The Korean government is experts at blaming things on black helicopter CIA conspiracy theories and now they are bringing their paranoia to the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement talks:

Beware of the dragonfly: it may be a bugging robot disguised as a harmless insect. No, the advice does not come from a mental patient convinced the government is spying on his laundry bills: it was one of the security tips issued during last week?s two-day workshop for 120 Korean delegates in the nation?s impending free-trade negotiations with the U.S. The workshop was designed to help delegates guard their negotiation strategies from prying ears when the talks start in June.
Security authorities at the workshop revealed the extraordinary inventiveness of U.S.?s intelligence surveillance power, which indeed stretches to a dragonfly robot that records conversation with the microphones concealed in its trunk as it sluggishly drones about the room.

One government official set delegates on edge when he warned, ?There is no telling what lengths the U.S. with its technological might will go to if it decides to eavesdrop.? Sure enough, the CIA also has other members of the insect kingdom at its disposal, besides using a coin-sized camera that can take 11 pictures.

Only those dastardly Americans would stoop to such lengths to spy on an ally. We all know that Korea would never spy on anyone.

The Joong Ang Ilbo’s Niels Footman, has his latest article up covering the Korean blogosphere. In the article he covers the variety of opinions within the K-blog community over the Hines Ward mania and even quotes my site in his article:

For the host of “GI Korea,” much may hinge on Mr. Ward himself.
“If he stays active in the problem then maybe things will change. If not, then a month after he leaves all will be forgotten until the next famous mixed-race person comes around.” But, he continues, “President Roh and Koreans in general should have been addressing this problem long before Hines Ward showed up.”

Yes, they should have. Yet changing attitudes in a country that has for so long adhered to half-baked notions of racial homogeneity is bound to take time, and any help is surely welcome.

I actually think less is riding on Hines Ward now and more on his mom who has been speaking her mind on this trip and she may ultimately become the person that can change perceptions in Korea with her blunt talk about the status of mixed race families in Korea.

Mr. Footman also goes on to talk about the anti-US protests during the RSOI training where US Marines assaulted by anti-US hate group members:

This week, the fuse was lit by pictures of Korean protesters manhandling U.S. marines at a joint U.S.-Korean military exercise. Joshua at “The Korea Liberator” speaks for many when he says:
“The authorities had no excuse for failing to prepare for it. The response was also characteristically slow.”
Certainly, it beggars belief that just two policemen were posted on the beach, and as “GI in Korea” points out, one can only imagine the furor had one of the marines retaliated against any of the protesters.
Also doing the rounds in the blogosphere is a video montage of anti-American protests from the last year.

Don’t forget the Korean government has vowed to get tough on the anti-US protesters after the assaults on the US Marines. I guess the crackdown on the US protesters doesn’t carry over to protecting the young draftees who serve in Korea’s riot police that had the crap beaten out of them during last week’s Camp Humphreys protest. If the Korean government wants to do something to stop these violent protests, then put these people in jail and fine the hell out them. I’m all for free speech and descent. If these people want to stand outside Camp Humphreys and yell “Yankee Go Home!” all day and light candles fine, but these hate groups don’t have the right to bash the police with metal pipes, destroy vehicles, set fires, kidnap and beat US soldiers and force them to make statements on national TV, among a host of other crimes that no one is severely punished for, which only encourages this activity. The Camp Humphreys relocation issue to going to be the single issue that will define the US-ROK alliance for years to come and it could go either way because the government still hasn’t come out strongly against the hate groups thus enocouraging them to continue their activities. It will none the less be interesting to see what happens.

USFK has come up with a plan to clean up the alleged environmental damage on US camps vacated and to be handed over to the Korean authorities. From the Stars and Stripes:

U.S. Forces Korea has presented an environmental cleanup plan to South Korea that the Americans say goes ?above and beyond? previous agreements about the almost 60 bases going from U.S. to South Korean control, a USFK spokesman said.

South Korean officials still must accept the plan, USFK spokesman David Oten said Friday. USFK declined to release any estimate of the cost, which the United States will pay, before a joint U.S.-South Korean public statement was prepared.

The government has been authorized to spend what is needed to follow the U.S.-written plan, Oten said.

USFK should clean up environmental damage, but the claims by the activist groups should be put into context with the surrounding communities. Take a look at the land surroundings these vacated camps, it is not exactly the Garden of Eden up in 2ID where these camps are located. Much of the land surrounding these camps is polluted even worse by the locals than the alleged polluting by USFK. The military will clean these lands to be absorbed by the surrounding communities who I am willing to be will just pollute them again.

