1. Robot learns to flip pancakes.
2. This story makes no sense to me (Japan)
3. How the Apollo astronauts self-insured.
4. For worrywarts.
5. How Mexico can win its drug war.
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The Japan story makes no sense in what fashion? It is a common occurrence for pension fraud and social security fraud, there are frequently news articles in the United States of similar events. The only unusual aspect was the extended duration, thirty years is a long time without some kind of verification event. Please explain what else makes no sense to you, I am apparently missing something of significance.
“Living Buddhas”–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu
To Daksya:
Plan Colombia (and every other plan) has certainly failed to reduce coca production significantly. However, it has succeded in allowing the government to regain control of huge areas of Colombia that were under guerrila control and basically erradicate the kidnapping industry. Thus, the plan has been a success for the rule of law and Colombian living standards.
5. So Mexico should try Plan Colombia in order to win their drug war. But wasn’t it the success in Colombia that caused the biggest drug war to move to Mexico in the first place?
If you want to stop violent drug gangs we need to legalize drugs in the entire hemisphere. People will always use drugs; people will always supply drugs. The only question is whether to legalize it or fight a war over it.
Fran: If it was just an old man, sure, this sort of thing probably happens all the time. But this was the supposed oldest man in Tokyo. (And if he died when he was 81, then he was never actually the oldest man in Tokyo.) You’d have thought someone would have tried to interview him or investigate just because of the sheer novelty of being the oldest man.
Also, it seems odd that they’d keep around the body. If you’re just in it for the money, you could dispose of the body at some point. There might be something weirder afoot.
Maybe I’m not getting it, but it seems that the Japanese family has been collecting his widowers payments for the six years since his wife died. It said nothing about them collecting any funds for the 24 years between his death and his wife’s. Did he not have his own pension?
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