Japanese Pop Music

J-pop can be traced to jazz music which became popular during the early Shōwa period (i.e. the reign of emperor Hirohito). Jazz introduced many musical instruments, previously used only to perform classical music and military marches, to bars and clubs.
It also added an element of "fun" to the Japanese music scene.
As a result "Ongaku Kissa" (音楽喫茶 – lit. "music cafe") became a very popular venue for live jazz music.
Under pressure from the Imperial Army during World War II, the performance of jazz music was temporarily halted. After the war ended the United States soldiers—who were occupying Japan at the time—and the Far East Network introduced a number of new musical styles to the country.
Boogie-woogie, Mambo, Blues, and Country music were performed by Japanese musicians for the American troops. Songs like Shizuko Kasagi's "Tokyo Boogie-Woogie" (1948), Eri Chiemi's "Tennessee Waltz" (1951), Misora Hibari's "Omatsuri Mambo", and Izumi Yukimura's "Omoide no Waltz" became popular.
Foreign musicians and groups including JATP and Louis Armstrong visited Japan to perform.
1952 was declared the "Year of the Jazz Boom" but the genre itself demanded a high level of technical proficiency and was difficult to play.
As a result many amateur Japanese musicians turned to country music, which was far easier to learn and perform.
This in turn led to a proliferation of country-based music.
In 1956 the rock-and-roll craze began thanks to a country music group known as Kosaka Kazuya and the Wagon Masters and their rendition of Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel.
The rock-and-roll movement would reach its peak in 1959 with the release of a movie featuring performances by a number of Japanese rock-and-roll bands.
Some performers attempted to merge traditional Japanese pop music with rock-and-roll. One of few musicians to be successful in this effort was Sakamoto Kyū with the song "Ue wo Muite Arukō" (lit. "Let's Look Up and Walk"), known in other parts of the world as "Sukiyaki".
The song was the first Japanese song to reach #1 in the United States (four weeks in Cashbox Magazine and three weeks in Billboard magazine) in its native language in America and also to receive a "Gold Record" for selling one million copies.
Other performers learned to play the music and translate the lyrics of popular American songs, resulting in the birth of "cover pop."
However, the popularity of these acts faded as radio and television gave every household the opportunity to watch the original musicians perform. The concept of karaoke and its subsequent popularity can arguably be attributed to the cover pop phenomenon.
From the early 1970s to the mid-1980s the emphasis shifted from simple songs with a single guitar accompaniment ("folk") to more complex musical arrangements known as New Music.
Instead of social messages, the songs focused on more personal messages, such as love. Takuro Yoshida and Yosui Inoue are two notable New Music artists.

Gas Facility Explosion

this is not on TV ...
For Dallas residents it seemed like the end of the world: stacks of highly flammable gas cylinders exploding, one after the other.
such a big fire..
Wednesday, a series of explosions at the Southwest Industrial Gases Facility sent flaming debris raining onto highways and buildings near downtown Dallas, seriously injuring at least three people.
do u see any plants near in your area?
Beyond these large plants, there are smaller facilities that can also be dangerous.
Beware if you find such big and dangous plants newa your.
In October 2006, terrified residents in Apex, N.C., fled their homes as thunderous explosions from a much smaller industrial waste plant filled the night sky with an eerie yellow haze of chemical poison.
Good luck .....
And in 2005, a deadly chemical train derailment in Granetville, S.C., showed how hazardous chemicals can become when they're traveling through neighborhoods.

29,000 sex offenders removed from MySpace website

Wo, so many sex offenders in MySpace.
The operators of MySpace have identified and removed more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the hugely popular website, according to the US authorities.
but, any one knows how much are still in MySpace?
The figure is more than four times higher than that announced by the social networking site earlier this year.
It has been obtained by the authorities in North Carolina, which demanded that MySpace provide data on how many registered sex offenders were using the site, as well as information about where they live.

Taliban is going to kill..

Afghanistan's Taliban threatened to start killing 23 South Korean hostages Wednesday if their demands were not met, and claimed responsibility for kidnapping a German journalist.
Taliban is a group of killers.
The reporter, whom officials said was seized with his translator in eastern Afghanistan while investigating civilian casualties in NATO air strikes, is the third German national in a week to be abducted in the war-torn country.
Even I dont like the way US handle the Taliban people, but Taliban are not good guys.
The Islamist Taliban said talks to free the Christian aid workers from South Korea had stalled and vowed to kill some of them later Wednesday if eight jailed insurgents were not released by the Afghan government.
Taliban is going to Korean people this time.
The deadline has already expired. Those Korean will be killed 2:00 pm.
Ahmadi charged that the government of President Hamid Karzai was "not honest in negotiations.
We have given them the list of eight Taliban prisoners for exchange for eight Koreans but they are dealing with the issue carelessly.
The deadline passed with no further claims from the militants about the fate of the Korean hostages.
The fresh threat came despite frantic negotiations by South Korean and Afghan officials who have travelled to the insurgency-hit southern province of Ghazni to lead the efforts to save the hostages, who are mainly women.
The South Koreans are the biggest group of foreigners to be abducted by the Taliban since US-led forces toppled the hardline regime in late 2001 after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Waheedullah Mujadadi, the chief negotiator for the Afghan government, said he was unaware of the new deadline but added that authorities were still studying the idea of freeing the jailed insurgents.
911 was a sad story, will be in people's mind forever.
Any prisoner exchange would run counter to Karzai's pledge not to allow the practice after his government in March freed five Taliban militants in exchange for an Italian reporter.