Archive for December, 2011

Ferrari & Lamborghini Pile-up

A video shows the aftermath of a pile-up involving 14 luxury sports cars:

The accident took place near Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi prefecture. The cars involved included: 8 Ferrari s, 1 Laborghinis, 3 Mercedes Benzes, and 2 Toyotas. The vehicles were apparently speeding down a road at around 150 km/hr when the driver of one Ferrari lost control and collided with a guard rail.

As you can see from the video, some very expensive vehicles were totaled. Ten drivers were taken to the hospital, but none suffered serious injuries.

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Labrador Retriever Saves Little Girl

Here’s a heartwarming news report about Junior, a dog that saved a 3-year-old girl by keeping her warm when they were trapped inside a wrecked car during a snow storm in Hokkaido:

While driving along a river in the neighboring town of Urausu, however, he accidentally drove off the road, sending the car rolling down an embankment. When the rolling stopped, the man and the girl found that they were unable to move.

The car was found the following morning several meters below the road, resting on its side with a broken window.

When they went down to check the car, police officers found Junior cuddled up to the girl and licking her cheek.

The humans suffered only minor frostbite on their feet despite outside temperatures that plunged below zero during the night.

Junior received a gold medal for heroism from the local government. He’s also apparently had his meals upgraded to a more expensive brand of dog food.

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Christmas Cards For Tohoku

Saw this on the JETAA USA blog today:

A Professor Emeritus of Chuo University has started a project called “Xmas Cards from Friends Around the World”. This is a campaign to gather Christmas cards from around the world to bring to the children in Tohoku. If you’d like to participate, please send your card(s) to the following address:

c/o Mrs. Mayumi Hoshi
Shichigahama-cho Saigai-Volunteer Center
Noyama 5-9, Yoshidahama
Shichigahama-cho, Miyagi
JAPAN 985-0802
ATTN: Boys and Girls

Sounds like a great way to cheer up children in Tohoku: Pass on this info to your friends!

A PDF with more information in Japanese can be found here.

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Local Mascot Is Back: Disappeared For 3 Months Following Tweets About World War II

Back in August, Manbe-kun, the mascot of the Hokkaido town of Oshamambe stirred up controversy through his Twitter account. The tweets took place during the week marking the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, a time when many documentaries highlighting the horror and suffering of the war are aired on Japanese TV. It seems that Manbe-kun saw one of these documentaries, and decided to tweet about it.

Here are some translations:

“I watched a TV documentary. Japan back then was just like North Korea today!”

“No matter how you look at it, Japan’s war of aggression started it all. Thank you!”

“Three million Japanese people died. Japan caused the deaths of 20 million people in Asia.”

The tweets pretty much follow the official government and mainstream view of the war in Japan, where public opinion polls have consistently shown that only a small minority of the population does not think that Japan waged a war of aggression.

Nevertheless, it was considered controversial for a town mascot to make such strong statements. Nobody elected him as a political representative of the town’s historical views. The town received a lot of complaints, so they banned Manbe-kun from using his Twitter account and made him take a break from his official duties.

Here’s a news report from 3 months after the incident. It shows Manbe-kun’s first public appearance since the scandal:

When asked to comment about finally being allowed to appear in public again, Manbe-kun expressed no particular feelings about the issue. Looks like they’ve trained him to act like a proper mascot character…

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Radioactive Debris From Tohoku (Rally Against Destroying Osaka??!!)

In the aftermath of the March 11th tsunami, Tohoku has been struggling with the issue of debris. It’s very hard to rebuild when thousands of tons of wreckage have yet to be dealt with. Tohoku’s surviving garbage incineration facilities lack the capacity to deal with the problem locally. They need help from other parts of Japan.

Here’s a news report from “Bankisha” about the issue. It focuses on how public fear of radiation has hindered efforts to support Tohoku:

In April, 572 local governments expressed a willingness to cooperate with efforts to dipose of debris from Tohoku. However, thanks to growing hysteria about radiation, the number of local governments quickly dropped to just 54. Reporters for the TV program contacted local governments for comments, and many responses expressing concern about safety. As we can see from a trip to the city of Miyako in Iwate prefecture, there is great frustration in Tohoku about what to do with debris that nobody is willing to accept

According to the report, the only local governments that have agreed to take debris from Miyako are Tokyo and part of Yamagata prefecture. There are plenty of bad things one can say about Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, but one has to at least give him credit for not giving in to the fearmongering about radiation. He says that the debris is tested for radiation and what’s being brought to Tokyo is not dangerously radioactive.

In the video, we see officials from Tokyo visiting a dump in Miyako to conduct radiation tests on each shipment of debris. If it exceeds government safety standards, it is not shipped. They also use geiger counters to scan the exterior of shipping containers, just in case they might find abnormalities. About 6 tons of debris are shipped to Tokyo every day. It takes over 19 hours for the debris to travel the 660 kilometer distance. It’s a highly inefficient way of dealing with the problem, but it’s the only option available because closer areas have refused to accept the debris.

It should be noted, however, that not all local governments that are rejecting debris are doing so because of fear. The reporters visited a place in Akita prefecture where garbage is melted and turned into pellets. This is not a widely-used method of disposal in Japan, and the national government’s safety standards only mention more common methods of incineration. They will not accept debris until the national government comes up with special rules for their type of facility. Local government officials in other parts of Japan, such as Osaka, are considering the creation of their own local safety standards, which would presumably be stricter than the national standards.

One of the major points made in the video is that the national government has set a very strict standard for radiation in debris. It’s even stricter than food safety standards. The debris being put in trucks must contain less than 100 becquerels of cesium-137 per kilogram.