Japanese Government Guilty of Negligence in Deaths of Children in March 11 Tsunami - Guilty of Future Negligence too

Here we go again with government double-talk and obfuscation...


One day, the government says we don't have money so they need to raise sales taxes, the next day they give away billions of taxpayer dollars to their crony friends in other countries...

This is just a lesson in reading between the lines and knowing that whatever the government does or says there has to be some hidden ulterior motive. The government pronouncements that go along with their often scatological actions often mean the exact opposite of what they say... The government doesn't really do anything, except for finding ways to spend tax monies and posing like they are doing something.


You know, "War is peace. Freedom is slavery..." type of stuff... Orwell....


Don't believe me? Here's proof today. The government spent millions of dollars making a video to ostensibly protect children in the case of a natural disaster but when it comes to actually doing something concrete towards those ends, well, um... Not so much... They'll need to have decussions to decide if they need to decide to have further discussions.


That's how the government "works" folks. Today the government has announced that they have a plan but, if you read carefully, their plan isn't a plan at all.


The Yomiuri reports in Government adopts safety plan for children (as I often do, I'll comment between the articles paragraphs and point out the nonsense):

The government on Friday adopted a basic policy on safety education at schools for the next five years, with the goal of minimizing harm to children in the event of natural disasters and other situations.

So, far so good. The government "adopted a basic policy on safety?" Great. (One has to wonder where they were all this time in a country that has thousands of earthquakes annually and many natural disasters?)... Carry on....

The move was prompted by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region last year.

The basic policy urged schools to make time to teach children how to protect themselves in the event of a disaster. It also called for a study on the possibility of creating a new school subject focusing on safety education.

Wait a minute, here! "The basic policy urged schools to make time to teach children how to protect themselves!?" "Urged?" Not "ordered?" Also, a "study on the possibility?" What's that mean? 


So what they are saying here is that the "basic policy" isn't really a policy at all. What they are saying is that this is a request or advice to schools to teach something. How is that policy? I find the definition of policy at Merriam Webster Dictionary to say:

Policy: a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions

"Urging" someone and a "definite course of action" sounds like two different things to me, folks. Then the article adds this gem that always proves the old adage and oft-repeated mantra of this blog; "...it is the goal of government, every government; to use any excuse, emergency or crisis to expand upon itself. It doesn't matter if that government is democratic, communist, socialist, fascist, or green. No matter the reason the government solution will be to grow itself."


This next sentence is so cynical that made me laugh out loud:

The basic policy underlined the necessity of safety education at schools, pointing out that students who had received thorough education on tsunami at their schools evacuated to safety on their own in the March 2011 disaster.

"Students who had received thorough education... evacuated to safety..."? Yes. Excellent. 


And whose responsibility is it that many who died did not receive a "thorough education" so that they could have "evacuated to safety" at a government run school? 


Consider: If you were head for the fire department in some town and a bunch of houses burnt down on your watch, you'd lose your job. On the other hand, if you are in charge of policy for government run public schools and a bunch of kids die, you get to make new policies and print textbooks and things like that.


Remember that post I wrote the other day about there being two rules in society? One rule for the ruling class and another rule for us peasants? Here it is, in action, again.


This begs the question again... I forwarded above about asking where the government was before the March 11, 2011 disaster? Why did just some schools teach their students (and teachers) proper evacuation procedures and others didn't? Could it be that government policy was nonexistent? Could it be that so many kids died in the tsunami because the government did not have strict guideline and policy (policy!? Oh there goes that word again!) to teach this policy and rules to all children and all school faculty? This is pretty damning, folks. This smacks of incompetence and criminal negligence once again. These people didn't do their jobs and so a bunch of kids died needlessly, yet these same people, these government bureaucrats don't lose their jobs? 

As the current safety education offered during gym classes is insufficient, a systematic method of training should be considered, it said.

And, who, pray tell, decided that safety education should be taught during gym classes? The government, that's who. Who sets curriculum? The government does.


But then there is another huge red flag in this sentence too.... "a... systematic method of training should be considered?" Considered by whom, may I ask? Should a twenty-five year old first grade teacher just out of college with her first job at some school decide or should this be decided by government officials consulting experts and be made official policy? "Should be considered?" Morons.

Ultimately, what this says is that the central government has decided that the children of the nation need to be protected. Hooray! So, in their eternal wisdom, they decided to make it a policy to urge schools to teach children something and to study the feasibility of starting a study to see if it is feasible to make some books.


