Funny...

Someone actually found me looking this up on Google. "Vanessa WIlliams has herpes."

God damn that is funny. I am still laughing an few hours after I first saw it. Whoever found me using that search contact me and I will ship you a bottle of expensive Japanese Sake. You win the prize.

Mitsubishi Mistakes, Roppongi Raids, Sensei Saddam, and yet another reason Japanese reasoning drives me nuts

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (MMC) execs are, for a lack of better words, fucked. "Former Mitsubishi Motors Corp. President Katsuhiko Kawasoe and three others were charged Thursday with negligence resulting in a fatal accident in 2002 involving a truck built by the automaker, prosecutors said.
The indictment comes as the detention period for Kawasoe, 67; Yuzo Murata, 66, former director of MMC; Takashi Usami, 63, former vice president of MMC and former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp.; and Tatsuro Nakagami, 61, former executive director, expired that day. The four were arrested June 10.

The four were top brass at MMC in 2000, when the company was found to have covered up vehicle defects that would have necessitated recalls. The Yokohama District Public Prosecutor's Office believes they are criminally responsible for authorizing the concealment of defects in MMC vehicles even after the coverup scandal broke, sources said." Taken from the Kyodo Newswire in The Japan Times.

I defy anyone to tell me how these guys aren't screwed. Their negligence borders on criminally insane...I hope they go away for the rest of their lives, what little of their lives these senior citizens have left anyway.

A Roppongi bar was raided on Saturday night in an attempt to curb the tide of deaths and hospitalizations in the past few months, including two people I knew (see May archives). The place raided was XYZ Bar, it is a bit off the beaten path to all of the not-so-savvy people in Roppongi, but it always was a good time. As a result of that I was out last night doing some snooping around to the different people I know in Roppongi who deal in the drug trade and found out that the whole gaijin owned and operated portion of the drug trafficking business is going dry for about a week in an effort to erase any links that police can make between the raid and them. A smart move by the people involved. I can't believe one raid dried up most of Tokyo. That's incredible if you think about it. That would never happen in NY, and it's half the size of Tokyo.

The police got the information to raid the place from an Australian guy who was working at Morgan Stanley as a Fixed Income Derivative trader (I won't say who) at the time of his arrest. He has since been fired and has been spending his days in the confines of his Tokyo prison cell. Guy was a brilliant trader. It's a shame really.

Saddam Hussein gave an Iraqi Investigative Judge a lesson in judicial law yesterday. Watching this whole thing on CNN yesterday it was surreal to see Saddam calm, cool, collected, and sporting a sweet pinstripe suit (sans tie) in the make-shift courtroom yesterday. He sat there lecturing the judge on how to do his job. In the end Saddam looked very much the dignified, intelligent, in control, and superior man in that court. The judge came off as inexperienced, disorganized, and almost intimidated by Saddam. It was pretty cool to watch.

The world media has put several spins on this. Take a look at this in Google News, the headlines vary from "Abusive Saddam Trashes Court" in Arab News to "Saddam 'Was Scared' During Court Appearance" in The Scotsman. No disrespect to the Prime Minister or Iraq or these fine journalists writing these articles intended, but I saw the whole thing verbatim on TV and Saddam did not appear, even for a split second, to be scared.

It is noted in the Scotsman that "The worst mood swing was when the judge began to read the charges against him,” Mr Chalabi told BBC2’s Newsnight. "His mood suddenly dropped and he realised what he was up against – except when it came to Kuwait. Then he became combative." Now from what I took in seeing this whole court proceeding on tv is that while the charges were being read aloud to Saddam he was writing them down. He was concentrating and actually listening to them. If that means he had a mood swing than these guys must have forgotten how he was in office when he had a guy named "Chemical Ali" on his side. C'mon, put any spin on it you want to but the fact remains that Saddam schooled that judge. He played him like a game of Connect-Four.

Saddam is an extremely intelligent man. He knew the whole world would see these proceedings. So he took it as his opportunity to speak out. He used it well. I, along with some of my friends, have also noticed that all of a sudden Saddam has become a religious man. During his iron-fisted rule of Iraq he was very secular, there was a very distinct separation between church and state. He even had a Christian member of his cabinet, Tariq Aziz, as noted on CNN last night. He now is making references to Allah and the Quaran in court. He is smart. That will rally more people around him in the Arab-world. Plus, the cheap shot at Bush was brilliant.

A couple of friends and I were watching Crossfire on CNN the other day when they posed the following question: "Should the US police the world?" They were looking for a Yes or No answer. So all of us gaijin immediately agree the answer is Yes. Were are from a variety of places; NY, LA, London, Spain, Korea, etc...so it's not just Americans answering this. Then comes Miho's answer. She says "yes, but only to a certain extent..." and goes off on this rant about how Bush is this and that. I cut her off and said "Miho, it was a yes or no question...not a take the middle of the two answers and debate till we are blue in the face question." She got pissed. America is the only country willing to step up and take the blame, or the applause, for policing the world. Britain follows our lead, and so do a few other countries. Then there are countries like France (the French are cowards and should be speaking German right now), Germany (The Germans are idiots), and Spain (they negotiate with terrorists, they could quite possibly be the only bigger cowards than the French). These are "first world" countries that should be part of any coalition force that liberates a nation from the tyranny of a ruler like Saddam. People note how Bush was after Iraqi oil and taht's what the war was about. The French had huge oil contracts with Saddam and his govt. That is why they were opposed to tossing Saddam out of power. Now they are trying to renew their old deals with the new government. I hope Chalabi turns around and says "C'est Maird!!" to the French. It's the only way they will learn. Cowards!