Obituaries

[Mongrel]

Shit, only 67. Damn.

[Mongrel]

Ronnie Hawkins

Mentor of The Band, and the man who basically brought live Rock to Canada.

[Thad]

Tim Sale.



This has been an awful couple of months for comics artists.

[Newbie]

Blogger, programmer, and occasional game journalist Shamus Young.

[Büge]

Yu-Gi-Oh creator Kazuki Takahashi

[Joxam]

James Caan.

[Mongrel]

[Blossom]

Pretty jealous of shinzo Abe right now, wish I was getting my back blown out

[Mongrel]

Jesus Christ, WTF. In Japan?!

(at the news, not the questionable joke)

[Metal Slime]

Might want to at least wait until he's dead before you dance on his grave for whatever reason.

[Blossom]

Might want to at least wait until he's dead

Doctors are reporting "no vital signs". That means dead.

before you dance on his grave for whatever reason.

it's the ultraconservative and ultranationalist politics, publicized vists to yasukuni, general war crime denial, prominent position in Nippon Kaigi ... take your pick.

[Upthorn]

Good News Everyone!

Police say that the man who shot the former prime minister, and head of Japan's most right-wing political party was not politically motivated.

[Brantly B.]

If the shooter was left-leaning at all then they are the single stupidest prick on the entire planet Earth.

[beatbandito]

[Upthorn]

Good News Everyone!
Half the seats of Japan's upper legislative house are up for election Tomorrow!

So, Shinzo Abe's (already majority) party is likely to be getting a higher vote share than normal, out of sympathy for the tragedy they've just gone through.

[Mongrel]

Regardless of Abe's beliefs, bringing assassinations to one of the few genuinely democratic countries where they aren't already part of the political landscape isn't exactly a good thing.

I don't think this is a particularly controversial take.

[Upthorn]

On the one hand: Agreed. That's why it felt like good news when the police said that the shooter held no grudges against Abe's politics.
On the other hand: Japan actually does have a rich history of right-wing political figures being assassinated by people even further to the right who are upset they haven't done enough.
Consider, for instance, The February 26th Incident and the Kyuujou incident or even just this article listing several political assassinations (and attempts) in Japan even just since 1960

[Thad]

before you dance on his grave for whatever reason.

it's the ultraconservative and ultranationalist politics, publicized vists to yasukuni, general war crime denial, prominent position in Nippon Kaigi ... take your pick.

LBR it's because you like grave-dancing.

[Mongrel]

On the one hand: Agreed. That's why it felt like good news when the police said that the shooter held no grudges against Abe's politics.
On the other hand: Japan actually does have a rich history of right-wing political figures being assassinated by people even further to the right who are upset they haven't done enough.
Consider, for instance, The February 26th Incident and the Kyuujou incident or even just this article listing several political assassinations (and attempts) in Japan even just since 1960

Huh. I knew about the prewar stuff, but had somehow never heard of the postwar stuff (which was really the only era I was thinking of). Probably because it seems like almost all of those were attempts rather than successful assassinations?

Though since the shooter seemed to think it was the Nippon Kaigi (an ultraconservative, extremely patriarchal right-wing old fart's club) was out to get him for *reasons*, that kind of adds a political dimension to this anyway.

[Mongrel]

If you really want a scorcher that's actually commensurate with Abe's politics, well

Finally a murder Abe can't deny.