JAPANESE CENTENARIANS REVOLT

In Japan, all citizens are entitled to receive a letter from the prime minister and a handsome sterling silver cup on their 100th birthday.

Newly installed Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will have plenty of correspondence to write.

As of this month, Japan is bursting with centenarians, 40,399 of them to be precise. The number of centenarians has increased at a continually accelerating rate, reaching 10,000 in 1999 and topping 30,000 in 2007.

Japan’s centenarian population is expected to reach 1 million by 2050.

The retirement age in Japan is 60.

Japan’s rise of the superelderly has put a strain on resources, even forcing the government to switch to smaller silver cups.

Compounding the problem, most Japanese centenarians are bodybuilders capable of outmuscling several generations of young weaklings. According to the photographic evidence, many of these golden agers are armed with spears and are constantly protected by ingenious air bags.

Once the oldsters discover that Hatoyama is sending out cheap silver trinkets, a gray rebellion will surely follow.

JAPAN LAUNCHES “SPACE PROGRAM”

Japan’s first lady-in-waiting claims to have explored the cosmos during a nocturnal ride aboard an alien spacecraft.

Miyuki Hatoyama is the wife of newly-elected Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama.

In her memoirs, Very Strange Things I’ve Encountered (2008), Miyuki details her abduction and subsequent voyage to the planet Venus.

“While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus,” she writes.

“It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green,” she adds.

Miyuki says her husband advised her that it was only a dream.

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Dream or not, Yukio Hatoyama has long been nicknamed “The Alien” because of his conspicuously extraterrestrial eyes.

He is expected to assume office September 16th.

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In November of last year, aeronautical engineers at the University of Tokyo began experimenting with paper airplanes for use in Japan's fledgling space program.

Hoping to discover cheaper materials for building spacecraft, the engineers reason that chemically treated paper might be able to withstand reentry and landing without bursting into flames.

Venusian First Lady.

Martian Prime Minister.

Japanese Space Shuttle.