If USFK thinks this will stop the activists claims they will find that they are mistaken. They will just keep finding things to bring up because none of this is about the environment. It is about making USFK look like the big bad bogey man. These people could care less about the environment, it is just a convenient topic that has gained traction in South Korean society to hammer USFK with.

Anyone remember the Great 2000 Water Dumping Scandal? USFK was accused of polluting the Han River when a civilian base worker drained some chemicals down a sink in Yongsan. The activists jumped all over USFK for the actions of the civilian worker while they could care less about the massive amounts of dumping going on in plain sight by Korean nationals. I have literally seen a Korean tanker truck dump raw sewage into a stream that runs into the Han River before. Take a Han River cruise to see the garbage floating in the river yourself. This “scandal” was exploited not for environmental reasons, but to slime USFK. If these people really cared about cleaning the Han River they would be out campaigning to stop all polluting of the river, not just USFK.

It will be the same thing with the alleged polluting of the vacated camps. They got to spread their anti-USFK message and will move on to the next topic they can smear the US military with.

Click here for more additional information about the anti-US hate groups’ manipulation of environmental issues in Korea.

I have decided to take up Yangban’s challenge to do this piece of journalism (crap) from Oh My News justice. The author of this article, Michael Werbowski is trying to make a comparison that the US of today will fall just like the Roman Empire. In his agenda driven article he provides his (day dreamed) examples of why this is about to happen. Let me start with this example:

Rome extended the borders of its vast empire in conquest after conquest then exacted a “tribute,” or tax, on its subjected citizens. It was a reasonable trade off: the subjected peoples in return for a paying a “head tax” to their imperial overlords enjoyed the privileges of Roman civil rights and protection from barbarians thanks to the mighty empire’s legions.

This isn’t a bad idea because right now my tax dollars are going to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Korea, etc. So if we can get these people to pay us taxes that would really help the American tax payer. No Mr. Werbowski would prefer Americans pay more taxes:

This is compounded by a presidency restricted to promoting a corporate agenda at the expense of the greater good of the nation. Added to this is an administration willing and able to wage war, but not pay for it with higher taxes or able to ask it’s youngest to make the “ultimate sacrifice.” It is also unable to provide housing or decent pensions for its “war heroes” on the home front. This untenable situation led to uprisings among the armed legions of Rome and triggered revolts within the Roman imperial armies. Perhaps America should do more to keep its troops happy.

What does this guy know about making the “ultimate sacrifice”? US military members every day are giving up their lives for idiots like him to make such comments. Plus if US soldiers are on the verge of a uprising than why are recruiting numbers for Fiscal Year 06 so high?:

Companant Accessions Goal Percent
Army 25,973 25,100 103%
Navy 12,454 12,236 102%
Marines 11,572 11,050 105%
Air Force 12,064 11,994 101%

Plus why have reenlistment numbers been through the roof for the past 9 months and counting? Also I take it Mr. Werbowski has never seen US military housing before such as on Ft. Carson or Ft. Lewis for example.

Fort Carson Housing Community

Here is more of his ranting:

By contrast, the U.S. exports “freedom and democracy.” Decoded, these two words usually associated with liberty, in today’s context really mean tutelage by the World Bank and the IMF in the form of debt repayments. Freedom, in the form of free trade agreements, is exported around the globe, which enables corporations to usurp national sovereignty and operate beyond the “rule of law” with impunity in pursuit of greater market access. In the process, this forces “target nations” to give up their rights over their domestic industries to multinational control and ownership.

That IMF loan given to Korea during the Asian Financial Crisis saved the Korean economy. Where would Korea be today without it? Plus would the author prefer countries have no jobs instead of jobs from multi-national corporations? Maybe he does so they can all be on socialist welfare.

This has to be the most hysterical passage of the entire article:

The U.S. also exports its culture, such as video games and instant gratification in the form of fast food, to create an overweight and chronically ill populace on a global scale. This resembles a much cruder version of Rome’s bread and circuses, which distracted both the citizens and the conquered masses at the same time. At home, America offers its growing illiterate, incarcerated or homeless population a brief reprieve from their pitiful existence by means of a computer generated “virtual reality.”

I didn’t know the US had a policy that instead of funding soup kitchens the government funds PC Bangs for homeless people and convicts to play video games.

I also didn’t know the US government was allowing cattle ranchers to murder Mexican immigrants either:

One poor Mexican’s dream is another Arizona cattle rancher’s nightmare. Border states have mounted a patriotic resistance to this onslaught by keeping an armed militia on patrol to search for and often destroy undocumented day laborers with the benign consent of an overworked and underpaid U.S. border patrol.