Trust, folks, that the government will make these books and this cirrriculum. Why not? It increases their duties (to justify budgets) and is just another expansion of the government (read: your taxes)... This by the very same government whose inept "policies" led to no policy being in effect at many schools at the time of the tsunami so so many children died.


Why do I know they will create these items and this curriculum? They've already made one. Here is a report about one that was created by the Japan Meteorological Association:

Well, I'm sure they mean well, but, like most government run things, I'm sure this was poorly thought out. Now they have a video, super. But where are they going to show it? Most Japanese elementary school classrooms don't have TVs or DVD set ups. They say they are making copies to give to schools but I wonder how well this will sink into the head of a 6-year-old who is in a fit of panic...


Showing this to kids might help a bit.... But setting a policy for teachers and administrators is what is really needed... Nah, but that's too much work. It's much easier for some fat bureaucrats to sit on his ass and spend taxpayers money. 


I also bet you a half a donut they spent several million dollars making this video (the Japanese government has done that before many times). Wonderful! Millions spent making a video no one will see.... (Trust, that privately run TV stations in Japan, no matter how inept, aren't wont to broadcast government created productions without getting paid big money - so where will these productions be shown?)


If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a video that costs millions to be made is seen by no one, does it really cost anything?


Being paid millions to do something that no one sees? Great work, if you can get it... 


Almost as good as working for the government deciding "policy."

Rant: What I Dislike About Many Greens and Environmentalists - Understanding Human Motivations

Let me start off by saying that we need to protect the environment. We need to keep the beaches, rivers, lakes and land clean. We need to take care of ourselves and our earth for our children and their children and their children's children. But we also need to wake up and see what is really important in our lives.

Snowing like crazy in Tokyo... Global warming, don't you know?

Now to the point: I'm really fed up with self-righteous militant and nearly militant Greens and Environmentalists. I am sick and tired of their ignorant and ill considered ideas. I am really disgusted by their "holier than thou" attitude and thinking that they are always right and you are always wrong. They are just as bad as religious zealots: I don't mind someone having their religion and their beliefs. Great! Do as they wish. But do not try to push these beliefs on me or other people. I really don't like their abrasive and antagonistic attitudes.


I also wonder just how stupid these people can be. On one hand they will complain about the government being completely corrupt and in bed with big business when it comes to things like nuclear accidents and BP oil spills... Or banking corruption and the destruction of the working class... Yet, on the other hand, they want the government to tax us so that they can take care of the environment? Astounding!


This is a government, in Japan's case for exapmple, that can't even handle the bookkeeping properly and now has the country on the ledge of bankruptcy and people want to give them more money!? That would be like handing care of your household finances to a crack addict and expecting that he will take care of things properly. 


Today it is snowing and it is snowing hard. This is at least the sixth time this year it has snowed in Tokyo. This is the hardest and deepest snow I have ever seen here. In the 27 years I have been here it has never snowed more than twice in any winter. Most winters it doesn't snow at all; and if it does, the snow melts immediately upon hitting the ground. But this is at least six times in one year! To illustrate the rarity of this more, just one month ago, on Jan. 24, it snowed more than 4 cm in Tokyo and that was the most snow in 6 years. Today's snow is much more than that!  

Thousands of people have died in Europe, almost 100 in Japan, because of this winters cold and snow... It is the coldest winter in nearly 30 years... But is it a fluke? Nope. Just two years ago, they said the winter of 2009 ~ 2010 was devastatingly cold. This year, 2012, is the death of the Global Warming Cult. R.I.P.


The rule of thumb is that if there is a crisis and the government comes along and says, "pay us more money and we'll take care of it for you." Then a wise person (and I do mean wise and intelligent experienced and thoughtful person) would automatically become suspicious. Trust me. Over 3 decades in the mass media and many years as a station news director makes me much more of an expert on that than any university professor.


Trust that everything you see or hear is told to you by someone who has a motivation for it. If it is on TV or media or in publications, then you can pretty much be safe in assuming that there is a strong profit motivation. If it comes from any government or quasi-government source (that includes your government, the UN, the IPCC, etc.) then you can be 100% sure there is a profit motivation. Motivation is the key word. If you do not understand this simple concept then educate yourself right now with this short video. It's a simple course in Praxeology, the science of understanding the purposeful behavior of human beings:  

Yesterday I posted about some Japanese kids terrorizing some monkeys in a zoo. In Japan, this didn't make national news. Please refer to: Kids Acting Like Animals Have to Apologize to Animals:


It also shows a good thing about Japan: Even though these kids were drinking underage and throwing fireworks, nobody claims that stricter laws need to be made for firework sales or alcohol sales.

