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Do They Really Want to Know?

Iran Asks 'Why Are Our Earthquakes So Deadly?'

Maybe 'cause Allah don't like you?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 20:44

Naked Chicks and Spies!

So the family and I Metroed into DC yesterday to get our fill of culture and the DC life. We wanted to visit the International Spy Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

We got to town about 1:00 pm and found out that the Spy Museum was all booked up until 4 pm. They work on a timed ticket entry sort of thing so we had to buy tickets for entry after 4 pm and go and find something else to do. We wandered down the street, turned the corner and lo and behold did we not stumble onto the Ford Theater where they show commercials for the new Taurus President Lincoln was assassinated. So in we went. Turns out you can visit it for free since it is a National Park (or something). Rather small and intimate, it was. They keep the Presidential Box the same way it was the night he was killed. Kind of creepy but highly recommended (and free) as a stop on your tour of DC.

Next we wandered over the to the Corcoran by way of the Elipse and got to check out the show where this art dude makes sculptures out of famous old oil paintings. He sculpts a bunch of people in plaster and bronze and sets them up like the CSI folks would do in a crime scene recreation. You can wander all around them, sit with them on benches, and feel up the courtesan (under view of an unhappy security guard lady)!

Then it was back up Pennsylvania Ave. for a bite to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe (ggod burgers, Mad Cow be damned!). And finally a walk around the corner to the Spy Museum whenre we spent two hours checking out some cool real-life spy gear, listening to stories about real-life spy people, and interacting with a variety of well done spy presentations. I give it two thumbs up! I will be returning for future visits based on my financial situation ($13 for adults, $10 for kids).

All in all a great day in DC since the weather cooperated as well (mid 50s and no wind). Today we are planning on driving up to Great Falls and checking out the moving water.

Don't y'all just wish you were me?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:03

Doing the Family Thing

The extended Corsair Clan is in town and we have been busy going to DC, checking out the new Air and Space Museum, eating way too much and doing the whole open-christmas-presents thing.

More when they clear out of the Corsair Cave.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 19:51

Headline on the Chosun.com website

So I am reading through the chosun.com website and I see the following:

Koreans Mistakenly Labeled Second-Heaviest Drinkers
The World Health Organization reported in 2000 that Koreans were the world�s second-heaviest drinkers. But the statistics were recently found to have been miscalculated.>>Full Text

I immediately get all hot and bothered for my Korean brothers and sisters since it is well known that Koreans are the world's first-heaviest drinkers (take that, Japan!) and no statistical miscalculation should get in the way of the truth!

Then I click the link to go onto the article to read about the chanting and the hunger strikes and molotov cocktails being readied for the eventual demos to counteract this slap at Korean nationalist pride when I read:

The World Health Organization�s (WHO) report in 2000 that Koreans were the world�s second-heaviest drinkers surprised a lot of Korean people. But the statistics were recently found to have been miscalculated, and that Korean drinkers were in fact about average for the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Oops. Seems like I was wrong. Koreans don't drink the most:

The citizens of Luxemburg were the heaviest drinkers, recording 14.9 liters, followed by Ireland (14.2 liters) and Portugal (13 liters.) Hungary was fourth (12.3) and the Czech Republic fifth (11.8.) France and Britain consumed a little bit more than Korea, recording 10.5 liters. New Zealand (8.9) and Italy (8.7) recorded figures similar to that of Korea. Japanese people consumed 8.2 liters on average.

Hah! At least they beat the stinking Japanese! Now get out there and drink one for the team, Koreans!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:05

Trade Up! Excitement Up! News Down!

Another breathless report this morning about the wonderous trade numbers put out by the Unifiaction ministry in Seoul:

Despite political tensions between the two Koreas, new figures released by Seoul's Unification Ministry show inter-Korean trade has been on a continual climb for more than a decade.
Officials are predicting findings for this year will indicate a 39 fold jump in cross-border economic exchanges compared to 1989.

Year-end transactions are forecast to reach US$750 million for 2003, that's in sharp contrast to the US$19 million sum recorded 14 years ago.

Ministry data also point to an expansion in the number of firms involved in cross-border business as well as the type of goods involved.

Wow. $750 million. That must be a lot, right? Especially when compared to the 1989 numbers! Why not pick the 1960 numbers when trade was probably $1? Then things are looking even better being up 750,000,000 percent! So how does all this play out on a national level:

GDP:
Korea, South $941.5 billion
Korea, North $22.26 billion
US $10.4 trillion

$750 million as a percent of GDP:
Korea, South .079%
Korea, North 3.4%
US .0072%

So this article makes a big deal about trade for South Korea that amounts to less that one tenth of one percent of their GDP. I am sure they do the same amount of trade with Burkia Faso and Swaziland but they don't go around trumpeting those numbers.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:48

Breaking News! North Korea Lies to its Citizens!

