Is it 2K-Tan?

Is it demonic yet curiously sexy Nazi officer girl?

Or is it disarmingly sweet looking SS oficer girl?

Some people think that the U.S. has a monopoly on stupid lawsuits. Japan has its share, too. The main difference is that the Japanese courts usually tell the plaintiffs to get lost. Yomiuri reports on the dismissal of one such case in Nagoya:

The plaintiffs sought the termination of the deployment, claiming that “the SDF deployment to Iraq, in addition to being an act of war in violation of Article 9 of the Constitution, violates the right to peaceful existence provided in the Preamble to the Constitution, and has caused psychological damage.”

Similar lawsuits are pending in eleven other district courts, including Sapporo and Tokyo; the plaintiffs’ suits in Kofu and Osaka have also been dismissed.

“Dismiss” (却下 kyakka) means that the court found no legal standing for the suit. Article 9 has been the subject of many lawsuits ending in a dismissal, going back to the predecessors of the SDF in the early 1950s. While many citizens might object, few people can prove any injury resulting from the government’s alleged constitutional violations.

One notable exception to this was the Sunakawa Case of 1959, which challenged an arrest made under a law based on Article 9. The plaintiffs, who had been arrested for trespassing on Tachikawa Air Base in Tokyo, made it all the way to the Supreme Court before their case against Article 9 was conclusively thrown out.

One less reason for expats to go back home – Krispy Kreme will be opening in Japan this winter! Nikkei has the details:

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Lotte To Bring U.S. Doughnut Chain Krispy Kreme To Japan

TOKYO (Nikkei)—Lotte Co. plans to start opening Krispy Kreme doughnut chain stores in Japan this coming winter with turnaround specialist Revamp Corp., The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Wednesday.

As a first step, Lotte and Revamp aim to set up a joint venture around late May and to open through it one or two stores in Tokyo this year. This venture is expected to increase the number of stores to 30-50 in five years by opening locations at major train terminal buildings and shopping malls around the nation. It may also set up Krispy Kreme stores inside Lotteria hamburger chain restaurants, as well as open new Krispy Kreme-Lotteria joint stores at malls.

Lotte Group already runs Krispy Kreme franchise stores in South Korea. In Japan, it has decided to team up with Revamp to tap that firm’s extensive knowledge of the Japanese consumer market.

..

In Japan, prices will likely be set around 100 yen—about the same as or slightly less than doughnuts at Duskin Co.’s Mister Donut chain, which dominates the Japanese market with some 1,300 stores and annual sales of 125 billion yen.

I hope they decide on a location for the first stores soon so I can start apartment-hunting in the area.

This is a bold move against the good-but-could-be-much-better Mister Donut. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are great but simply do not have enough of an international presence. Once, on a trip to Japan I spotted a Filipino kid taking boxes and boxes of the things home for his family. Also, I make it a point to take every Japanese friend of mine who visits to eat at “KK” (as Mrs. Adamu calls it). Every single one of the people who tried it loved the hot fresh doughnuts. It actually ended up being the highlight of the trip for one of Mrs. Adamu’s friends (“I’ll never forget those melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts,” she said).

Indeed, Krispy Kreme’s already got a bit of a word-of-mouth reputation among Japanese expats and tourists, so perhaps that will help KK establish itself in Japan. Apparently, Japanese residing in New York have already invented a cute abbreviation for it: “Kuri Kuri” (from the Japanese Kurisupii Kuriimu).

April 15, 2006
Canon Digital Rebel w/ Hartblei 65mm Super rotator
Taken from window of Port Authority garage

Great new single from aging Japanese model Noriko Aota – “Jesus.” You can listen to a clip of the song by clicking the icon on the lower right-hand portion of this site. Here are some of the uplifting lyrics:

I wanna kiss Jesus power & soul
I don’t wanna pray, let’s kiss!
I wanna kiss Jesus power & soul
Let’s hold hands to love each other!