Everyone knows that these kids were just causing trouble. People in Japan generally don't think about passing laws to try to make people into good human beings.


My point was that, in the west, people are confused with the role of government and personal responsibility. One intelligent reader also pointed out that, had this been in the west, it would have hit national news with an outpouring of sympathy for these animals and a public outcry for severe punishment meted out:


If this happened in the UK or US, the response would have been tremendous, and out of all proportion compared to the effects.


Since the animals were at a zoo, and therefore famous; the sentencing would be much more severe for the perpetrators, because the media would drum up the war chant of “murder the marauders who caused mayhem to the monkeys!” Plus in our modern era, what else is there in life, but to become famous? To be blunt, how else could a judge or attorney become famous, but to listen to the mob, and give them what they want?

In a similar city, there would probably be hundreds of poor homeless people that nobody cares about, and who would've wound up eating out of rubbish skips, and sleeping under bridges...


The militant Greens will gladly destroy people, property, business and lives to save the earth... They wouldn't lift a finger to save a human life. Here's an example: When making a program satire of the entire Global Warming Debate (being neither pro nor con) in 2007, an irate listener called the broadcast station and threatened to, 


"Come down to the broadcast station and set it on fire and kill everyone inside!"


I laughed and told him that,


"Please come along and try. I will be waiting for you alongside the local police and the fire department."


We never heard from him again. That was in Tokyo. Like I said, this has been one of the coldest winters in a long time... I wonder if he is still thinking about running around and setting buildings on fire? If he is, it's probably just to stay warm.


There are many, far too many of these militant (may I say frickin' crazy) people running around. They will violently protest the killing of 600 non-endangered species of dolphins in Japan (because, as the reader commented they are "famous" - and animals are "cute") but I don't see them protesting their own countries involvement with US and NATO bombing and the starvation tactics and killing of millions of Iraqi people and children...


Or for another example, there are people who are taking dog and cat food to the Fukushima disaster area to feed strays. I don't get it. There's 400,000 people there with lives shattered. Thousands of children have lost parents and siblings. Tens of thousands are still live in temporary shelters and these people are spending their time helping stray animals? 


If you think that organizations like PETA do a good job, think again. Read this:
PETA kills more than 95% of all animals in its care.


Where are these twisted people's priorities? (Watch the video again: Money).


I am not pleased about this killing of pets or dolphins either, but instead of going and fighting about that, I have, for example, thousands of children with incurable diseases like deadly cancer that need help in my back yard right now. Pardon me for having twisted priorities but I think I'll spend my time helping handicapped and crippled and terminally ill kids... I can't stop people from feeding the animals or pigeons in the park, but I have to wonder where their priorities are.  

If you are going to talk the talk, walk the walk...

People have got to start thinking with their analytical minds, if they have any left. There was a time, several years ago, I was having a discussion with an extremely confused German friend. He insisted that,


"We need the government to make rules outlawing guns."


I completely disagreed. He then added,


"If the government doesn't make laws outlawing guns, then crazy and dangerous people will have guns!"


"You mean, like they do now?" I retorted.


If you believe that guns cause crimes and murders then you must believe that cameras cause child pornography. 


Personally, I don't think so. (By the way, Canada has many more guns per capita than the USA and does not have a gun murder problem so don't tell me that the USA problem is because of guns.)


Like, I said, people need to open their eyes and stop taking the propaganda they hear and see as gospel truth... 


The best thing would be for people to start thinking for themselves. But that might be asking for too much.


NOTE: It warms my heart to see other writers who think along the same lines as I do. Here's one of my favorites with an article that just came out. His name is James Delingpole: Why I am so rude to Warmists

Here's a TV report about today's snow:

Japan is Earthquake Capital of the World Visualization Animated Map

After the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and subsequent Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, I was inundated with all sorts of ridiculous mails claiming that I was working for the nuclear industry or an "nuclear apologist." The more absurd ones were from people who claimed that the March 11 disaster was caused by HAARP or, as Benjamin Fulford claimed, "The USA detonating a nuclear bomb undersea off the coast of Japan."

