Color me completely unsurprised to learn that there’s prostitution in North Korea, given the fact of North Korea’s extreme poverty, suppressed values, and the failure of every other east Asian nation’s war on prostitution. Hell, Kim Jong Il has even turned Alejandro Cao de Benos into his international pimp daddy, letting him run his own profitable travel agency / dating service / kisaeng house for frustrated white leftists who otherwise couldn’t get a date in a cellblock full of violent...

Pennsylvania Republican Representative Curt Weldon is headed for Pyongyang again–that is, unless Condi Rice stops him again. Tension builds as statesmen everywhere wonder: “Can Curt Weldon find the key to Kim Jong Il’s soul, so that we can all get back to making money again?” Maybe Kim will show Curt his collection of companions of “utmost beauty and intelligence,” or they could toast each other with some Hennessy. You know, those things count as extraordinary diplomatic progress, because they build...

You may be one of those who wonder what the big deal is all about. So was I, once. Japan, after all, has become a good citizen in Asia, so why dwell on the past? Why the fury, even today? Then I visited the place myself, tacking on some leave after a hard-fought case at Camp Zama (or maybe it was the first one in Okinawa, but definitely not the one in Kure). The problem, in a word, is distortion....

This absolutely floored me: Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported yesterday that North Korean laborers dispatched to Russia turned down a return to their homeland and formed quasi refugee camps, hoping to go to a third country. This, according to the Rev. Douglas Shin: “North Korean laborers working in construction sites or farms in the Maritime Provinces of Siberia rejected a return home after their contracts terminated or had escaped from their workplaces and lived in a camp in some places....

This today, via the Nomad: Among the more common suggestions is that eco-weapons which can trigger earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves were being tested. More outlandish theories include one that aliens caused the earthquake to try and correct the “wobbly rotation of the Earth”. “There’s a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq (news – web sites) going there?” whispered designer Mark...

Norbert Vollertsen e-mailed me to report that he’s joined a contingent of the Korean Medical Association to deliver tsunami relief supplies in Indonesia: In an combined international effort together with the Korean Medical Association and the Indonesian Doctors Corporation we desperately try to carry 7 tons of medicine from Jakarta to the Aceh province. On Jan. 7 a team of us with 20 medics will head to Banda Aceh and then to tiny former fisher villages at the West Coast....

Real or satire? Because, you know, it’s getting harder to tell.

The alleged North Korean war plan suggests that the North Koreans have recon UAVs. The Marmot is asking just what kind of airframe it could be. In the pre-Internet days, I read reports that the North Koreans had an indigenous UAV program, but I can’t find anything on that now. According to this site, however, the North Koreans bought a few of these TU-141s from the Russians. It sure doesn’t look very stealthy to me. I’d be more concerned about...

I actually had to read on another guy’s blog that there’s going to be a LiNK meeting in Seoul! Someone had better explain, because I’m feeling like I need to have my own Mao suit made to feel relevant here. Um, Eileen? You there? I need to speak with the Minister of Information, please, and . . . what’s that? No, I will NOT hold! Don’t you know who I am?

Real or satire? Because, you know, it’s getting harder to tell.

The alleged North Korean war plan suggests that the North Koreans have recon UAVs. The Marmot is asking just what kind of airframe it could be. In the pre-Internet days, I read reports that the North Koreans had an indigenous UAV program, but I can’t find anything on that now. According to this site, however, the North Koreans bought a few of these TU-141s from the Russians. It sure doesn’t look very stealthy to me. I’d be more concerned about...

The top ten Arab conspiracy theories! It’s from Jewish World Review (raising a question of bias) but they name their sources, and none of this is any loonier that plenty of things Palestinians have told me face-to-face; for example, every last person in the village I visited, at least of those expressing an opinion, firmly believed that both the U.S. Congress and the Saudi royals were rubber-stamp fronts for secret rule from the Knesset.

I actually had to read on another guy’s blog that there’s going to be a LiNK meeting in Seoul! Someone had better explain, because I’m feeling like I need to have my own Mao suit made to feel relevant here. Um, Eileen? You there? I need to speak with the Minister of Information, please, and . . . what’s that? No, I will NOT hold! Don’t you know who I am?

The top ten Arab conspiracy theories! It’s from Jewish World Review (raising a question of bias) but they name their sources, and none of this is any loonier that plenty of things Palestinians have told me face-to-face; for example, every last person in the village I visited, at least of those expressing an opinion, firmly believed that both the U.S. Congress and the Saudi royals were rubber-stamp fronts for secret rule from the Knesset.

UPDATE: Welcome Wikipedia readers! I knew I should have flickr’ed these priceless photographs before the KFA boys took them down. I’m doing my best to reconstruct those parts of the post that I can. Are you a pompous, porcine, undistinguished single guy with delusions of grandeur, a penchant for dressing like an Austin Powers villian, and a vague resemblance to Lou Costello? The Dear Leader offers you a life of relevance, power, profit, petty burglary, more power, and (reportedly) joyous...

The Joongang Ilbo rips Roh and his Mini-Uni a new one over their plans to stiff-arm North Korean refugees: This is the most remarkable nonsense. Was Mr. Chung speaking in his capacity of unification minister? Including yesterday’s statements, Mr. Chung has shown that his awareness of defector issues and North Korea policy is seriously wrong. Mr. Chung has failed to understand that the defector issue is a matter of human rights “• a universal value of mankind. In the international...

A newly leaked North Korean war plan seems just as likely to be “fake but accurate” as real, if you ask me. Given the state of the South’s government today, one could predict they’d claim it’s not authentic, and that they wouldn’t be terribly credible in doing so. Of course, not knowing that it’s authentic doesn’t stop us from picking out juicy details: [T]he [North Korean] directive also calls for the recruitment of South Koreans recommended by local “revolutionary organizations”...