Church of Scientology Sending Volunteer Ministers to “Help” Japanese Earthquake Victims
The Church of Scientology has sent volunteer ministers to the areas of Japan devastated by the March 11th earthquake and Tsunami. Photos of them in action can be see in several posts at an official Scientology blog.
If you’re unfamiliar with the activities of the volunteer ministers, here is a video that shows how the organization uses such disaster “relief” missions as an opportunity to convert weak and vulnerable people into Scientology followers:
Experts fear that a lot of of the survivors of the earthquake and survivor, especially small children, have undergone great mental trauma and stress. These people need help from legitimate mental health professionals, not from the Church of Scientology.
[hat tip to TokyoRich]
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Categories: General Japan
Message to American Helicopters: THANK YOU USA
A message of thanks spotted by Americans who were participating in Operation Tomodachi:
ONAGAWA, Japan (March 23, 2011) – An SH-60B Sea Hawk helicopter attached to the Battle Cats of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 43, Det. 3, embarked aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88), flies pass a message saying “Thank You USA,” while en route to deliver humanitarian aid supplies. Preble is currently conducting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations in support of Operation Tomodachi. (U.S. Navy photo by Naval Air Crewman 3rd Class Kevin MacDonald)
[hat tip to Ambassador Roos]
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Categories: Foreigners in Japan
38% of Americans Think Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Were a Sign From God
Fox News reports that a lot of Americans might agree with Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara’s comments about the earthquake being divine punishment for Japan:
A little bit more from CNN, which has downplayed the alarmingly high number with a headline that characterizes 38% of the population as “few Americans”:
Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans (38%) believe that earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters are a sign from God, while roughly 3 in 10 believe that God sometimes punishes nations for the sins of some citizens, according to the survey.
[...]
A majority of people who self-identified as white evangelical Christians bucked the consensus against God punishing nations for the sins of its citizens, with 53% saying they believed that to be true.
Even more white evangelicals, 59%, believe that natural disasters are a sign from God, while only about one-third of Catholics and white mainline Protestants share that view.
Two thirds of white evangelicals also believe that natural disasters are evidence of the “end times,” according to the survey.
The survey was conducted by telephone with 1,008 adults in the continental United States between March 17-20 as news was pouring in from the hardest-hit areas in Japan.
The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
[hat tip to Mutantfrog]
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Categories: General Japan
Whaling Town Destroyed by Tsunami
The New York Times’ Martin Fackler has filed a report from Ayukawahama, an area of Ishinomaki city that was once a whaling town but is now a wasteland of wrecked buildings:
“There is no Ayukawa without whaling,” said Hiroyuki Akimoto, 27, a fisherman and an occasional crewman on the whaling boats, referring to the town by its popular shorthand.
Japan’s tsunami seems to have succeeded — where years of boycotts, protests and high-seas chases by Western environmentalists had failed — in knocking out a pillar of the nation’s whaling industry. Ayukawahama was one of only four communities in Japan that defiantly carried on whaling and eating whales as a part of the local culture, even as the rest of the nation lost interest in whale meat.
So central is whaling to the local identity that many here see the fate of the town and the industry as inextricably linked.
“This could be the final blow to whaling here,” said Makoto Takeda, a 70-year-old retired whaler. “So goes whaling, so goes the town.”
The damage was particularly heavy here because Ayukawahama sits on the tip of a peninsula that was the closest land to the huge undersea earthquake 13 days ago. The resulting tsunami tore through the tiny fishing towns on the mountainous coastline, reducing Ayukawahama to an expanse of splintered wood and twisted cars. Three out of four homes were destroyed, forcing half of the town’s 1,400 residents into makeshift shelters.
Although all the employees of the town’s small whaling company survived the tsunami, its offices and factories were destroyed and its ships were damaged. Without government support in the rebuilding effort, it is unlikely that the company will be able to recover.
Related link: Here’s a Sea Shepherd propaganda article from 2009, which referred to the whalers from Ayukawahama as “mad dog killers” and “criminals” who were part of the “Yakuza controlled Japanese whaling industry.”
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Categories: General Japan
North Korea Donates $500,000 in Disaster Relief to Pro-Pyongyang Zainichi Koreans
North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il has sent some disaster relief money to help the Zainichi Korean community:
“Leader Kim Jong-il sent (a) relief fund of 500,000 U.S. dollars to Korean residents in Japan who suffered from the killer quake and tsunami happened there,” KCNA news agency said.
Half a million U.S. dollars is equivalent to the annual average income earned by 520 North Koreans in all of 2009, according to Bank of Korea data.
According to a Japanese language Yonhap News article, it seems that the money will be sent to Chosen Soren (Chongryon), the pro-Pyongyang Korean residents association in Japan. It is mentioned that North Korea donated $100,000 to Chosen Soren after the 2004 Niigata earthquake and $200,000 after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995.
Apparently there is also a North Korean Red Cross Society, and it has donated $100,000 to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Unlike the donation to Chosen Soren, the Red Cross money might actually be used to help people who aren’t members of the association.
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Categories: Foreigners in Japan
Man Becomes Billionaire Thanks to Radiation Panic
Last week, there was panic in China after rumors spread about dangerous levels of Japanese radiation reaching the country. It was rumored that iodized salt could protect people from radiation, so there was a huge rush on every store that sold salt.
According to China Daily Show, that ignorance-fueled shopping has made one man very rich:
China’s latest billionaire has acquired his new-found wealth practically overnight; in 2003, Lu’s salt-and-vinegar business sold out of every range of vinegar stocked, after locals became convinced the condiment provided protection from the SARS virus.
Lu invested all the family money in huge quantities of salt and vinegar, but by then, the crisis had passed and the vinegar craze was over.
“I was on a stopover in London and very hungry,” Lu recalled the origins of his unexpected success story. “The only thing I could buy at that hour were a traditional English delicacy: salt-and-vinegar crisps.’”
Lu was quickly hooked. He dropped out of college in 2002 and formed a business promoting the dish – but found fellow Chinese didn’t share his passion. Until last week, business for Lu’s ingredients was almost non-existent and Lu faced bankruptcy– but on Tuesday, trade began to pick up sharply.
By the weekend, Lu had sold the company to a Hebei-based conglomerate for a billion-dollar figure, invested in several coal mines, blown a million yuan on a Charlie Sheen-themed KTV-and-mahjong bender and established himself as a serious player in China’s burgeoning art market.
It isn’t entirely clear where the rumor came from, but Chinese authorities have arrested several people for spreading unfounded rumors about salt and radiation.
A short report about the salt-buying craze from NTDTV (an anti-CCP media outlet affiliated with Falun Gong ):
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Categories: News Satire, Odd / Strange