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Category: Humor/Satire

May 5, 2010

I regret to inform you that other commitments prevent me from joining your DMZ hike.

Memo to the Kyonggi provincial government: Is this really the ideal time to organize DMZ hiking excursions by people wearing bright red fishing vests and sun visors? This weekend, the government of Gyeonggi Province, which borders the DMZ, is unveiling a total of 182.3 km of courses in the area. It plans to post a map on its Web site and has started marking trails as part of a strategy to boost eco-tourism. “If you come and visit this area,...

Categories North-South/WTF?
May 3, 2010

Nork Submarines Invade Gulf of Mexico!

The best thing I can say for this is that it’s roughly 25% less dumb a typical 9/11 conspiracy theory: A grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia’s Northern Fleet is reporting that the United States has ordered a complete media blackout over North Korea’s torpedoing of the giant Deepwater Horizon oil platform owned by the World’s largest offshore drilling contractor Transocean that was built and financed by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., that has...

Categories WTF?
May 1, 2010

North Korea Releases White Paper on South Korean Human Rights, Hilarity Ensues

With such an abundance of great blogging material these days, KCNA has written what I can only describe as a screed for the ages. Even by KCNA standards, this simply re-sets the bar: The National Reunification Institute released a white paper Thursday indicting the fascist clique for having reduced south Korea to the land with the worst human rights record through sycophancy and treachery, fascist dictatorship and confrontation with fellow countrymen. Further down the litany of horribles: The puppet group...

Categories Propaganda/WTF?
April 8, 2010

Kim Jong Il, Global Fashion God

It’s moments like this when I most suspect that the people who write North Korea’s propaganda aren’t the hacks we’ve thought them to be, but are actually subtle, subversive, and satirical. Uriminzokkiri, quoting an article in communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, said the modest-looking suits have gripped people’s imagination and become a global vogue. “The reason is that the august image of the Great General, who is always wearing the modest suit while working, leaves a deep impression on people’s...

Categories Propaganda/WTF?
April 1, 2010

How Republican Stall Tactics Could Capsize Guam!

I really wish I could say this was an April Fool’s hoax or a Mensa audition gone horribly awry. Actually, it’s a hearing in the House Armed Services Committee: Which seems like a good time to mention that Senator Carl Levin is filled with angst over all the wise on-the-spot guidance our general officers are missing out on because of a Republican parliamentary stall tactic somehow related to health care collectivization reform: “Lives are at stake here. American lives and...

Categories U.S. Politics/WTF?
March 25, 2010

Aijalon Gomes Doesn’t Sound Much Like a Defector After All

Update, 24 March 2010: Well, KCJ’s first guess turns out to have been right. A Boston man detained in North Korea is a quiet, devout Christian so concerned about an American missionary held in Pyongyang that he was moved to tears at rallies protesting the communist regime, fellow activists said Wednesday. North Korea announced Monday that Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, would stand trial after entering the country illegally. The trial date was not mentioned in a brief report in state...

Categories Aijalon Gomes/WTF?
March 17, 2010

We Regret to Inform You That Your One-Way Ticket to Paradise is Non-Refundable

Back in late January, North Korea claimed that an American who feared becoming “cannon fodder in the capitalist [all-volunteer] military” had crossed over to the loving embrace of the relevant organ. Despite my own growing doubts about the story, the fact that the Swedes have since had two consular visits with him does suggest that he exists after all. The U.S. State Department says North Korea has allowed Swedish diplomats to meet a U.S. citizen who has been detained for...

Categories Defectors/WTF?
February 18, 2010

Succession Watch

A valued reader and friend writes in to draw my attention to reports that North Koreans named “Kim Jong Eun” have been ordered to change their names, echoing a 1974 edict withholding the name “Kim Jong Il” from use by mere mortals. My churlish friend suggests “Chung Hee” as an alternative. Nice. Just to put this in perspective, it’s blasphemy for a North Korean to be called Kim Jong Eun, yet there are millions of kids named Jesus all over...

Categories Kremlinology/WTF?
February 11, 2010

China: We Have No Dissidents!

CHINA declared on Thursday it had ‘no dissidents’, just hours after a Beijing court upheld an 11-year jail term for one of the country’s top pro-democracy voices. ‘There are no dissidents in China,’ foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters at a regular news briefing. [AFP, via Singapore Straits Times] Either they just strayed into Alejandro Cao de Benos’s alternative reality, or I just didn’t know they’d been there all along.

Categories China/WTF?
February 5, 2010

Your Arabic Word of the Day: “Zeb”

A high-ranking Pakistani diplomat reportedly cannot be appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia because in Arabic his name translates into a phrase more appropriate for a porn star, referring to the size of male genitals, Foreign Policy reported. The Arabic translation of Akbar Zeb to “biggest d**k” has overwhelmed Saudi officials who have refused to allow his post there. Zeb has run into this problem before when Pakistan tried to appoint him as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain,...

Categories WTF?
January 30, 2010

WTF? American Who Crossed Into North Korea May Have Defected

That latest American who crossed into North Korea looks more likely to be a Spartacist than Spartacus: South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said the man crossed into North Korea from China on Monday. It said an unidentified source in North Korea told the newspaper the 28-year-old man said he came to the country because he did not “want to become a cannon fodder in the capitalist military,” and “wants to serve in the North Korean military” instead. [Washington Post, via...

Categories Defectors/WTF?
January 21, 2010

Bosworth, On “Colbert,” Shifts the Goal Posts

The appearance was distressing on two levels. First, how is it possible that Stephen Colbert could be so funny on the Daily Show and yet provide so little entertainment value on his own show? Stewart becomes unwatchable during election years, but even when John Yoo is wiping the smirk off his face, Stewart still operates at a high level of sophistication. Colbert, on the other hand, seems to be playing for an audience that reads at a fourth-grade level, not...

Categories Diplomacy/Humor/Satire/Six-Party Talks