Still Pulling Our Legs, Mr. Machimura?

The extremely, wildly, improbable is still impossible, it seems.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka, a former long-serving Minister of Foreign Affairs who stunned the world with the announcement of a mischievious, stick-it-to-the-Chinese-Communist-Party-in-the-worst-way proposal to send relief supplies to embattled areas of Sichuan Province on Air Self Defense Forces C-130s, has just had the pleasure of walking back the story in his usual Friday new conference.

The dispatch is like, so not going to happen.

Of course, the dispatch plan is not ditched, just miokuri -- "suspended until a later date" -- until such time as self-appointed Chinese superpatriots no longer have Web access or email, I guess.

I guess we will have to file this story under: "More fun facts from Japan's Von Daniken."