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Is there any doubt now that Ted Turner is a Useful Idiot? Check out this interview with Wolf Blitzer on the Radio Blogger:

And I was really over there to try and persuade North and South Korea to make the DMZ into an international peace park when they sign a peace treaty, which I anticipate will be fairly soon, now that we have these six-party talks. We have agreement there. But I had a great time. I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There’s really no reason for them to cheat or do anything to violate this very forward agreement. I think we can put the North Korea and East Asia problems behind us, and concentrate on Iran and Iraq, where we still have some ongoing difficulties.

No reason for them cheat?! They have cheated already on a similar agreement!

WB: But this is one of the most despotic regimes, and Kim Jung Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn’t that a fair assessment?

TT: Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look…in the pictures I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most of the other people I’ve met.

What kind of people is this guy hanging out with? This interview only gets better:

TT: Well, hey. Listen, I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin, and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars. But I didn’t see any brutality in the capitol, or out in the DMZ. We drove through the countryside quite a bit to down to P’annumjom and Kaesong. We traveled around. I’m sure we were on a special route, but I don’t see…there’s really no reason…North Korea’s got enough problems with their economy and their agriculture. I think they want to join the Western world, and improve the quality of life for their people, just like everybody else.

Let me guess, they are thin because they ride bicycles unlike us fat slob Americans who drive cars. I guess their thinness has nothing to do with the bad agricultural problems that Turner even mentioned. Plus North Korea can join the Western World tomorrow if they get rid of their nukes and open their country to investment and the outside world.

Wait there is still more:

WB: What about those ground-to-ground missiles, and the…

TT: They can’t reach us.

WB: They can reach Japan. They can reach South Korea. They can reach a lot of our allies.

TT: They can’t reach the U.S.A., and we can pound them into oblivion in 24 hours.

WB: But you don’t want to get to that. There’s some estimates, by the way, they could reach Alaska.

TT: Well, what? The Aleutian Islands? There’s nothing up there but a few sea lions.

I guess the American government shouldn’t care about the security of our allies or the welfare of Americans in Alaska as well according to Turner. Last I checked I thought Alaskans were Americans? Did somebody change citizenship requirements in Alaska and only tell Ted Turner?

Read the rest of your own but this guy is nuts. How in the world can someone be such a pro-commie and be a billionaire? Then again Kim Jong Il is pro-commie and he is a billionaire as well, so they both got something in common there. Just keep in mind what Nomad thinks on this subject; he did marry Jane Fonda.

Former 2ID Commanding General, General Honore continues to make a name for himself in New Orleans:

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I’m not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we’ve got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let’s talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

Having listened to General Honore before in the past it is funny to listen to him use catch phrases he uses in military settings with the reporters in New Orleans. You need to listen to the audio sound bite because it is even funnier than reading the transcript. I wish more people would be willing tell the press they are stuck on stupid like that. General Honore continues to be the perfect man for this job.

Google Earth is one cool program if you haven’t downloaded it yet. Using this program I plan to post images from Korea every week and see if anyone can guess where in Korea it is from. Consider it a weekly Korea geography lesson. Anyway, this week I am starting with an easy location:

I’m assuming this one should be guessed rather quickly, but in the future for harder locations to identify I will post clues if no one can figure it out right way.

A Japanese woman who was unhappy about the hitman she hired decided to call the police about it:

A Japanese woman called in the police after a hit man she paid to kill her lover’s wife failed to carry out the job. The 32-year-old Tokyo woman was arrested on Wednesday for incitement to murder, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said on Friday.

Police also arrested the private detective and found the alleged target safe and well, the paper said.

I guess maybe she should of called the Better Business Bureau instead.

It appears more than the Hallyu phenomenon is being culturally exchanged between China and Korea. Rampant cheating in Chinese classrooms has caused the government to implement harsh measures to crack down on this behavior:

Click Here to Continue Reading Article.

UPDATE#1 The Chosun Ilbo is now running an article on it and also has an editorial discussing how everything may not be to rosey between the US and Korea:

The United States, however, has through the agreement virtually broken with the principle it had been most bombastic about. The Bush administration had been saying it could not reward illegal actions, calling it the ?fundamental of fundamentals? of a resolution to the nuclear issue. Washington had also claimed that North Korea, which had already misused its peaceful nuclear program, could not be allowed another light-water reactor. Through this agreement, however, both principles have been shaken. Accordingly, some say its possible that U.S. neoconservatives, who take a hard-line against North Korea, will unleash an attack on the architects of the agreement, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.

Some point out that should there be criticism within the U.S. unsatisfied with South Korea?s mediation role, tensions and fissures may arise between Seoul and Washington.

Of course Unification Minister Chung Dong-young is taking the credit for the success of the talks:

The adoption of the principle document in the six-party talks on how to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula is the “accomplishment of South Korean diplomacy,?? which opened the way to end the Cold War confrontation, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said in Seoul on Monday.

