One person’s take on how the Beijing Olympic logo was created.

Japan Airlines has been hit with a fine by a “city consumer court” for serving a meal containing beef to a devout Hindu.

G.L. Aggarwal, a resident of Palam Enclave, had taken a Japan Airlines flight to San Francisco on September 13, 2004. He had specified he wanted Asian Vegetable meal and also confirmed its availability twice by calling up the airlines.

As he began tucking into his meal, Aggarwal realised that he was chewing something strange. He vomited instantly when the airhostess told him that it was a piece of beef. The unrepentant airhostess told him that she had served a beef-based non-veg meal as Asian Vegetarian meal was “out of stock”.

On reaching San Francisco he complained to Japan Airlines and US consumer protection department. Coming back to India, he dragged the airlines to the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum. “The hurting of sentiments cannot be measured in terms of money. However, taking into consideration the deficiency of service on the part of Japan Airlines, we have to compensate in terms of money”, said the forum headed by its President K.K. Chopra. The Airlines took the plea that it was a complimentary service and no charges were taken for the meal. But the court rejected the argument saying “it is a matter of common knowledge that meals are covered in the ticket and nothing is served free”.

Thanks to Mr. Pink

EAST WINDUP CHRONICLE (EWC) has a post that is highly critical of Seibu Lions pitcher Jason Johnson, in which they say he is personification of the Ugly Gaijin in Japan - those who think Roppongi is Japan, complain that things here are so different from the U.S., etc.

Some of the commenters to the piece say that EWC was too hard on the young pitcher, while others think the criticism is spot on.

What say you, Japundits?

Japan Talk #083 is now available on the Japan Talk website and at FeedBurner.

* Very comfortable in beautiful Tochigi Prefecture
* Listener feedback

* Carbon offsets company starts in Tokyo
* Man tries to rob store in front of police box
* Couple robbed as man proposes in New York
* Normal weather forecasted for winter
* Murder in the sumo stable

* WANTED. . . Still
* Whale meat. . . The healthy choice?
* $50-dollar-a-bottle milk
* The reluctant executioner
* Foreign woman and new born rejected by 7 hospitals
* Woman suffers miscarriage after rejection by dozens of hospitals
* 2,780 cases of multiple rejections over two years

Music
Podsafe Music Network
* Take You To Japan, by Davis Coen
* Lady Pearl, by Madi Sato
* Japanese People, by Argyle Pimps

Links of Interest
* Foreign crime in Japan
* Lindsay Anne Hawker website

* Mainichi Daily News
* Japan Times
* The Daily Yomiuri
* Asahi Shimbun

* Japan Talk in the iTunes Store
* Japundit
* Jindiecast

Contact: podcast@japundit.com

I don’t know about you, but this University of Tokyo robot (named Mowgli) makes me feel a bit uneasy. . . Everytime I look at the video clip I get an image of the thing jumping up on someone’s back and injecting something into their neck. . .

Via The Raw Feed

An economically China seems to be taking a bead on one of Japan’s last bastions — impractical women’s lingerie items.

The above pieces are made of 950 grams of gold worth $26,600.

Via Skirmisher

Politics watchers all over Japan have been shocked by the first week of the new Fukuda administration, which has been completely unmarked by any form of controversy whatsoever.

Even the revolving door at the Ministry of Agriculture appears to have stopped spinning. When asked how the new Agriculture Minister had managed to hold on to the particularly slippery job for over a week, a ministry insider was quoted as saying “He must be lost somewhere in the building.”

“We’ve been watching the exits,” said an anonymous senior journalist, “but the silence is eerie.” After the fireworks of the Abe government, observers are growing suspicious after this week’s lack of resignations. “We can only hope that things settle back in their usual pattern next week, and that the ministerial exodus starts up again,” he added.

With no daily cabinet dismissals to report, the morning news programmes and daily newspapers have been caught on the hop and have had to content themselves with the last resort of reporting international affairs.

Japan telephone giant KDDI has started offering subscribers to any of its broadband services DVD-quality films for download for just 500 yen.

The KDDI’s DVD Burning service delivers copy-protected (CPRM DRM) movies, which theoretically protects against copying.

The initial selection of movies includes 1,000 titles, which will be increased to 5,000 titles next year.

Via Digital World Tokyo

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama has suggested eliminating a legal stipulation that requires issuance of an execution order, signed by the justice minister within six months after a death sentence is finalized, before a prisoner can be executed in Japan.

Hatoyama said that the signature requirement should be scrapped because “no one wants to put his signature on an execution order.” He then said, “I wonder if there is any way not to delegate the responsibility solely to the justice minister,” and went on to suggest creation of a procedure that could be used to carry out executions objectively and automatically, without involvement of the justice minister.

Though I am not necessarily against capital punishment per se, I still say it should not be applied lightly. The thought of turning over executions to an “automatic” bureaucratic mechanism in a country that is constantly being barraged by news of scandals and serious misbehavior in high places is downright terrifying.

Hatoyama claims that his proposal is based on “public trust in Japan’s judicial system.”