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Now the French are condemning Lance Armstrong for taking a prescribed steroid when he was dyeing from brain cancer:

Lance Armstrong admitted he has taken the performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin (EPO) at the time he was treating his cancer, French daily Le Monde reported on Friday.

“According to new testimonies gathered from October 2005 to January 2006 by a court in Dallas, the seven-times Tour de France winner told a Indiana University Hospital doctor on October 28, 1996 he has taken performance-enhancing drugs,” Le Monde said in a report to be published later on Friday.

“The doctor questioned him on a possible use of doping products after his brain surgery in order to prescribe his post-surgery treatment.

This is just pathetic.  Taking a prescribed steroid during a fight against cancer is not the same as him taking a steroid while competing during the Tour de France.  Every allegation the French throw at Lance gets shot down which was evident by allegations made against him before this latest one:

French sports daily L’Equipe reported last August that it had access to laboratory documents and that six of Armstrong’s urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showed “indisputable” traces of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin.

Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, a former director of the Netherlands’ national anti-doping agency, was appointed by the UCI last October to investigate the allegations.

Vrijman, who led the probe, said the World Anti-Doping Agency and the French national doping laboratory had effectively pronounced Armstrong guilty of a doping violation without sufficient basis.

WADA chairman Dick Pound rejected the Vrijman report as “bordering on the farcical.”

Yes “farcial” just like this latest accusation.

Well everyone I am officially back and blogging again. I appreciate all the e-mails I received from everyone wondering what happened to me. No I was not arrested in the Philippines for sodomy or thrown in jail for assaulting a Korean taxi cab driver as some have speculated. Actually I have been busy with work. If you can believe it, I actually have a day job besides blogging. I unexpectedly moved to another overseas assignment to train allied soldiers and have had very little Internet access the past month. Not the case anymore though, so expect regular blogging once again.

Looking through some of the other K-blogs it has been quite an interesting month I have missed. Then again what month in Korea isn’t interesting? What really jumped out at me was the suicide of Shawn Matthews from the former Korea Life Blog. Like many people KLB was actually the first Korea blog I read before reading others like the Marmot’s Hole. I wish things could have worked out better for him because suicide was definitely not the answer; god bless his family and may he rest in peace.

Let’s see what else has been going on, well foreign English teachers are being blamed for sexual assaults they had nothing to do with. I can still remember the good old days when soldiers would try and pass themselves off as English teachers. I think those days are long gone now.

Nomad has started a series on trash left by Koreans along some of the water holes he likes to fish at. I have plenty of pictures myself of the garbage left by the dreaded picnickers who pollute the beautiful country side in Korea. I remember the last time I climbed Sorak mountain seeing people throw their garbage off into the strong wind that was blowing up there that day just so they could see their garbage go flying off the mountain. A continual frustration for those of us who like to do outdoors activities in the beautiful Korean country side.

The World Cup madness had hit Korea again, and I have had the opportunity to watch the Korean team play this past month. I don’t know if it is a strategy or not, but it seems like they play like crap for most of the game to wear down the other team and then pull it out in the end. The expressions from the French players and coaching staff after the last game was absolutely priceless. The Red Devils do continue to get calls from the referees to go their way some how, but I can’t fault the Korean team for taking advantage of it. Bad calls are part of just about any sport. I just wish Team USA could get the calls Koreans do sometimes, such as the second goal against Italy being counted. Emotions are running high in Korea over the World Cup which is evident by this confrontation in the good old 2ID city of Uijongbu. Can you believe it, there are also Koreans in Uijongbu getting into trouble besides just US soldiers?
Speaking of soldiers getting in trouble, the monthly Taxi Cab Related Incident for the month of June has occurred as well, with a soldier throwing a bike at a taxi in Chuncheon. As you all know, I have no love for the cab drivers in the 2ID area due to my own run ins with them, but at no means should anyone get in a physical confrontation with them because you cannot win, even if the cab driver provoked it. It is best just to walk away.

Then you have the Norks ready test fire a missile. (Yawn) Those of us who have lived for long periods of time in Korea know, most of Seoul is within artillery range of North Korea so most Koreans could care less about a missile test. However this story is getting big attention outside of Korea which is what the Norks want. They have to push the envelope every once in a while to make sure no one forgets about them and keeps the aid rolling in.

Then finally USFK is being blamed for creating a murderous monster in the Han River. You can’t make this stuff up, with headlines like these obviously things are going on as usual in Korea and that is why Korea will always be the land of endless blogging.

It looks like peace is at least breaking out somewhere:

Montenegro, Japan To Declare Truce
Jun 16, 2006
Montenegro says Japan has recognized the Balkan country as an independent state, ending more than 100 years of a state of war.
Akiko Yamanaka, Japan¿s deputy foreign minister and the prime minister¿s special envoy is scheduled to arrive in Podgorica next week to deliver a letter to Montenegrin officials declaring the war is over and Tokyo recognizes Montenegro as an independent state, Belgrade¿s B92 radio reported Friday.

It is good to see these guys receive some appreciation for the thankless job they do:

The Korean National Police guards who toured Yongsan Garrison on Monday are in the midst of their 2½ years of mandatory national service. When their stint is up, many will go to college ¿ becoming
classmates with those protesters.

About 100 members of the KNP toured Yongsan Garrison at the installation¿s invitation Monday. A handful of policemen received certificates of appreciation for their service from Area II commander Col. Ron Stephens at the Army Community Services building, where the KNP guests watched two short films.