Where is this guys proof that cattle ranchers are mass murdering Mexican illegals crossing the Arizona border? How is this responsible journalism? Here he continues his bashing of the US military:

On the foreign front of the global scale American-state, the war in Afghanistan against terror is being fought without the proper amount of ground troops. The same is true in Iraq. U.S. Special Forces try to win the “war on terror” by terrorizing local villagers who shelter their own “freedom fighters.” Wielding a big stick without dangling a carrot to the Afghan resistance, or any other armed opposition to the ongoing occupation, is unlikely to quell the ongoing uprisings in poor and backward states.

Here is a video of the American terrorizers at work. I could write a whole posting on this, but I hate listening to leftists talk about “freedom fighters” when us in the military have seen what the leftist’s freedom fighters really are. It makes me sick when these leftists dignify these pieces of human garbage as “freedom fighters”.

The rest of the article goes on about the usual leftist, Michael Moore conspiracy theory talking points of the war on terror being about oil yet there is no oil in Afghanistan and about how bad of a country the United Kingdom is. Overall being compared to the Roman Empire in my opinion isn’t a bad thing.

Let’s see the Roman Empire was founded by Augustus on 31BC and ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453; the US has been around since 1776 so that would mean, (leftist anti-Americans mark this date on your calendar) that the US “Empire” should fall just like the Roman Empire some where around 3260! 1,254 more years of pax-Americana! So if Mr. Werbowski wants to compare the US to the Roman Empire than go ahead. The Roman Empire was one of the greatest civilizations ever just like America. The Romans just like any civilization had it’s faults but the Romans did far more good than bad for the ancient world just like America is continuing to do far more good than bad in today’s modern world.

First Canadians were involved in the Spectrum Gate scandal, then visa fraud, and now this lottery scam:

The NIS says the international lottery scammers purport to be representatives of the Vancouver branch of Australian Lotto 6/45, an actual lottery, and lure the gullible with the chance to win up to $140 million ? provided they buy the ticket first at a price of $100, $50 or $25. They call themselves Australian Lotto 6/45 Global Processing Centre with a postbox address in Vancouver, Canada, to give the impression that they are related to the reputable lottery Down Under.

¿Canada¿s federal police has investigated some 5 percent of the replies sent to lottery scammers and discovered that some seven a day are sent from Korea,¿ an NIS official said. ¿It is estimated that the scammers are cheating some 1,000 Koreans a month out of their money.¿

Those dastardly Canadians are at it again. Maybe that explains why this group will not except Canuck scum. Anyway in the spirit of international cooperation with America’s northern brethren I still offer my advice free of charge to all Canadians in Korea of how to blend in as a USFK soldier. You may find that when wearing this disguise, taxi drivers may be a little uneasy around you, but overall you shouldn’t have to many problems blending in. I wonder if I will see Kwandongbrian wearing a Fubu shirt and a black backpack anytime soon?

It looks like Naver is looking to crackdown on all the trolls out there in the blogosphere:

Korea¿s largest portal site, Naver, announced Friday that it has revised its news page rules so that the number of replies members write can not exceed 10 per day. The company explained that the measure was to prevent Internet users from writing slanderous comments about others and reduce the excessive number of spam-like replies. According to an internal analysis, some 5 percent of the site’s members post more than 10 replies a day.
It will also now be possible to read all replies posted by a member by clicking on their user ID, which will help detect those who habitually write mean-spirited comments. However, if a user deletes their previous replies, they can post a new reply for every one that they erase.

I like the idea of being able to trackback comments to detect the trollers but limiting people to 10 posts per day will cut down on some good discussions that happen from time to time on some websites.  What would the Marmot’s Hole be like with people only being able to post 10 comments per day?

The lawyer for the Camp Red Cloud Sergeant Jin-hong Han has now appealing to have his 10 month prison sentence reduced.  However, his former wife and fooled fiance say that 10 months is not enough:

In the months and years they knew Han, he lied about his income, Army rank, marital status and intentions, both women said in separate phone interviews with Stars and Stripes recently.

Na, the wife, has polio and had hoped her marriage to a U.S. Army officer would bring her a more rewarding life. Kim, the girlfriend, said she gave up her job and home in Australia to return to Seoul and marry a man who made ¿rosy promises.

Now, Kim compares her dealings with Han to a movie or soap opera: Who on Earth can guess [this] absolute nightmare happened in my life? she said.

This case is just weird.  Read the rest of the article to get the complete details.

