Monthly Archives: June 2009

Red Cross Comedy Session: Israel Trapping Gaza

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Get ready for the lulz:

The Red Cross released a damning report Monday on the effects of the Israel-led blockade on the Gaza Strip, describing the 2-year-old measure as having trapped the coastal territory’s 1.5 million residents “in despair.”

The international humanitarian organization lamented the fact that the blockade, imposed after Hamas seized control of Gaza two years ago, was impeding reconstruction efforts after Israel’s offensive in the Strip at the beginning of the year. 

Haaretz

Oh, Uh, OK. I understand… Israel has put up a blockade because they are dealing with a hostile, enemy government and that is trapping Gazans… But I seem to remember something about Gaza sharing a border with a fellow Islamic country that shares similar anti-Israel sentiment — like, what are those guys doing with Gaza right now? Helping them? But wait… How could they be trapped if only Israel is sealing one of the borders? Oh boy, this sounds complicated…

Let’s see: Continue reading →

USA’s Cultural Imprint On Iraq

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The war has changed a lot and perhaps it has planted the seeds for democracy:

“Our style has changed: we wear lighter make-up, we put fewer products in our hair, we dress more relaxed — even the way we smoke cigarettes or walk is different,” said Shaima Ali, a 20-year-old student in her first year at Baghdad University.

Wearing a denim skirt and turquoise top, she and her friend Marwa, 21, enthusiastically reeled off a list of American movies and television shows they had watched with Arabic subtitles on Saudi television channel MBC.

The pair cited American sitcoms such as Seinfeld and Friends, musical reality show American Idol and talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, as their favourites. Continue reading →

Hamas Playing Games: Israel Not A ‘Jewish’ State

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The cunning is almost respectable if it were not ridiculous:

The leader of the Palestinian group Hamas’s political bureau has refused to recognise Israel as Jewish state.

At the same time, Khaled Meshaal has endorsed the idea of a two-state solution, accepting the creation of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The comments came in an address to supporters in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday.

“We reiterate our rejection of the so-called Jewish state of Israel and we warn of any leniency towards this principle,” he said.

aljazeera.net

If you are confused at all: Hamas is essentially never going to recognize Israel as having the right to be a ‘Jewish’ state, and announces the creation of any so called ‘Jewish state’ as racist (later in the article). Continue reading →

북한에 대한 중국의 영향력이 사실은 그렇게 크지 않다

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많은 사람들이 이 것을 모른다:

또한 퍼슨 연구원은 북한과 중국 사이의 문헌 등 각종 문서를 분석한 결과 북한에 대한 중국의 영향력이 사실은 그렇게 크지 않다고 언급해 관심을 끌었다.

그 는 “북한과 중국과의 관계에 대해서 종종 잘못 이해되어지는 경우가 많다”면서 “조지 워싱턴 대학을 비롯한 주요 기관의 문헌을 분석한 결과 과거 60년 동안, 즉 김일성 집권 당시 국제적으로 민감한 문제에 대해서 중국이 여러 차례 북한을 설득했지만, 북한은 그들만의 원칙과 주장에 입각해 중요한 결정을 내려왔다”고 밝혔다. 따라서 이번 북한의 핵 실험에 대한 중국의 역할을 크게 기대하기 어렵다는 것이다. Continue reading →

선진국? 우리가? 괴롭지만 ‘속’ 보자

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아주 재미 있는 이야기다. 오늘 우리 수업에 이 주재가 나왔고 내가 한국은 선진국 이다고 말 했다. 오늘 이 글을 읽어서 아마 내 생각 조금 변했다… :

선진국? 우리가? 괴롭지만 ‘속’을 보자

‘선진국’. 1970~1980년대 한국인에게 이는 ‘꿈의 단어’였다. 개선을 위한 의욕은 충만했지만 ‘살아 생전 선진국 대한민국에 서 살게 될 것’이라고 확신한 사람은 거의 없었다. 이후 30여년이 흐른 지금, 우리는 스스로 혹은 남의 입을 통해 ‘선진국’이란 말을 하기도 하고 듣기도 한다. 심지어는 기정사실화하기도 한다. 우리도 모르는 새 어느덧 선진국이 된 것일까?

우 린 1996년 ‘선진국 클럽’이라는 경제협력개발기구(OECD)에 가입했다. 현재의 경제 규모는 세계 13~14위권까지 올랐다. 최근 국제통화기금(IMF)이 발표한 ‘세계경제전망’을 보면 한국의 명목 국내총생산(GDP·2007년)은 비교 대상 188개국 가운데 14위다. 부문별로는 ‘세계 1위 조선(造船) 대국’ ‘세계 1위 초고속 인터넷 보급국’ ‘세계 5위 자동차 생산국’ 등 자랑스런 것들이 한둘이 아니다. 세계 13번째 우주센터 보유국이고 곧 10번째 인공위성 자력 발사국으로 기록될 예정이다. Continue reading →

Obama’s Problem: “Overexposed?”

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I always dislike this sort of stuff…

“Oh, no; it isn’t the reality setting in that we have not been saving the economy or Obama adopting a lot of policies we dislike that Bush had, thus breaking promises… We just see him to much!”

If President Obama’s job approval ratings begin to dip, the cause isn’t likely to be disapproval of policies so much as the public getting exhausted at an overexposed presidency. Continue reading →

DPRK Accuses US Of Preparing For Strike

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Another beautiful situation: we react to the endless missile tests and increased hostility of the Democratic People’s Republic (LOL, I know) of Korea by deploying missile defense assets to Hawaii… North Korea responds with:

North Korea criticized the U.S. on Monday for positioning missile defense systems around Hawaii, calling the deployment part of a plot to attack the regime and saying it would bolster its nuclear arsenal in retaliation.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he ordered the deployment of a ground-based, mobile missile intercept system and radar system to Hawaii amid concerns the North may fire a long-range missile toward the islands, about 4,500 miles away.

“Through the U.S. forces’ clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the U.S. attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary. Continue reading →

Hugo Chavez Jr. Ousted In Coup

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Looks like following in the footsteps of a Venezuelan madman did not prove beneficial for the Honduran President:

President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was ousted by the army on Sunday, capping months of tensions over his efforts to lift presidential term limits.

In the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war, soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, early in the morning, disarming the presidential guard, waking Mr. Zelaya and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica.

Mr. Zelaya, a leftist aligned with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, angrily denounced the coup as illegal. “I am the president of Honduras,” he insisted at the airport in San José, Costa Rica, still wearing his pajamas. Continue reading →

Terror Suspects Were Aboard AF447

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Perhaps it could have been some form of terrorist attack:

TWO passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the doomed Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it emerged today.

French intelligence agents recognised the names while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31st.

Flight AF447 crashed in mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.

Air France also received a bomb threat in Brazil four days before the doomed flight crashed.

Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieur), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.

It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic. Continue reading →

Today, Han River: Old Man Misbehavior Session

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Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Next to the Han River a 20-something heavily tattood foreign male will jog for 1-2 hours this afternoon!

See old, shitty Ajoshi in biking uniform next to Han River stretch himself out oddly and say to him in Korean, thinking he does not understand, “Why don’t you keep going somewhere else?”

See half-way-unbuttoned-shirt 50 year old man stare openmouthed from his bicycle, nearly crashing into other bikers.

See alarmed late-twenties, early-thirties couples corral their children to their sides while the man jogs passed — it is commonplace for any tattoo’d people to launch Pedophile-style attacks on children during their afternoon jogs. Continue reading →