This post from Celestial Junk pretty much sums up how I feel about the recent news of the beheading and mutilating of the two US soldiers in Iraq this week:

As news reaches us that two US troopers were ¿slaughtered¿ by Islamo-fascist terrorists, we must brace ourselves for the inevitable Mainstream Media outrage, human rights organization fury, and overall international do-gooder annoyance. It¿s going to be quite something as page after page of editorials from BBC to NYT scream headlines like, ¿US Troopers Denied Geneva Rights¿, or, ¿Islamist Crime Evidence that Freedom Fighters are Just Terrorists¿. Daily KOS will launch into days of angry profanity filled rage against the Islamist thugs who committed the crime, and even Al Jazeera will bemoan in giant headlines, ¿Islam Slandered Once Again by Islamist Extremists.¿

Brace yourselves boys and girls, it¿s going to be ugly. Amnesty will of course decry the fact that Islamist terrorists, after this sadistic act, are now even more depraved than the Abu Ghraib bum-pile perverts. Leftist blogs the world over will warn Muslim fanatics that they had better start wearing uniforms if they want to be accorded Geneva convention rights. And, the CBC in Canada and the BBC will come to the conclusion, that the murder of the two US servicemen, proves once and for all that ¿Terrorism is the enemy of all Civilization¿.

And of course, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, rep. Murtha, Jack Layton, and an army of elite will come to the conclusion that this act alone proves that the United States must remain in Iraq until the job is done. ¿How can we expect the Iraqi nation, in fact any nation, to have to stand alone against such barbarism,¿ they will crow, ¿ All freedom loving people everywhere must stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, and defeat Islamo-fascism.¿

Yes siree boys and girls, brace yourself for the inevitable Socialist Utopian outcry.

Just in case there was any doubt:

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that civilian employees of the U.S. Forces Korea fall under South Korea’s criminal jurisdiction in peacetime. This is stipulated in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) concerning the USFK, but it is the first time that the Supreme Court has issued a ruling on the matter.

The court on Monday upheld W5 million (US$5,000) in fines levied against a U.S. troop supply worker (49) who was brought to trial on charges of causing a traffic accident while driving a cargo vehicle.

The court said in its ruling, “In accordance with section 22 article 1 of SOFA as well as annals of agreements reached, the Republic of Korea has jurisdiction in times of peace on the peninsula to prosecute criminal trials against civilian employees of the USFK. “

I didn’t even realize there was a gray area here, but obviously there isn’t anymore.

I went to Wal-Mart one time in Korea and never went back, so this isn’t a surprise to me:

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said yesterday it was pulling out of the Korean market after eight years of doing business here.
Korea was Wal-Mart’s second foray into Asian markets; it began here with four outlets and later expanded to 16. The U.S. retail giant opened its first Asian outlets in China in 1996, two years before coming here.
At a press conference yesterday, Wal-Mart and Shinsegae executives announced the sale of Wal-Mart’s Korean assets to the nation’s largest retailer. Shinsegae, which runs the E-Mart discount chain, paid 825 billion won ($877 million) for Wal-Mart’s assets here.
Joe Hatfield, the president of Wal-Mart Asia, told the press conference that his company’s decision was based on an analysis that the company could not move up to second or third position in the retail market here in the next four or five years.
Beth Keck, the company’s spokeswoman, said, “We want to be able to grow in a market, and we saw it would be quite slow at this point in time.”
Wal-Mart is the second foreign mass retailer to fold its tent in Korea in the last month. In late April, Carrefour of France sold its stores here to Eland, another local retailer.
Wal-Mart has been struggling in Korea, losing 9.9 billion won last year on revenues of 728.8 billion won. It ranks last in sales among the five mass retailers in the market.

Read the rest of the article about why Wal-Mart failed in Korea.  I tend to agree with a lot of what the Joong Ang had to say but the biggest thing that I think was their down fall was location.  Just for the record Home Plus is my favorite shopping center in Korea.

Tags: wal-mart, korea, e-mart

So far so good for the six North Korean defectors granted asylum in the US:

For their entire lives, six North Koreans had heard that Americans were hostile to people from their country.
But the six, who were granted refugee status in the United States earlier this month, said they were surprised to feel safe and relieved because they have been treated warmly.
The four women and two men attended a welcome dinner hosted by the Bethel Korean Church in Los Angeles on Saturday.
During the dinner, the six were tearful. “I never thought time was so precious,” said a 32-year-old former North Korean soldier, who is now calling himself Sin Joseph. “But, now, I don’t want to waste any second, any minute.” He said he has two goals – to learn English and to earn a license as an auto mechanic.

You would think that if people from North Korea of all places could enter the US legally and agree to learn English that our neighbors to South could do so as well.

Here is something else that isn’t to much of a surprise either:

The situation is not quite as rosy in South Korea, where 10 stadiums were built. 

Attendance for South Korea’s K-League has gone down in recent years. 

“The attendance rate at our matches seems to be dropping these days,” said an official of K-League team Chonbuk, who declined to give his name. “Korean people only get excited about the national team. Many people like baseball or the English Premier League but aren’t really interested in the K-League.” 

Jeju World Cup Stadium, which cost US$133.6 million (euro104.64 million) to build on the south side of South Korea’s honeymoon island, wasn’t getting much use until K-League side Jeju United moved in this year. 

Whether the arrival of one of the weakest teams in the league will help the stadium turn a profit remains to be seen.

Is there even enough people on Cheju to fill up the stadium?

Can anyone guess what the top six US military installations around the world are?  Hint none of them are in South Korea or Japan.

Hat Tip: Live from FDNF