Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:38 pm Post subject:
gaijinmark wrote:
And the guy before him, Shinzo Abe only lasted about an hour and a half. I wonder if Elvis Koizumi will come out of retirement?
Yup. Shinzo suffered from the same fate as almost every other Executive of State that supported the War in Iraq.
Tony Blair, career as PM ended.
PM Howard of Australia, not re-elected.
PM of Spain, not re-elected.
Shinzo Abe, lasted about an hour & a half.
Do you see a pattern here?
I thought about J. Koizumi, too...but I don't know what's going to happen given the fact that the LDP has lost control of the Upper House of the Diet.
Fukuda seemed like a fool...in the midst of recessionary fears he wanted to raise taxes on fuel and tax elder ppl's pensions...ppl who are already on fixed incomes. Moreover, his Cabinet was full of scandolous jokers at a time he could ill afford any negative press because his popularity was already plummeting like a stone.
It seems the LDP is having difficulty now that it no longer has the comfortable position of de facto one party monopoly in Japanese politics which has basically enjoyed since the post-War era.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:55 pm Post subject:
Riding the Rails at 217 MPH
By Dave Demerjian September 24, 2008
Here in the land of the Metroliner and the Coach Coast Starlight, it's easy to be jealous of all the national rail systems that leave Amtrak in the dust. Now Japan, already home to one of the world's most sophisticated networks, has given us something new to envy -- a greener train that does 217 mph.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries is developing the "Environmentally Friendly Super Express Train" and says it will be Japan's fastest passenger train ever. It features an extremely light and aerodynamic profile and uses regenerative braking to capture kinetic energy that would otherwise be lost as heat. As a result, Kawasaki says, the efSET will be smoother, quieter and more energy efficient than many current trains.
Best of all, it'll be faster, too.
The train will strengthen a rail system that's already the envy of the world. Japan's Shinkansen bullet train can hit 186 mph crossing the 1,528 mile rail network that spans a country where fast trains are the norm. The country has tested conventional rail trains capable of 275 mph and maglevs that exceed 361 mph.
Kawasaki says the design of the efSET should be finished by 2010, at which point it will start building and selling the trains. It has big plans for the speed demon, too -- it hopes to roll out 10,000 kilometers (about 6,200 miles) of high-speed railway around the world.
An efSET network in the United States would revolutionize train travel. A trip between Boston and New York would be cut to less than an hour. Los Angeles to San Francisco would take less than two hours and a run from Miami to Atlanta would be done in three hours and change.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:24 am Post subject:
Talk about a bad friekin' trip....from Gizmodo:
==================
Electric Surgery Knife Sets Patient's Throat Ablaze
I'm glad I had my tonsils out years ago, or this would make me think twice about it. A 76-year-old man admitted to the hospital for respiratory failure was about to have a new tube implanted in his trachea when the one already in there caught fire as the doctor cut into his throat with an electrosurgical knife. The flames reached as high as 10 centimeters, and scorched his respiratory passage, mouth and face.
This isn't the first time it's happened either—the Journal of Japan Society for Clinical Anesthesia has multiple reports of electric knives causing fires. Apparently, it's a risk when tracheal tubes supply oxygen with a concentration of 40 percent or more. Remind me to never get get on with an electric knife, as badass as that sounds.
^ Yup, high oxygen concentrations make things considerably more flammable... The pure oxygen atmosphere in Apollo 1 was a large contributor in the deaths of the three astronauts during routine simulation tests back in 1967...
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:54 am Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
^ Yup, high oxygen concentrations make things considerably more flammable... The pure oxygen atmosphere in Apollo 1 was a large contributor in the deaths of the three astronauts during routine simulation tests back in 1967...
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:12 am Post subject:
Badass Japanese Mom
Tough talk from a badass 44-year-old Japanese mom:
"I wanted to show my children that if you give up, then you're washed up!"
Kazumi Izaki has been recently named Japan's oldest professional boxer. She was officially certified despite the fact that she is 12 years older than that country's boxing federation normally allows. She made it.
The mother of two daughters, 21 and 14, and former aerobics instructor laced up a pair of boxing gloves for the first time back in 2001. She replaces a 46-year-old Japanese man as the country's oldest pro boxer after he declined to renew his license. I guess he's washed up.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12123 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 8:35 pm Post subject:
"Hey, you're supposed to be dead!!!" From FujiTV News:
The Omuta Police Station in Fukuoka Prefecture mistook the identity of a man found dead at a local train station. The mistake came to light when family members ran into the man just hours after the cremation.
"Hey, you're supposed to be dead!!!" From FujiTV News:
The Omuta Police Station in Fukuoka Prefecture mistook the identity of a man found dead at a local train station. The mistake came to light when family members ran into the man just hours after the cremation.
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