All nonsense. I am no expert on HAARP but I like to think I know a tad bit about Japan. Japan has a hell of a lot of earthquakes. We had two yesterday that I felt. We have them almost everyday... Hell, we have hundreds of them everyday. Don't believe me?

Well, then watch this. Here is an animated map of earthquake activity in Japan in 2011. See if you can find where the nuclear attacks were:

Global Warming Strikes Again! Japan and Europe Snowed Under with Record Cold and Snow!

As everyone knows, Global Warming causes the earth to get warmer and colder!

Japan Times Reports: Record lows recorded at 38 locations in Japan

The nation experienced severe cold weather Friday with temperatures dropping to record lows at 38 locations in the morning, the Meteorological Agency said. From Tohoku to Kyushu, temperatures hit their lowest records in 16 prefectures, including the town of Kusu in Oita Prefecture, where temperature fell to minus 14.7 degrees. In Mashiki, Kumamoto Prefecture, it was minus 8.4. Of 927 observation points, over 90 percent, or 874 sites, marked temperatures below zero early Friday, the agency said. The lowest figure observed was minus 32.6 in Esashi, Hokkaido. The agency said the cold air mass that led to blizzards in several Sea of Japan coastal areas has now passed over the archipelago.... 

"Based on our forecast, February's temperatures nationwide will be lower" than in normal years, Ishihara said. "We project low temperatures will continue through March and April, but excluding Hokkaido and the Tohoku region."

In Japan's Shiga Prefecture, the snow was so bad that the government Self-Defense Forces (SDF) were called in to help with rescue and snow removal work. It was the first time in 31 years that the SDF's help had been requested. In many areas the snow was as high as 3 meters (about 9ft 8 inches deep).

That it is so damned cold in Japan with freezing cold hitting new records should be no surprise to anyone. Extreme weather conditions have savaged the earth since the beginning of time. In fact, when you judge the history of the earth at over 4 million years with the time it’s been since man started keeping records (since 1878) to assume that we can judge the weather by computer modeling based on "assumptions" is probably nonsense.

Who was it who said, “You know what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of you and me” (assume = ass + u + me).

To show, again that this is not a local phenomenon, here is extreme cold weather in Europe, continuing, as the Daily Mail Reports:

Snow falls in Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS as -36c temperatures across eastern Europe send death toll to 150 

• Capital of Italy usually has moderate temperatures but Colosseum is closed over ice fears
• Military on alert in the UK as temperatures drop and heavy snow fall is predicted 
• Over 11,000 villagers in Serbia remain trapped by heavy snow and blizzards
• Temperatures across eastern Europe plummet to -30c amid fears of more deaths
• Death toll in Ukraine now stands at 101, with 38 people being killed by cold last night

NOTE: In Switzerland, are always measured lower temperatures. Some places experienced the coldest February night for over 30 years. http://bit.ly/yPhrLN

See many more great European winter photos here.

Marijuana Users in Japan Get Free Rent and Meals Paid!

The title of this post should be "Idiot Pot Users in Japan." Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against marijuana or any other drug use for that matter. I think all drugs should be decriminalized... But what I think doesn't matter. If you are in Japan, you'd have to be stupid to do or smoke (possess) marijuana. Because if you're caught, they will throw you in prison.

Mailing marijuana cookies to Japan. Doh! Did anyone ever stop to think, "I guess they might have candies and cookies in Japan! I wonder if sending cookies will look suspicious?" Perhaps this could be proof that marijuana cause brain damage 

Sure, some people will say that marijuana is not bad for you at all and, even though some will disagree, I might agree with them totally that marijuana isn't all that bad for your health. It might even be good for you. I don't know. 


But good or bad, marijuana certainly was lots of fun when I was a university student in the USA. But that was in the USA back in the days when small amounts of marijuana wouldn't land you in jail. 


Is marijuana really all that bad for you? I don't know. But I can guarantee you that, without a shadow of a doubt, getting your ass thrown in jail in Japan for a decade because a little marijuana will certainly be bad for your health. 


The point is that this is not a question of whether or not marijuana is bad for you or not. It is not a question of whether or not marijuana should be illegal or not. The question here is this: Is possession of marijuana in Japan a serious offense in the year 2011? The answer is "Yes. It is! It is a serious crime that holds prison as a penalty."


Interestingly, it is not against the law to smoke marijuana in Japan. The law states that possession of marijuana is a crime. Possession always pre-dates usage. So it is against the law to have any amount of marijuana.


