This evening I will go off to Magic Island to watch Honolulu's unique lantern floating ceremony that has become a Memorial Day tradition here on Oahu, where it's still Monday despite the Tuesday dateline.
China has become Brazil’s biggest trading partner, buying ever increasing volumes of soybeans and iron ore, while investing billions in Brazil’s energy sector. The demand has helped fuel an economic boom here that has lifted more than 20 million Brazilians from extreme poverty and brought economic stability to a country accustomed to periodic crises.One can say the same of China and North Korea, which is being positioned to become a permanent part of Beijing's northeastern China development plans; at the very least China is seeking ports for its goods, but it may also be seeking markets. China has the son of Generalissimo Kim by the cojones, and with every twist they get new concessions that don't bode well for North Korea or a future unified Korean state (if Beijing were to allow that to happen).
Yet some experts say the partnership has devolved into a classic neo-colonial relationship in which China has the upper hand. Nearly 84 percent of Brazil’s exports to China last year were raw materials, up from 68 percent in 2000. But about 98 percent of China’s exports to Brazil are manufactured products — including the latest, low-priced cars for Brazil’s emerging middle class — that are beating down Brazil’s industrial sector.
“The relationship has been very unbalanced,” said Rubens Ricupero, a former Brazilian diplomat and finance minister. “There has been a clear lack of strategy on the Brazilian side.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was invited to China to learn about the country’s economic restructuring and use that knowledge to revive his own nation’s shrinking economy, Premier Wen Jiabao said.Got that? This is exactly what I said here and here and here: the Dear Leader is being called over to Northeastern China, with an extra leg near Shanghai, to learn about Socialism With Chinese Characteristics so that Kim Jong-il can do the same in the DPRK.
Wen made the comments during a meeting with South Korea’s President Lee Myung Bak in Tokyo, where the two leaders held a summit with Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Lee’s office said in a statement on its website. Kim arrived in Yangzhou in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu yesterday on the third day of his trip, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.
Researchers Hoirin Kim and MungJon Kim created spectograms of audio clips using a radon transform to represent the voice, music and sound effects along a parallel path.Boy, that must have been a fun research assignment. I'd love a job where I got paid to analyze porn.
Results proved a clear distinction between porn audio, which is high-pitched, quick changing and repetitive, and that found in other forms of media, including music.
When tested across multiple soundtracks, the Kims achieved a 93 percent success rate and believe they have found a way to increase detection rates and lower false positives.
The Kims noted that by using sound, they avoid the problem of visual porn-identifiers (pornifiers) that can get tricked by any expanse of skin, like closeups of the face or other not-inappropriate body parts.
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| This is what you get when you search for naked+black+woman+pussy with SafeSearch on. The system works. |
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| During the Rapture, naked people will float upward. Like this woman, Roberta Mancino, only in the opposite direction. For those watching, it will be a rapturous moment indeed. |
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."Oh, and 1 Thessalonians 5:2...
"For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night."My goodness. I guess it's a good thing I paid attention in church so I wouldn't be taken in by such heresy.
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| If you saw a whole bunch of people floating skyward like this, you're screwed. Really, really screwed. Get a zombie kit together pronto. |
So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored). Below are a few items you should include in your kit, for a full list visit the CDC Emergency page.I applaud the CDC's efforts to take the threat of zombies seriously. What with prions in the meat supply (Mad Cow Disease), genetically modified food modifying our genes in who knows what ways, and superbugs sitting like ticking time bombs in a lot of people's guts, it's better to be safe than sorry.
Plan your evacuation route. When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains), which means you need to get out of town fast! Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance! This is also helpful when natural disasters strike and you have to take shelter fast.
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| Free range brains. Braiiiins! |
Pick a meeting place for your family to regroup in case zombies invade your home…or your town evacuates because of a hurricane. Pick one place right outside your home for sudden emergencies and one place outside of your neighborhood in case you are unable to return home right away.I mean, while meeting right outside the home is good for a fire, earthquake, and some other natural disasters, being out in the open, all vulnerable-like, may not be the most optimal site if zombies are on the prowl. For that matter, perhaps not in a flood either. The "outside the neighborhood" plan might work, but not if it's a school. If I were a zombie, I'd be heading right for the local elementary. Mmmm... veal.
