Uri Party advisor is bitching up a storm about getting denied a US visa:

Chyung Dai-chul, an advisor to the ruling Uri Party, had applied for a U.S. visa so he could take up a one-year position as an honorary researcher at Stanford University, but said his application was denied.

“I think there might be some reason for the U.S. to refuse me a visa,” Chyung told Yonhap News Agency.

He speculated that the “uncomfortable relationship” between South Korea and the U.S. prompted the embassy to deny his visa.

Ah, another CIA black helicopter conspiracy to explain why he did not get a US Visa.  I guess he figured this had nothing to do with it:

Chyung, who was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison on charges of bribery in 2004 related to a presidential election in 2002, was pardoned last year.

I’m happy the American government is keeping an ex-con out of the country and I would hope Korea is keeping criminals out their country as well.

I guess when you have 20 million soldiers in your standing army you can afford to be choosy:

China’s military is tightening its standards for recruiting potential officers as it adjusts to changing social trends, ordering drug and psychological tests, among other new requirements, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday, citing a military health official.

The People’s Liberation Army headquarters released the new recruitment rules Sunday, it said.

Recruits with fashionable tattoos will be barred from military schools, although traditional tattoos of ethnic minorities will be allowed if they are not too obvious when the recruit is wearing summer shorts, Li Chunming, the army health official, was cited as saying.

“Tattoos will tarnish the military’s image, even the scars of removed tattoos,” Li said.

Heavy snorers will also be banned, he said. The report did not say how the army would test for that problem.

Banning drugs I can undertand, but tatoos and snoring?  If the US Army banned tatoos and snoring half the army would be ineligible for service.

This study has concluded that Korea doesn’t size up very well against Japan in one critical area.  Korea can at least claim they have better sex lives than their Japanese counterparts:

Most Satisfied with Their Sex Lives

• Austria
• Spain
• Canada
• Belgium
• United States
• Australia
• Mexico
• Germany
• Sweden
• United Kingdom

Least Satisfied with Their Sex Lives

• Thailand
• China
• Indonesia
• Taiwan
• Japan

I guess this proves that size in fact doesn’t matter, in Asia at least.

(Hat Tip: Japundit)

It looks like the local police in Pyeongtaek are about as eager to enforce laws against illegal protesting as they are in enforcing Korean traffic laws:

Gyeonggi Provisional Police Agency Commissioner Oe Cheong-su on Thursday said police would reject a Defense Ministry request to provide security during the fencing in of the site for a new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek. After plans for a ditch to keep residents and activists from farming the fields failed on April 7, the ministry said it would study setting up wire fences instead. “Under the Status of Forces Agreement, the police undertake security duty at protected military facilities like American bases. But there are no legal grounds for the police to do so in areas military facilities have yet to move to since they are property of the Defense Ministry,” Oe reasoned. “If the ministry is afraid of damage to the fences, it had better hire security contractors.?

I actually can’t blame the police for taking this stand considering the Korean government allows the anti-US hate groups and protesters to do this to them:

Scene of July 10, 2005 Riot Outside of Camp Humphreys

Maybe if the government would allow the police to arrest, imprison, and fine these people for assaulting policemen than maybe they would be more eager to do their jobs.

These students should be happy they were only expelled:

Korea University permanently expelled seven students on Wednesday as a penalty for detaining nine professors earlier this month.
Korea University is one of the top three universities of the country. In protest against the expulsions, about 100 students, including those who received the penalty, held a rally yesterday, cutting their hair.
In Korea, cutting one’s hair in public is a sign of strong protest.
On April 5, the students detained nine professors for about 17 hours on a stairway of a school building, calling for the university to grant students in the college of health science the right to vote in the students’ union.

They should have been charged with kidnapping or a similar charge.  If they would have just kidnapped and beaten some USFK soldiers and then forced them to make coerced statements on national television supporting their cause, they would have faced little or no punishment that way.

Here is an update of the case where a US soldier smashed a beer bottle over the head of a US contractor’s 18 year old daughter:

South Korea will not charge a soldier accused of smashing a broken bottle into a Seoul American High School student’s face in an off-base nightclub district, a Seoul prosecutor said Thursday.

