Sad news. Azusa Yamamoto, one of our favorite slinky gravure idols, has announced she is pregnant. She plans to have the baby in Singapore. She must have kept it pretty hidden since she is due in December! The 33-year-old gravure star married a businessman in January this year, so this news was inevitable. After idols get married they almost always disappear from the industry or "upgrade" to being anodyne TV celebrities. Well, let's bid goodbye to Azusa's lovely body! Likely we won't ever be seeing it ...

Japan spends 1% of its national budget on its army. Sorry, it's not an army, it's a "self-defense force." However, Japan's security treaty with America is supposed to guarantee US protection if attacked -- the ostensible reason for the tens of thousands of US soldiers based in Japan -- so the SDF is kind of pointless. It mainly gets used for when there are earthquakes and other emergencies. Saying that, Japan spends more on its SDF than, say, the UK does on its armed forces -- even though the latter's are active around the whole world. Where does the money go? Equipment. The SDF has some ...