TEPCO_CEO Twitter Account Mocks Tokyo Electric Power Company
If you’re looking for some humorous mockery of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, follow TEPCO_CEO on twitter:

The account appears to be inspired by the BP Global PR, a parody twitter account that appeared in the wake of last year’s gigantic oil spill.
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Categories: News Satire
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
Japan Introduces Social Skills Written Test

Grant Woolard pokes some fun at the Japanese education system’s focus on written examinations:
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Categories: News Satire
Hatoyama Resigned and All I Got Was This Lousy Shirt
Poor Hatoloopyama. He had a dream, involving crazy fashion. Now you can have some of your own to commemorate another fun shuffling of the chairs in the Prime Minister’s office.
Take this one for instance:

The text on it says, “The Heisei era’s tax evasion king”.
You can find a whole slew of them here. Including a few shirts that use everyone’s favorite word for him recently: loopy.
One is particularly harsh though, in the following shirt we see the characters for love and friendship, along with a dove, split in twain.

Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic. He is loopy like a fox and enjoying his urakudari.
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Categories: General Japan, News Satire, Politics
Stephen Colbert Speaks Japanese

Some joking around by the Colbert Report about a Japanese-made robot mouth:
[hat tip to Brian & Keeping Pace in Japan]
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Categories: News Satire
North Korea to capure the moon
First they abduct Japanese citizens, now they plan to abduct the moon:
[via the Marmot's Hole]
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Categories: News Satire
