was planning to commit suicide, but changed her mind at the last moment and decided to kill someone instead. Terrifying.

A few more news stories:

-A man was stabbed to death last night in front of Shin-Yokohama Station. In other crime news, a Tochigi prefecture police officer who paid for expenses out of his own pocket instead of filing the mountains of paperwork it would have required to pay with public funds, has been arrested. The two crimes I mentioned might seem terrifying to you, especially the latter, but don’t worry: The Asahi Shinbun wants you to know that this whole rising crime thing is nothing more than bullshit.

-Is your office, much like many other Japanese offices, an un-heated freezing hell in winter? You might not be able to convince your company to base itself in a properly insulated/heated building, but at least you can keep your hands warm while computing with this big goofy glove.

-A public official in Mie Prefecture has been fined for taking upskirt photos. If a girl wearing a short skirt gets on an escalator, she’s asking men to take pictures up her skirt with their cellphones, right?

-Are Japanese prostitutes getting lazy? Mainichi’s WaiWai thinks so.