Pfc. Christopher Myers, 20, still faces aggravated assault charges brought by U.S. Forces Korea in connection with an attack on Jasmyn Chambers, 18, outside an off-limits nightclub in the Hongdae District on Feb. 25.

He decided that USFK would exercise jurisdiction?over the case, said Kweon Jung-hun of the Seoul Sebu District Prosecutors Office.

Chambers father contends the decision to turn down the case may make it more difficult for his daughter to recover medical costs or any punitive damages.

What the father is referring to is that in the Korean system of justice “blood” money can be given to the victim in order to drop charges.  With the Koreans passing on the jurisdiction of this case to USFK that means this guy will get slammed to the maximum with UCMJ which will probably mean reduction to E1, loss of money, and possible imprisonment, but it does not necessarily mean that the victim will be compensated.  So this was definitely a turn for the worse for the victim’s family.

UPDATE: After reading this over at the Marmot’s Hole:

Michelle Wie?s father Wie Byung-wook, a professor of transportation at the University of Hawaii, agreed to a telephone interview with the Chosun Ilbo on Thursday.
?I?m well aware there that some say, since Michelle Wie is an American why is she making such a fuss. But you know what, the only thing about her that?s American is her passport, she is ?definitely? Korean.?

I was definitely thinking the same thing the Lost Nomad was thinking on this matter. Her dad might as well have said Show Me the Money Korea!

___________________________________________________________

It looks like another Korean-American will be taking Korea by storm next month as well:

Teen golfer Michelle Wie will visit Korea for the KPGA Tour?s SK Telecom Open that will be held at the Incheon Sky72 Golf Course on May 4.

Responding to e-mail and phone interviews, Wie said she was exited to visit Korea once again and couldn`t wait to see what has changed since her last Seoul visit three years ago. This will be her second visit to Korea after the CJ Nine Bridges Classic held in October, 2003 in Jeju. Wie said she was keeping a list of Korean foods she would have in Seoul. She also said she is looking forward to going bargain shopping for fashion accessories in Dongdaemun bazaar.

I wonder if she will get the same rock star coverage Hines Ward did?

Thankfully it looks like President Bush is going to continue to pressure the Chinese over the deportation of North Korean defectors:

President George W. Bush is expected to make a statement on human rights conditions in North Korea in his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday. He is tipped to cite the case of a woman using the alias Kim Chun-hee, who recently escaped North Korea only to be forcibly repatriated by Beijing, according to the Washington Post. Various activist groups that have descended on Washington for the “North Korea Freedom Week” plan to hold an all-night protest against the repatriations on April 28 in front of the Chinese Embassy.

Now if only the South Koreans would get on board too.

To their credit the South Koreans are currently wrapped up in the greatest security threat the country has seen since the Hideyoshi invasion of 1592 with the current Japanese invasion plan to claim the Dokdo isles. With pressing security threats like this who can blame them for not caring about North Korean defectors.

How does doing this help Korea’s claim to the Dokdo Islands?:

An anti-Japan protester, Yang Bong-ho, stabs himself in the stomach with a kinfe to commite suicide demanding Japan abandon a plan to conduct a maritime survey near disputed islets, at a park in Seoul, Wednesday, April 19, 2006. Yang’s condition was unknown after being taken to hospital.

Actions like this only help Japan’s agenda of showing that Korea is an irrational society thus in turn aiding their claims to the Dokdo isles in regards to global public opinion, with the few people that actually give a crap about anything that has to do with Dokdo.

A cease fire between the two combatants in the Great Dokdo War has been declared. It is safe to now come out of the bomb shelters; those dastardly Japanese scientists have agreed to not leave Japan and face the 18 Korean naval vessels waiting for them at Dokdo and let the diplomatic process play itself out:

Japan has promised to hold off conducting a controversial hydrographic survey in South Korea’s waters in an effort to find a diplomatic solution to the latest standoff between the two sides, a top Seoul official said Friday.

“Japan is expected to announce the decision soon,” Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told reporters in Seoul.

Yu added that his country will block Japan’s survey plan at any cost.

So we are not out of hot water yet and may need to return to the bomb shelters at any moment, but it does appear cooler heads may be prevailing finally.