Since it is against the law, if you do possess marijuana in Japan, you take the risk of getting arrested and you face the possibility of a long prison sentence. Once you are caught and arrested, making idiotic claims that, "Marijuana isn't that bad for you!" or "It was only a little bit!" or "I didn't know my friends were going to send it to me in the mail!" Just isn't going to fly. They've heard them all before.


Everyone who gets caught says this kind of stupid thing. The result is always the same: The law will be upheld.


I remember several years ago when an American friend of mine came to Japan to visit her son. She didn't know her way around and the son he was too much of a selfish brat to pick up his mom at the airport so, since she was an old friend, I picked her up.


On the way back in the car, she started asking questions about Japan and telling me all sorts of nonsense that went on between her "Parent of the Year" parenting skills and her dysfunctional kid. She also told me that she sometimes sent her son marijuana in the mail. She said she hid the marijuana, in small amounts, in packages from the USA. I almost hit the roof. I told her to cease that immediately. 


In a typical stupid, ethno-centric, typically American reply, she said to me, 


"Oh. It's OK. I don't use my real address! It's not that much marijuana. Just a little bit. They won't put him into prison for a few grams." 


"No!" I said, "No one here cares about your address. Trust me. It doesn't matter if it's even one little speck. If they catch him with that marijuana, they will put him in prison. No ifs ands or buts."


She wouldn't believe me. 


I had to repeat myself, "No. If they find that marijuana on him or in his home, they will put him in prison!"


She then took the stupidity up a few levels higher by telling me how she so cleverly hid the drugs;


"Oh, they won't find it anyhow. I hide it in ball point pens and cassette tapes."


Jeez! What a fricking stupid woman! Had she never heard of X-ray machines? Didn't she know that they already have ball point pens in Japan? And, incredibly, and as hard as it is going to be to believe, cassette tapes were also plentiful in Japan. In fact Japan manufactured those things!!! I know the genius and technological prowess of the Japanese and, trust me, Japan has had ball pens and cassette tapes for a long time (Pssst! They sell them here at places called, interestingly, "Convenience Stores.") I told her again to stop that practice and also pointed out the obvious that cassette tapes and ball point pens, being mailed from the USA to Japan might look a tiny bit suspicious, no?


I have no doubt that that stupid woman is continuing this foolishness today. 


Well, maybe it's OK, it seems her son is so useless that he can't keep a decent job to feed himself or pay his own rent so maybe it's better for him in prison. What the hell? Free rent and food!


Now, in Japan, today we have another story of another moron coming to Japan from the USA and now facing jail time for marijuana. Now, once again, I am not saying that I agree with Japan's drug laws. I don't. But, the law is the law, and when you go to a foreign country (or even in your own) and you take risks with those laws, you also accept the risk of penalties.


I hope this idiot kid doesn't go to jail, but if he does, I will say, "Just another in a long line of stupid foreigners." Here is the story in yellow with my comments included.


Channel Nine News Reports:


ARVADA - A Colorado School of Mines chemical engineering student remains in a Japanese jail after a friend of his says he mailed the student three cookies and four pieces of candy infused with marijuana.


With friends like this guy, who needs enemies?

Japanese prosecutors appear to be using the country's very strict anti-drug laws to go after 25-year-old Tim Wilson. 

That's their job.

Wilson was attending Tohuku (sic) University in Sendai, Japan, as an exchange student when he was arrested back in August.

He's remained in custody ever since.

"They keep pushing the trial back," his father Jeff Wilson said on Wednesday. "Originally, they told us it would be no later than Oct. 24. Then they told us December, and then two weeks ago we found out it would be in January."

Japanese law says that a person can be arrested and detained for 22 days before charges are brought against them. If the prosecutors go to the judge at the end of the 22 days and ask for an extension, the judge will usually allow it. These extensions cane be repeated twice for a total of 66 days. If Tim never accepted these cookies into his possession, they will probably release him at the end of the 66 days and he will be put on the first plane back to the USA under a deportation ruling. He will never be allowed back into Japan again. If the police and prosecutors find marijuana at Tim's apartment or they find his friends in Japan have some and they got it from Tim then I hope Tim has fun with his new friends in prison.

Tim Wilson's friend agreed to speak with 9NEWS on Wednesday if we agreed not to use his name. He said in May he mailed three peanut butter cookies and four "Cheeba Chews" to Tim Wilson inside a package containing other items such as books and CD's.

