Who can names these two islands connected by a bridge?

Here is an interesting article about a gallery in London that features anti-Bush political cartoons:

I ventured into the small gallery which, through this Saturday, will host an exhibition of political cartoons dedicated to President George W. Bush.

Some prominent cartoonists, including Steve Bell and Martin Rowson, are showcasing their collection of cartoons about Bush. The cartoonists satirize Mr. Bush as an incompetent leader who has led the planet into a blood bath in Iraq and has evil ambitions of world domination.

Mr. Rowson told me that he gets around 400 pieces of hate mail every time he upsets Republicans in the United States with his depictions of George Bush.

I can understand a debate about President Bush being incompetent or arguements over the war in Iraq but to call Bush “evil” is just taking things to far. I find it interesting that the cartoonists feel so free to demonize Bush but are to scared now to print Islamic cartoons for fear they will be attacked and murdered. Yet Bush and the Republicans are the “evil” ones.

This is why 18 year olds shouldn’t be at Hongdae at 4AM in the morning:

The first thing Jasmyn Chambers, 18, remembers from early morning Feb. 25 isn’t the pain of a jagged beer bottle slicing through her face. What struck her first was bewilderment.

She still has trouble understanding why a soldier, or any man, would slash a woman’s face so badly she would need 80 stitches.

“I can’t believe he’s a person that would do that to somebody,” said the Seoul American High School senior.

The accused soldier, Pfc. Christopher Myers, 20, of the 435th Medical Detachment at Camp Humphreys, is charged with multiple offenses including aggravated assault and underage drinking.

This soldier is undoubtedly going to face stiff military punishment and will possibly also be subjected to punishment from the Korean authorities as well. This guy has to got to be quite a scumbag to hit an 18 year old girl with a beer bottle.

Now why an 18 year old girl is clubbing at Hongdae, well that is open to debate.

Here is an interesting article in the Stars and Stripes about life at the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom:

It is a war zone littered with minefields and 160,000 yearly tourists.

It’s also where 38 soldiers with the 8th Army and under the United Nations Command Security Battalion/Joint Security Area work six days a week on a base cut off from the rest of South Korea by the restricted “Freedom Bridge.”

It’s not for everybody, they freely admit. But some of the soldiers handpicked for this duty voluntarily spend several years at Camp Bonifas, a stone’s throw — and be careful where you throw that stone — from the Demilitarized Zone.

If you live in Korea and haven’t been to the JSA you really should. If you are in the military the easiest way to go is to take an MWR tour that is scheuduled monthly. You must wear your class B’s though. If you are not in the military you will need to get with a Korean travel agent to line up a tour. You will have to leave your Megadeath shirt at home though because there is a dress code. It is worth dressing up though to see this last frontier of the Cold War.

Who would of thought a Russian music degree would be so valuable:

Prosecutors said Sunday that they have arrested a South Korean woman on charges of selling fake Russian music degrees to about 120 South Koreans in collusion with a Russian professor.

The 51-year-old woman, identified only by her family name Do, was charged with selling counterfeit Russian music doctorates to 21 South Korean professors and musicians and fake master’s degrees to about 100 other Koreans, prosecutors said.

Do is believed to have colluded with a Russian professor, who now serves as the dean of a Russian music college, identified only as its initial, V, they said…….

“Do advertised her institute as a Korean campus of the Russian university and the Russian college dean came here along with a couple of other Russian professors for about 10 days a year to provide lessens,” said a prosecutor. “Each student paid about 4 million to 5 million won in lesson fees per semester.”

Do, who runs a private musical institute in southern Seoul, was accused of receiving about 2.5 billion won (US$2.4 million) from the buyers of the fake Russian degrees, said the prosecutors, adding that the illegal proceeds were equally shared with the Russian professor.

So why would someone buy a fake Russian degree you may ask:

The 21 Koreans who bought fake doctorates are now teaching in universities or performing in symphony orchestras after registering their forged degrees with the Korea Research Foundation.

It kind of pisses me off that many people work hard for many years to get through college and earn real degrees and people like this take good jobs away from these people with their fake credentials.

Oh My News is running an interview of fellow K-Blogger Antti of Hunjangui Karuch’im fame. This is not the first profile that Oh My News has done on Korean K-Bloggers. There was this interview done with Jeff in Pusan and this interview with Kevin of the Big Hominid as well that are worth checking out.

With Korea’s loss to Japan in the World Baseball Classic the conspiracy theories are already beginning and most of them have to do with why Korea gets eliminated after only one loss:

Some of the players were still not content and the reasons for that included a weird bracket of the tournament, where the top two teams in the second round group meet again in the semifinals.

“We aimed to go to the semifinals and made it in the end. I’m satisfied. We’ve already won twice so I don’t think we lost to Japan,” Lee Seung-yeop of South Korea said. “We did our best but I’m afraid there has been something not proper about the rules in the event, as long as we went 6-1 and still have to be eliminated.”