His remarks are based on the idea that the joint principle statement laid the groundwork for the establishment of a permanent peace on the peninsula, even though the document apparently focused on the nuclear issue.

Here is another interesting quote from Song-Sin-moon the head South Korea negotiator:

“I got a feeling that we now open the way for making history by ourselves,?? Song Min-soon, South Korea?s top delegate to the six-party talks, told reporters after the official announcement of the principle document. “In the past, we were given a situation at others? will and we had to deal with it.??

Correct me if I’m wrong but was it not Koreans that started the Korean War? Yes outside countries initially divided the country but Koreans as well have had opportunities to chart their own history. When it is good history like today, South Korea is responsible, when it is bad history the foreigners are responsible. So when this deal falls apart which it probably will at some point it will not be the North Koreans fault but the United States.

So how can this deal fall apart? The US will agree to build this light water reactor only if the North Koreans verifiably dismantle their nuclear program. We all know the Norks won’t allow inspectors that type of access in their country, but in the mean time the Norks will use the free energy from South Korea until the next crisis arrives. Then there is the thousand pound gorrilla that no one wants to talk about either that has yet to be resolved and that is human rights in North Korea. This whole agreement appears to be all sides positioning themselves to place blame on each other when the agreement ultimately fails.
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Reports are coming out that North Korea has agreed in principle to end it’s nuclear program:

North Korea pledged to drop its nuclear weapons development and rejoin international arms treaties in a unanimous agreement Monday at six-party arms talks the first breakthrough in more than two years of negotiations.

“It’s a good agreement for all of us,” Hill said. But he added: “We have to see what comes in the days and weeks ahead. We have to seize the momentum of this.”

This may sound like good news but I have been following North Korea issues long enough to know that what North Korea says and what they actually do are two different things. The Norks are talking nice now probably because the Chinese want to save face and show the world that the talks they are hosting are productive.

I really think the Chinese want to win some international prestige by reaching some kind of agreement on this nuclear crisis. It is also in their interest to have a stable North Korea before their hosting of the 2008 Olympic games. They don’t want a nuclear or refugee crisis overshadowing their moment of glory.

The North Koreans also want a deal that keeps their regime stable, but they also want enough flexibility in whatever agreement is reached to keep the capacity to make nuclear weapons. This is why the Norks want to be allowed to have a civilian nuclear power program after whatever agreement is reached.

Don’t get your hopes up with this “breakthrough”, however this is at least progress. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.

American golfer Christina Kim is feeling the heat for being to American. Here is a translation provided by Joel:

In last year’s Pinx Cup tournament too, KLPGA criticism over Gim Chorong’s participation on the Korean representative team was strong, but after Gim Chorong’s teary-eyed appeal she was placed on the team.

People began to talk bad about her last year when right after being selected for the American representative team for the Solheim Cup, Gim Chorong said in an interview, “I am proud to be an American.”

I agree with Joel that the easy solution to this is to not let Korean-American golfers participate in the tournament. If someone is considered to American for a tournament then the organizers should just invite native Koreans. That would solve the problem. However, that would mean Michelle Wie could not play in this tournament if she wanted to. I wonder what the organizers would do if she showed up with an American flag painted on her face?

A Buddhist temple on Jindo Island in southwestern Korea has a new unlikely convert, a dog:

Hama — Korean for hippopotamus — follows monks into the temple and bows in the same manner for prayer, a temple official said. Some local Buddhists, who believe in reincarnation, are wondering what Hama may have been in a past life.

“The dog bows just like a monk,” said college student Park Sang-jin, who visited the temple after hearing about Hama.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun recently made some highly controversial comments during his keynote address to the United Nations:

Click Here to Continue Reading Article.

According the Japundit North Korean cheerleaders are creating more sports fans and corrupting Korean youth at the same time:

According to the Japanese weekly magazine FLASH, this marked the third time that Pyongyang dispatched its bevy of beauties, and each time woman have become progressively younger and more beautiful. FLASH reports that this time around the oldest of the 124 members of the NORK cheering squad are second year university students. Reportedly, this is the first time that attendance at the Asian Athletics Championship hit 130,000, and organizers are admitting that it is the Pyongyang pretties that made the difference.

Event organizers and TV broadcasters are reportedly so eager to have the group attend that millions of dollars in cash and trade are promised to North Korea under the table in return.

But not everyone is happy with the women of the North and what they represent.

There are publications in South Korea who are warning that behind the women’s pleasant smiles are sinister plots to conquer the South. They worry that South Koreans, especially the younger generations, may become so enamored with NORK cheerleaders that they will take the side of North Korea should hostilities ever break out.

Maybe this explains the Inchon protesters. They have been brainwashed by North Korean cheerleaders.