Duh! Moron! He doesn't want them to use his name? Why not? he doesn't want the whole world to know how much of an ass he is? Amazingly, but true, Japan is one of the riches countries in the world and we have lots of cookies and candies and cakes... Hasn't it struck "friend" for even a second that mailing $1.00 candies and cookies to Japan is a red flag and might look real suspicious?

That package never made it to Wilson. 

If this is true, and it never made it to Wilson, and Wilson has no marijuana at his residence, he will probably be deported at the end of 66 days.

In June, Japanese customs officials flagged the package and then started an investigation which eventually led to Wilson's arrest on Aug. 3.

Jeff Wilson has been told his son faces up to 10 years in prison.

"We really believed this would be cleared up in the first 10 to 20 days. We thought he'd be released," Jeff Wilson said.

Well, you believed wrong.

Tim Wilson was registered as a medical marijuana patient with the State of Colorado when the marijuana edibles were sent, although federal and state laws prohibit the mailing of such items. He was given a medical marijuana card for pain in his back.

Medical Marijuana patient, eh? That's supposed to means he needs it to survive or live a life without pain. Well, his coming to Japan is a good argument for the people who don't want to allow medical marijuana. If this guy can go to Japan and do without it, it must not be that much of a medical priority. PS: Card or no card, marijuana is illegal in Japan.

Jeff Wilson insists his son never requested the edibles and that the friend took it upon himself to send the package to Japan. The friend told 9NEWS the same thing.

Sure, you can go to any prison in America and every person instituted there will tell you the same thing, "I didn't do anything wrong! They go the wrong guy!"

Some of the confusion may be due to an email exchange between Tim Wilson and his friend in which Wilson wrote, "That would be a good idea," when asked about sending marijuana edibles to Japan.

Jeff Wilson believes his son was simply being sarcastic when he wrote that and that language issues between the two countries was at play at the time.

Oh yeah. Dumb friend goes out and spend his money on marijuana; then spends his time making cookies; then spends his own money again on sending marijuana to Japan and it's all a misunderstanding between friends? Well, that's completely believable, right? Wrong. Bullshit! I believe Tim Wilson's father believes wrong and I don't think for a second he actually believes that cock and bull story.

Tim Wilson was also volunteering with the country's ongoing earthquake relief efforts.

Aha! Playing the sympathy card? Isn't that nice? By the way, volunteering is something that Tim (and every other person) in this country has done. No big deal. Sentimentality, or the lack of it, should not guide decisions concerning whether or not the law has been broken and if actions should be taken.

Tom McNamara is a Denver attorney with Davis, Graham and Stubbs and specializes in international law. He calls Japan's anti-drug laws "some of the most severe in the world."

"The amount [of marijuana] matters not," he said on Wednesday. "We could be talking about one gram or five kilos."

He says Japanese authorities have recently started to concentrate on cases involving drugs mailed into the country.

Finally, someone who says something that makes sense.

Jeff Wilson is now actively trying to bring more attention to his son's case.

"They've got the wrong guy," he insisted.

Bwa! Ha! Ha! Ha! "I'm innocent! Innocent, I tell ya!"

They arrested Paul McCartney for marijuana in Japan. They will most certainly throw your ass in jail for the same. Here, too, McCartney says he "didn't know"!

Tim Wilson has a 3.98 grade point average at Mines and his father showed 9NEWS a letter where faculty members were recommending he consider trying to become a Rhodes Scholar.

Well, with a 3.98 grade point average, Tim sure doesn't seem to be all that bright. 

NOTE: The purpose of this post is not to kick this dimwit kid and his naive father. It's, hopefully, to make sure that someone will read this and make damn sure that they aren't the next Tim Wilson.


Tim is lucky, actually, that this happened in Japan. In some other Asian countries the penalty for what he is involved with is death.


NOTE TWO: I can bet you a donut that the friend that baked these marijuana cookies and sent them to Tim in Japan was high when he did so. Just goes to show that great ideas when you are high are usually not such great ideas later on when you are sober

Attack of the Fukushima Nuclear Flies! Trillions of Disgusting Flies!

Oh, this is just plain disgusting (but a cool sensationalist title, eh?) Now, after the disaster of March 11, to add insult to injury, the people in Tohoku have to contend with a massive fly invasion. Gross!... Now, I know where Japan got all those ideas for those weird monster movies in the 1960's....