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This photo is from January 25, 2011, when Orascom chairman Naguib Sawiris met in Pyongyang with Jang Song-thaek and Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who is looking fat and fit, for whatever that means at his age and in his condition. Jang and Sawiris look totally sloshed; I suspect Kim Jong-il was the designated driver. |
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This is the LAT's photo for the KJI-in-China story. It's a paramilitary police officer at the North Korean embassy in Beijing, opening a gate for a diplomatic car. Even though KJI is not in Beijing, this is the go-to spot for a photo for the story, which only confuses the reader. KJI is, if reports are correct, not in Beijing but in China's northeastern provinces. This is key because it is those provinces that Beijing is pushing to have North Korea integrated with. It is those provinces' economic reforms that Beijing is modeling for Pyongyang. By the way, I have visited this embassy, back in college. I talked with some North Korean diplomats inside. Nice people, or so it seemed. |
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's heir apparent son, Kim Jong-un, has been confirmed to be visiting China, a source in a Chinese border city said Friday.When Beijing summons the leader of its vassal state, it can only mean one thing. The problem is, we usually have to guess at what that one thing is.
The junior Kim arrived in Tumen, in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, early Friday morning, but his next destination has yet to be confirmed, the source in Tumen told Yonhap News Agency. The source asked not to be identified, citing the issue's sensitivity.
Security has been tightened considerably in Tumen and areas linking the Chinese city with North Korean border, the source added.
A ranking government official in Seoul said that the North's presumed heir may have certainly arrived in China considering circumstances observed so far, noting he is unlikely to travel to Beijing.
The trip is widely seen as China's seal of approval for what would mark the communist regime's second hereditary power succession.... but I, on the other hand, am a bit more skeptical.
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| In Canada, this is how we do ddongchim. You must understand our culture. |
The two days of meetings with IOC members consolidated Pyeongchang’s longtime status as the city to beat, but also provided Munich a tangible boost as a serious challenger and gave Annecy hope to believe it still has a chance.Let's hope Kim Yuna can charm off the ice as well as on.
“The French are working well and trying hard, but I think very honestly it will be between Germany and Korea,” Swiss IOC executive board member Rene Fasel told The Associated Press.
Another senior board member, Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, agreed.
“I think this one is a close race between the top two,” he told the AP.
Fasel said there is “no question” that Pyeongchang remains the favorite. The South Koreans, bidding for a third consecutive time after narrow defeats for the 2010 and 2014 Games, are pushing the case of taking the Olympics to a new winter sports market in Asia.
“I don’t think it’s that easy,” said Gerhard Heiberg, an executive board member from Norway. “It’s closer than what people say.”
President Obama has made the three deals a focus of his foreign and economic policy, but the Monday ultimatum reflects the political difficulty of advancing the deals in the face of high unemployment and opposition from parts of the Democratic base.While these deals may be good in the aggregate, there are some folks who are hurt far more, in the form of job losses that never come back, than they are helped with cheaper and/or better quality goods. While Obama's position may be pandering to a base he needs to come out in full force in November 2012, I'd like to think it's a good thing to be helping people get back on their feet if in fact they do lose their jobs as a result.
“This administration believes that just as we should be excited about the prospect of selling more of what we make around the world, we have to be equally firm about keeping faith with America’s workers,” said Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative.
We also hit Macky's Shrimp Truck and chatted with several South Korean newlyweds over garlic shrimp voted best on the island.
It's a good day.
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea says more than 180,000 people from 14 countries have been taken. The vast majority of these cases are not typical abductions.Not to make light of such situations, if true, but it would be hella hard to pull a midnight run in North Korea.
They involve prisoners not returned after the 1950-53 Korean War and Japanese who settled in North Korea but were never allowed home.
Other reports highlight North Korea's foreign operations - including a Japanese college student and his girlfriend snatched from a beach in Japan by North Korean agents.
The figure includes more than 3,000 South Korean fishermen forcibly towed into North Korean waters and students in European cities - including London, it says - lured to the secretive state with the promise of jobs and then denied permission to leave.
In one such case at a London language school in 1983, a North Korean agent, Megumi Yao, was operating undercover, targeting Japanese students for abduction.
She promised them good jobs in North Korea, and introduced one of the students to her contacts in Denmark. A few weeks later, the student boarded a flight to Pyongyang and disappeared.
Some abductions, they say, are apparently a bid to train its intelligence agents, but the report also cites more recent claims that North Korean agents are targeting those in China's border areas who are suspected of helping their people escape the closed state.Indeed, this is one more reason my hat is off to those people — often driven by religious conviction — who risk their safety, their freedom, and sometimes their lives to ferry people out of North Korea.