Dumb asses:

South Korean police are investigating two U.S. soldiers in connection with the theft of money from a tip jar in an off-base bar.

Yongsan police station detective Jung Hyun-soo said the soldiers, both 23, were apprehended about 12:30 a.m. Sunday at Gecko¿s Terrace Bar in Itaewon.

During the initial questioning, Jung alleged, the soldiers admitted to taking about $200 in won and dollars from the jar for fun.

Well at least they were stealing real money.

Protesters against the Camp Humphreys expansion have once again violently clashed against the riot police after government hired construction workers moved in to close the irrigation canals that direct water towards the rice paddies.  The Donga Ilbo has particularly good coverage of the chaos:

On the day of the confrontation, the area around the Camp Humphreys relocation site resembled a virtual battleground. Four hundred local farmers adamantly refused to leave and cried out that the land belongs to them. The Defense Ministry, too, stood firm and said that illegal farming in those areas will further push back the date of the U.S. military base relocation.

Faced with such fierce resistance, the Defense Ministry decided to cut off three waterways going into the contested farmland in Shindae-ri, Hamjeong-ri and Dodu-ri. Without the water from Anseong Stream provided by the three canals, farming is literally impossible in the 2.85 million-pyeong lands.

Here is a picture of the chaos from the Korea Times:

The protest is on the left and on the right are girls visiting a US military installation on the same day.

This is one of the popular claims of why the protesters are refusing to leave:

The holdout residents complainingly point out, ¿The compensation from the government is about 140,000 won per pyeong. But land price in neighboring areas, which do not belong to the relocation plan, is 200,000 to 300,000 won per pyeong. We don¿t want to leave the place where we have lived generation after generation.¿

The Defense Ministry, however, responds with, ¿The ministry has offered a variety of options, but it¿s the local residents who reject them. It is the `anti-American military presence¿ outsiders who cause a stir among the locals most of the time.¿

The 200,000 to 300,000 won per pyeong price the anti-US hate groups keep quoting is the price of the land after the relocation was announced.  With more soldiers and investment dollars moving into the Camp Humphreys area; of course land value is going to rise.  The government is offering them what the price of their land was worth before the relocation was announced.  These hate groups are using the farmers to promote their anti-US agenda while the farmers are using the hate groups in order to advance their claims to more compensation money.  It is right now a marriage of convenience between the farmers and the hate groups, but it could crumble if the Korean government offers more money to the farmers.  However, if they do that than it could start a bad precedence for the Korean government because every time the government needs to move someone they will also react violently in order to gain more money.
The Joong Ang Ilbo has come out strongly against the protesters:

The real reason that such clashes occurred was the intervention of anti-American organizations that are trying to force out the U.S. forces that are stationed on the peninsula. These groups are turning a blind eye to our security situation. They don’t care that two huge armies are perched in a face-off on the inter-Korean border. Nor does it help to point out Korea’s tense geopolitical location – being stuck between China and Japan – which could erupt into an open conflict at any time. Like parrots, they repeat what the North preaches: Namely, that peace will come only after the withdrawal of U.S. forces or that the country’s reunification is being prevented by the United States.
Some of them changed their place of residence to Pyeongtaek after the area was chosen to house the relocated military installations, in order to more easily stir up trouble in the town. Villages are being plastered with anti-American slogans and pictures. They have brainwashed citizens with ridiculous arguments that the relocation of the military installations is part of a plan to foster a war, which will obliterate Pyeongtaek when it happens. As a result, many citizens, especially old people, are being turned against the relocation, defense ministry officials say.

The anti-US hate groups are experts at manipulating people just like their idols in North Korea are masters at manipulating South Korean politicians.  You would think the government would be tired of these small scale riots all the time and just lock these people up and seal the place off once and for all to complete the project.  The Camp Humphreys expansion is really turning into a true test to see what the South Korean governments commitment to the US-ROK alliance really is.  If the Camp Humphreys expansion fails, it will signal the end of the US-ROK alliance.

If you are new to Korea and have wondered why Korean people especially women ask you what your blood type is well there is a reason for that.  Below is a graphic I graciously ripped off from the Japundit that lists what each person’s blood type means:

The worst blood type you can have is a type B. Type B people are supposed to make poor marriage choices due to their aledgedly unpredictable personalities.  This notion of blood type influencing personalities has even been made into a popular Korean movie, My Boyfriend is Type B. So the next time you are out on the town and someone asks for your blood type they are not sizing you up for an organ transplant, but as a compatible partner instead.  However, you might not want to tell them you are a Type B if you are.  Just give them your zodiac instead.