I'm a mature, naturally calm person never prone to profane outbursts, but the U.S. needs to fuck off.

The U.S. government tapped phones of Japanese car makers to pass information to U.S. unions for bargaining. They stole manufacturing secrets from a German wind turbine company to give to a U.S. competitor. They stole data and passed on trade secrets to U.S. call phone companies.

This Richard Clarke is either incredibly naive or a bold liar. I would say the latter, since it seems to be a standard practice in Washington D.C.

We don't have "Social Security" numbers, or any such tracking numbers in Japan. That makes it more difficult to cross-check people with the same name.

Japanese companies are risk averse to the extreme and even if the chance that the man is the criminal referenced by Google is 0.000000001%, that may be enough to disqualify him for a job. Companies will not want the press, the tabloids or police anywhere near company property, even if it is a case of mistaken identity.

Yahoo is the search engine king in Japan. The man would not have had this problem years ago or before Google's entry into the Japanese market. He is not suing Yahoo, only Google.

Google has a registered company, an office, bank accounts, employees and a co.jp domain name, which can only be purchased with a physical address in Japan.

He was not asking for a monetary reward. He will have to now in order to get Google's attention.

I think the people taking Google's side in this would change their tunes if it was them and they were in Japan.

What a strange country the U.S. is turning into. It's as if the old Soviet Union and eastern bloc transposed with the west in some bad science fiction movie. The old East German secret police, the Stasi, must be green with envy.

Americans seem perfectly happy with it all. That's fine, though. Americans should do as they wish in their own country. It's their business and theirs alone.

I just wish the U.S. showed other countries the same consideration and let people in other countries do as they wish.

This isn't from The Onion!?!

Who do they think they are, using free market strategies with their resources?

Especially those of us living in Japan. Nothing new in this article.

I live about 90 miles from the Fukushima plant and yes, this affects me greatly. About 100,000 people are still living in temporary housing. The economy is in shambles. Our business electric rates are about to skyrocket up 17% and gasoline is about US$6.65 a gallon. With only two reactors online in the entire country, our power situation is going to get desperate if oil costs continues to go up.

It will take a decade to rebuild, and where exactly do you rebuild? The same place, just to see it destroyed again?

You want a real story? This earthquake was not a once-in-a-millennium event. Here is an article from National Geographic about a massive tsunami in the same area in 1896. That's about 100 years ago, not a thousand years ago!

Let's face it, humans are stupid. Particularly the one who "govern."

We're lucky that no one was killed in Fukushima, but our luck ran out on earthquakes and tsunamis. We still have quakes almost every day, and for the first second or two, we don't know if it will be another big one.

Every bad event could probably have been mitigated. Hell, my first marriage could have been mitigated, and that was a rotten disaster.

I'll add my obligatory post to say that I don't live in the US, so I'm now into my 11th year of having fiber.

But, I understand that you don't have the money, since you need to buy tanks and guns and shit to kill people while invading far off countries that don't threaten you in the least, not to mention all of the Homeland Gestapo people and crap you have to pay for.

The technology of endless wars, one after another. How about a handheld app to deliver medical or other emergency supplies to accidents, natural disasters, etc.?

Ask an American to rattle off a chronology of American history and the time unit will be wars. War after war. Ask them to describe American culture and you'll get a blank stare.

From the synopsis: "...the Association of American Universities announced a five-year initiative to encourage faculty members in the STEM fields to use more interactive teaching techniques."

How about encouraging students to study more?

"Now, finally, we have an authoritative account..."

What nonsense. If you lived in Japan, like some of us, you'd have read plenty of authoritative accounts in Japanese long ago.

Every answer to every question is to always to look for the money.

Alcohol companies will always spend (your) money to successfully lobby against marijuana.

Lawyers, prosecutors, for-profit prison companies, prison builders, prison guards, prison suppliers, police, judges, clerks, everyone in the American (in)justice system will always vote for those who will perpetuate their paychecks.

This isn't going to be pretty when the "We're Number One!" and "USA! USA! USA!" crowd gets here.

except Google Earth had a network sites for monitoring set up throughout Japan within a few days of the Fukushima news - government sites, university sites, private companies with monitoring, individuals with geiger counters. This site is near my house: http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/taisaku/en/measurement/index.html

The radiation in Tokyo is less than the radiation in New York, so many places have stopped monitoring continuously now. According to most of the press, we should have been dead by now...

It's not even on the list.