This has been a common sentiment not only with players but also with Korean fans:

“It is a pity to lose the game, but I highly recognize the national team’s efforts. It is also regretful that we could not gain a good result despite fine plays because we had to fight the Japanese team three times due to the U.S.’ abnormal game schedules,’’ Park Sung-soo, 31-year-old Seoul citizen, said.

It is called single elimination people. Your pool play record means nothing when in a single elimination game. Koreans should know this from watching the World Cup every 4 years where the same system is used. It is not a black helicopter US CIA conspiracy to hold back Korea.

I will use an NFL example to better make my point. You do not see the Indianapolis Colts complaining about losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL Playoffs even though they had a better season record and beat Pittsburgh during the season? The fact is that it was single elimination and they get beat, that simple.

Some people think the semi-finals should have been a three game series, but all the teams that entered the WBC new the format and rules and signed up for it anyway. I don’t think it is proper to complain about the rules and format publicly afterwords after you voluntarily signed up to play in the tournament to begin with.

The Korean team had a great run and have a lot to be proud of. I expect the WBC will make some format changes in 4 years, but the black helicopter CIA conspiracy theories have got to go.

Of course head over to the Marmot’s Hole to hear all the latest conspiracy theories.

From the Stars and Stripes:

A U.S. soldier was sentenced to five months of confinement and a bad conduct discharge during a court-martial Friday on charges he was absent without leave from his unit for more than nine months.

Kenneth H. Gore Jr., of the 8th U.S. Army, also was reduced from the rank of E-2 to E-1 during the half-day court proceeding.

So why did he go AWOL?:

During questioning, Gore told Parrish he had married a South Korean woman in early 2005 but had problems getting her a visa to return with him to the United States.

Gore said he had submitted an extension package to stay in South Korea so he could work the issue but the Army denied his request. A second request also was denied, he said, which led him to decide to stop reporting for duty so he could get her “paperwork processed.”

“I thought it would take anywhere between a couple a days and a week,” he stated in court Friday.

Instead, Gore holed up in an off-base apartment until January 2006 while his wife worked to support them, he said.

On Jan. 3, Gore said, his wife called military authorities and told them his whereabouts. A military investigator and Korean National Police who responded found Gore hiding in a closet, he said.

He goes AWOL for the wife and the loving wife turns him in. I wouldn’t say this has the makings of a healthy marriage. Yes he is an idiot and he now has 5 months at Camp Humphreys to think about it.

This case is a perfect example of why I say it is better to get a Fiance’ Visa instead of getting married in Korea if your time in country is short. Bring the significant other over to the US before getting married to see how she adjsuts, plus the paperwork drill is much easier and doesn’t require you to go AWOL like this dumb soldier.

So who started the Yongsan fire? Was it the crazy ajumma?:

A South Korean woman who had protested outside a Yongsan Garrison gate for the last month is the lead suspect in a Thursday morning fire that’s being called the biggest blaze on the U.S. military base in at least 35 years, according to South Korean and U.S. officials…….

Police also have requested a mental evaluation of the woman, identified as Kweon Jung-ja, 57. She has been seen frequently outside of Yongsan Garrison complaining about the South Korean government and asking the United States for help, Jang said.

On the night of the fire, she was at the scene yelling that she had started it, South Korean police have said.

Or was it the drunk ajushis?:

On Wednesday night, five service corps workers had returned to that building after a union dinner, Jang and others have said. The workers had been drinking, though it was unclear how much, Jang said.

At some point, all five men fell asleep. One of the men, Lee Guen-sang, told police he was awakened by a noise outside the building, Jang said. Smoke was beginning to fill the room, Lee told the police.

Lee, who was not harmed in the fire, found Kweong screaming that she started a fire, Jang said. Lee and another man, Kim Jin-su, escaped the building unharmed, Jang said. They later told police they didn’t know that there were other people sleeping in the building, Jang said.

It was still unclear Friday how Kweon was able to get inside the compound.

My money is on both of them. Here is my theory. The drunk ajushis probably left the gate open which allowed the crazy ajumma to enter and set the place on fire. Sounds plausible to me. This is definitely one of those only in Korea stories.

Here is a link to at least one person who witnessed the aftermath of the fire.

This is pretty amazing that this family actually made across the maritime border without being detected:

A family of five North Koreans, including two children, were found adrift aboard a small barge inside South Korean water across the eastern sea border, military officials said Sunday.

A South Korean coast guard boat spotted the barge carrying the North Koreans sailing across the tightly guarded border in the East Sea on Saturday night and towed it to Goseong, a port on the east coast, they said.

The North Koreans told investigators their boat had drifted for two days before striking a rock, the officials said.

The military and the Coast Guard were jointly investigating whether the North Koreans had an intention to defect, they said.

The investigation should be short, but I’m not sure what else a family of five on a barge would be doing out in the middle of the East Sea in the cold other than defect.