Loose change for February 20, 2009

 Economic news 

• California lawmakers want to balance the budget on the backs of Amazon shoppers.
• The Chosun Ilbo asks which female celebrity (including athletes and actresses) will appeal most to advertisers. I think it's an excuse to stick up pictures of attractive young women.
• Samsung is planning big R&D spending. 
• Former President Kim Daejung is said to have been worth $1.09 million.
• Foreign residents in South Korea will lose the special tax benefits they've had. Xenophobes!

 North Korea news and stuff 

• North Korea is expected to possess fourteen to eighteen nuclear warheads by 2019. 
• North Korean footballer An Yonghak talks about who will coach the DPRK team at the World Cup later this year. 
• Here's a nine-year-old Newsweek article on the "Seoul Train" that ferries North Korean refugees out of the DPRK and China.
• Here's a focus on North Korea's casinos, which have no North Koreans in them. Is that really all that different from their South Korean counterparts? It seems casinos on the Korean Peninsula exist primarily to target the Chinese.
• Blaine Harden interviews a South Korean who "foolishly" brought his family to North Korea so his wife could receive care for her hepatitis. 

 Other Korea-related stuff 

• Only half of all South Koreans use the vaunted e-government websites. 
• South Korean students think their hagwon teachers are better at teaching them and are more enthusiastic than their actual schoolteachers. They also think the hagwon teachers help them build character. 
• South Korea is going to honor "child soldiers," kids fourteen to seventeen who fought against the North during the Korean War.
• The Ministry of Public Administration and Security says that 36.9 percent of South Koreans, particularly those in their twenties, are misinformed about the basic details of the Korean War.
• Newsweek talks about Seoul's "year of design."
• A ten-year-old girl who has never lived overseas has released a 180-page English-language novel. Ron Howard buys the rights.
• A Korean baseball team is joining Japan's Kansai Independent Baseball League. They're team is the haechi, creatures from Avatar a mushroom-munching Koryŏ Dynasty farmer someone in City Hall.
• More maps showing it's East Sea, not the Sea of Japan. 
• South Korean baseball stadiums are going green.
• The forestry service is going to move plants in danger of extinction due to climate change. 
• The Associated Press has an article highlighting South Koreans' efforts to focus on long track. It's entitled, "South Koreans revile Apolo Ohno so much that they're focusing on long track."

 Miscellany 

• Shani Davis becomes the first Olympian to win gold twice in the 1000-meter race.
• Most Olympic medalists don't seem to know the words from their own national anthem. 
• UCI has a large and soaring contingent of foreign students, with South Koreans being the most represented.
• Australia is warning Japan over its whaling program.
• As a fan of "The Office," I'm looking forward to The Ricky Gervais Show.