I wanna kiss Jesus power & soul
Hold him in my hands, as much as I want
I wanna kiss Jesus power & soul
Let’s hold hands like lovers!

Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus! Attention my heart!
Look at me, over there!

This real-life manifestation of Cartman’s vision reminds me of those Christian women who talk about Jesus as if he’s the world’s best boyfriend.

(Thanks to conbinibento for letting us know)

This just in! DC’s non-voting representative in Congress is sponsoring a bill to put two statues of famous DC natives in the Capitol building’s rotunda among statues from the “real” states.

You can vote for your choices here. The site provides a bunch of boring “historical” figures, but I personally recommend you write in master comedian and DC native Dave Chappelle. Why? Cuz he’s rich, biotch!

Story here. Thanks to NPR.

What are you waiting for? Get out of here and vote already! Note that if you write a candidate in you cannot check the other choices.

UPDATE: Great article on Slate (“Dave Chappelle’s Problem – He Can’t Escape White People”) from a couple weeks ago on Dave Chappelle’s Block Party movie. The article describes the movie as Chappelle’s attempt to create a black audience for himself, which is basically an unnattainable goal. I’m not doing the article justice, so go read it for yourself!

It’s about damned time the FSA did something about legal loan-sharking in Japan:

Friday, April 14, 2006

FSA To Slap Business Suspension Order On All Aiful Outlets

TOKYO (Nikkei)—The Financial Services Agency has decided to impose a business suspension order of up to 25 days on all domestic outlets of consumer credit firm Aiful Corp. (8515) as punishment for aggressive collection tactics, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Thursday.

This administrative punishment, unusual in its harshness, will be the first-ever disciplinary action by the FSA against a major consumer credit company. The measure is likely to have a major impact on calls for tougher regulations for the sector.

The decision may be formally announced as early as Friday. In addition, Aiful was allegedly obtaining powers of attorney from clients without their consent. The suspension will be 20-25 days for the Hokkaido and Kyushu branches where improper activities took place, and three days for all other locations. Aiful operates nearly 1,700 outlets across Japan.

But here’s the kicker: Aiful plans to cancel all advertising for the time being. Rejoice!

Aiful is deepening its equity and business ties with banks through mergers and acquisitions. It has also been cooperating with several regional financial institutions in the business of loan guarantees.

The firm will rush to clean up its act by cutting management salaries and reviewing management practices. It will also cancel all advertising, at least for the time being.

The ads were extremely annoying – a man sees a cute chiuahua at a pet store, imagines himself in all kinds of whimsical situations with the dog, and apparently decides to go heavily into debt to get the little dog. Another tactic used by most of the companies is to use attractive spokeswomen to showcase the “good service” they offer. I, for one, will not miss the cloying fabrications.

Of course, the practice of super-high-interest loaning is still legal – the loan sharks are just not allowed to start acting like Scientologists in their collections policies.

This practice of usurious lending has humongous social ramifications in Japan. Just about every other story on ZAKZAK is about some schmuck with a pachinko habit who started embezzling or robbing people to pay back “consumer debt.” Ads for the numerous companies block the mountains, and one can find “ATMs” which are actually unmanned loan application terminals, on city streetcorners, never far from a pachinko establishment. Meanwhile, the founders of these companies have made themselves billionaires.
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A week ago I finally recieved my Hartblei 65mm Superrotator tilt/shift lense. For only $350 you can get an imported Ukrainian-made lense of excellent quality, that matches, and in some ways even surpasses, the features of the Canon T/S lenses that retail for about $1100. I posted a set of photos I took with this lense right after it arrived. These aren’t by any means the greatest photos I have taken, but I want to show off some of the strange focusing effects you can get from a tilt/shift lense.

Watchung Plaza (from train bridge)
Notice the “dollhouse effect”

Watchung Train Station

Flag on the local Chase bank branch

Street sign after car crash
Notice how only the center is in focus, despite the fact that I was facing it squarely

April 5, 2006
Canon Digital Rebel w/ Hartblei 65mm Super-rotator