Those weren't weird ideas thought up by some guy at home. In Japan, this stuff really goes on in real life. Earthquakes, tsunami, nuclear accidents! Heck, remember the attack of the giant jellyfish I wrote about on the very morning of the earthquake disaster?

THE CRAMPS - HUMAN FLY

In April of 2011, just 3 weeks after the March earthquake and tsunami, my friends and I went on a relief trip to Ishinomaki. One of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami (video at bottom).


Even though it was early April and still quite cold (one needed a coat outside)... The place reeked. There were dead fish and other animals everywhere. Now that summer is here it seems that flies are breeding in the trillions.

Daily Yomiuri

Hordes of flies continue to plague areas devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake, some of them threatening survivors with serious disease.

Flies have thrived on the ample rotten fish and sludge that riddles the disaster-hit areas. Municipal and private exterminators kill them, only to see more emerge, and residents constantly in need of bug sprays and swatters are becoming increasingly irritated.

In mid-July, extermination companies nationwide were dispatched to an industrial complex in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. The workers, who wear protective suits and masks, used about two tons of bug spray in the morning alone.

"This is an abnormal situation," one of the exterminators, Hideaki Yamanaka, 63, from Osaka Prefecture, said. "It's the first time in decades that I've used such a large amount of spray."

Flies are hatching from rotten fish carried out of destroyed processing facilities by the tsunami, and also sludge-filled drains. Local governments have been taking measures such as burying rotten fish underground and abandoning them at sea.

According to experts, flies are also residing in the styrofoam containers the fish were kept in. These containers have stayed afloat at sea, spreading the fly outbreak even further.

An Ofunato city government official said, "Even in commercial and residential areas without fisheries companies, we have received numerous requests to exterminate flies."

One problem is that flies are hatching from areas previously cleared by exterminators. Since April, the Tokyo-based Japan Pest Control Association, which includes harmful insect-exterminating companies and other entities, has dispatched a total of 4,000 workers to 14 municipalities, including Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, and Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture.

Motokazu Hirao, 73, deputy head of the association, said, "Removal of debris has progressed and the peak of the [fly outbreak] has passed."

But he added, "Flies hatch every 10 to 20 days. We need to persistently exterminate them."

The Self-Defense Forces have taken the fly outbreak seriously, dispatching 10 teams of 15 members each for "epidemic prevention assistance" since mid-July. They have even deployed spraying vehicles and portable sprayers normally used to defend against biological and chemical weapons.

By the end of July, the teams had sprayed bug-killing chemicals at 12 locations in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures upon request of the municipal governments. Although they cleared those areas, an SDF officer in charge of the teams said, "Because the bug killer chemicals are only effective for one week or so, we'll stand by for more requests from the local governments."

Mutsuo Kobayashi, director of the Department of Medical Entomology of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, said that the majority of flies in May and June were the Calliphora nigribarbis variety, which prefers outdoor environments. Recently, most flies in the area have been smaller varieties such as house flies and green bottle flies, he said.

Kobayashi warned: "There has been a report that house flies are transmitting O-157 E. coli bacteria, which causes intestinal bleeding. It's important to use mesh-screens on windows and not leave food unattended."

In evacuee shelters, residents have struggled in their efforts against flies, such as hanging flypaper. At Minato Middle School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, which is being used as an evacuation center, an uncountable number of flies can be seen in its garbage collection site. There is a site for temporary storage of disaster debris nearby.

A volunteer in the shelter said, "One can of [bug] spray runs out so quickly."

Although mesh window screens are attached to the school's windows, flies are able to penetrate small gaps. The city government dispatched 15 temporary workers to spray the area, but the number of flies has not decreased.

Katsuro Daikoku, a 72-year-old evacuee in the shelter, said, "Every time I have a meal I have to kill flies with a fly swatter."

Ugh. What did I tell you? Disgusting. 

I understand that the flies are a problem but I wonder about the wisdom of killing them all with chemicals. The flies are part of nature's process to decompose rotting organic material. Also, what effect will massive dumping of chemicals have on the environment and the surrounding waters that these chemicals will eventually run into?

But, then again, according to Know Your Pests:

One need only consider the ability of flies to transmit diseases. Mosquitoes and black flies are responsible for more human suffering and death than any other group of organisms except for the transmitted pathogens and man!


Here is a video we made of our trip to Ishinomaki in April. 

ISHINOMAKI - BLACK WATER