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| Whoops. Too far. |
Seoul police said yesterday that the explosives that went off in Seoul Station and the Express Bus Terminal on Thursday were homemade devices that could be made with a “high-school grasp” of knowledge and that the parts used could easily be bought at large supermarkets.The JAD article then goes on to tell you exactly how to make such a device. You know, just in case you are a disgruntled attention-seeker who decides to take it out on my 'hood.
“Based on our experts’ opinions, we feel that the suspect does not have professional knowledge of explosives and we strongly believe that this was a person who had ill feelings against society or wanted attention,” said Lee Sang-jeong of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. “After analyzing the evidence found, the brands of the hiking backpack and timer batteries from the two locations matched.”
A string of explosions involving what appeared to be butane gas occurred at Seoul's two major transportation hubs Thursday, prompting police to launch a terrorism probe.The last part has me a tad confused: the Seoul Station device "exploded" but didn't "go off with a boom"? The Chosun Ilbo described the device as having wires and said no one has taken responsibility for the attack.
No one was hurt or killed in the explosions at Seoul Station in the central part of the capital and Seoul Express Bus Terminal in southern part of the city, police said.
The explosives appeared to be homemade and had been placed inside lockers set up at the train and bus stations for public use, the police said. The explosions occurred about half an hour apart.
The police have evacuated the areas and are tracing a man who they said was seen on a surveillance camera putting a package inside the locker at Seoul Station. Only the explosives at the express bus terminal went off with a boom, they said.
The US military is also looking to consolidate dozens of bases around South Korea into two hubs -- Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul, and Daegu, 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of the capital.Honestly, this sounds a bit like some senators are shooting their mouth off because they have to say something.
The move would allow US forces to leave their huge Yongsan base in Seoul, which was set up for the 1950-53 Korean War but now lies in the heart of the developed and densely populated city, leading to frictions with residents.
But the senators called for a halt, saying there was not enough clarity on who would pick up rising costs at Pyeongtaek where the US military wants to start shifting troops next year.
The senators also questioned the Pentagon's plan to allow more of the 28,500 US troops based in South Korea to bring families.
"There is an inherent contradiction in planning to increase the number of US military family members in South Korea when there is the real potential that a destabilizing security situation in North Korea could unfold rapidly and unpredictably," Webb said.
The U.S. government says that an American detained by North Korea since November is being well cared for and has been permitted to speak to his family by phone.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday Swedish diplomats have visited Eddie Jun six times since March and were continuing at U.S. request to ask for regular consular access.
Sweden looks after U.S. interests in the communist state.
Toner called for Jun's immediate release on humanitarian grounds so he can be reunited with his family.
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| The literal message is that traipsing into North Korea isn't very bright. |
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| If this doesn't scream, "Stay the #+¢& away!" then I can't help you. |
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| The sign our traditionally dressed National Assemblyman Kang Gigap is holding expresses opposition to the Korea-EU FTA. |
The Democratic Party joined other left-leaning, opposition parties in abstaining from Wednesday’s vote on the EU FTA. That was portrayed in the South Korean media as a maneuver by DP chairman Sohn Hak-kyu, who got elected to the parliament in last week’s by-election, to curry favor with the smaller parties to support him for a presidential run next year.In general I support free trade, but I have qualms about people being overrun when the floodgates are open to new competition, so I kinda like the idea of this joint GNP-DP approach as a way to allow the inevitable in a way that makes things smoother. Supposedly.
But some in the DP instantly regretted the decision because the GNP passed the FTA without taking up assistance measures for farmers and retailers that the DP was pushing. Previously, the two parties had agreed that the GNP would support the DP’s assistance measures in return for the DP’s support on the overall ratification.
The two countries plan to hold a groundbreaking ceremony on May 28 for development of the island on the Yalu River, the South's Yonhap news agency said.At the end of 2010, the Chosun Ilbo reported on discussions between Pyongyang and Beijing over control of the island, which abuts the Chinese city of Dandong. The Pyongyang regime may have wanted it hermetically sealed from the rest of North Korea (e.g., through a bridge directly from Dandong to the island) but the Chinese, who seem hell-bent on forcing North Korea out of its shell, wanted the bridge to go through southern Shinuiju so that people going to Wihwa-do would have to drive past a bunch of North Koreans.
Pyongyang has reportedly worked out a special law to set up a free trade zone on the island, which is separated by a narrow waterway from the Chinese city of Dandong.
The North's state media disclosed a deal last year to build a new cross-border bridge on the Yalu River as part of a major economic package announced by Beijing.
The two sides have agreed to turn the island into a base for logistics, tourism and manufacturing that would be linked to China's industrial complex to be built in Dandong, Yonhap said.