The Seattle Times breathlessly informs us that North Korea's citizens don't know anything about the outside world. Duh:

Having apparently concluded that no news is good news for the survival of its regime, the North Korean government goes to extraordinary lengths to prevent its citizens from being exposed to the outside world.

In an age of globalization and instant communications, North Korea is almost a black hole for information. Radios have their tuners fixed to a single official station and satellite dishes are banned to keep out foreign television broadcasts.

While North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is said to surf the Internet and tune into CNN, most of his citizens have access to little more than blatant propaganda.

"The North Korean people are like frogs in a well. They don't know the outside world at all," said a Chinese merchant who travels frequently into North Korea.

Like frogs in an empty well with nothing to eat but plenty of soldiers guarding the well from attack by... someone wishing to steal all the stuff the well does not have.

Doesn't really make sense does it? BINGO! You have now figured out North Korea!

You don't get a prize.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:39

No Wonder They Always Lose Their Wars

Arabs like to talk big about their military accomplishments. That all of them happend 700 years ago doesn't seem to slow them down. I can now see why they lose all the time when they go up against Jews and Americans and pretty much everyone:

Witnesses said Muslim extremists lunged and shouted at him and threw shoes in his direction. Bodyguards surrounded the minister and whisked him out of the compound. They said he was heard saying, "I'm going to choke, I'm going to choke" as he was being taken away.

Shoes? They threw shoes? Try flinging your Nikes at Special Forces soldier and see what happens!

Losers.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:55

No Wonder Their Economy Sucks!!

You have all heard the phrase "he is such a good salesman that he could sell ice cream to eskimos." While that might inflate someone's sales ego I hardly think that is anyone's most profitable business plan. Cold weather and ice cream usually do not mix well (said as a former Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Scooping Engineer).

North Korea earlier this year made a big deal out of some business changes they put into place. What they did was raise the price of everything and then give everyone a raise. Doesn't really make sense but that is NoKo for you.

This however is why they will never get out of the hole that they have dug for themselves:

A North Korean ice cream vendor awaits customers in Pyongyang December 20, 2003.

It is real cold in Pyongyang in December (check out the saleslady). Try selling something people want, babe. You'll make more evil, capitalist money that way.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:10

Huh?!

What are these chefs all upset about?



I know, I know... Some kinda cultural, death, grieving thing.. The hats I mean.

Still, they do look silly.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:52

Corsair the Rational Pirate is a Big Effing Pussy

Let us just get this part out of the way: Corsair is secure enough in his masculinity to admit he bawled like a little girl when he watched Lord of the Rings: Return of the King just a few minutes ago. All right? You got a problem with that? Nothing wrong with a real he-man expressing his emotions.

So, ah, how about them Bears?

On to the movie review!

Oh my effing gawd! What a movie. It was three and a half hours long and I wanted it to be 10. They better add an hour or more to the DVD or I won't be satisfied.

I wasn't too sure about the whole Liv Tyler thing when I first heard about it but if that woman isn't the best damn looking woman in the whole by-damned world I will eat this keyboard. I have no idea what she looks like in real life (like if you bumped into her in the cereal aisle of the local Piggly Wiggly [shaa, like that is gonna happen]) but in this movie she is perfection. Much like Jennifer Connelly was in Labyrinth. Liv just takes a man's breath away in this movie.

Orlando Bloom also looked good enough to eat (Hey! Masculine over here! I can say that!). And it appears that Aragorn finally finds that lost bottle of shampoo (but not until the end, though).

Everyone else was perfect of course but it will be a complete crime if Gollum does not win the Academy Award for best... whatever he is.

Now on to the special effects and were they damn special. I do not know how any movie employing special effects can ever again get made. They will all be measured against this one and all will be found wanting. Special effects are only really special when you don't know that they are even there. I firmly believe that Peter Jackson was able to get half a million people to put on rubber masks and stand on a big field hitting each other with swords and rocks. That is the only possible explanation I can find for what I saw. I saw men and orcs and elephant things and evil Nazgul and I beleive in the existence of all of them. There were no computers involved in this movie. And Minas Tirith?! Were the hell did they build that thing? I want to visit there someday.

This is a movie for the ages. People will look back on this like they look back on no other series. It took the books that people knew in their hearts and which many had memorized and told it in such a believable, real way that it will be almost impossible to do again with any other book. Harry Potter is a fine pedestrian effort but there is no heart there. LoTR stands alone as the greatest movie (taking all three as one) ever filmed in this humble Pirate's eyes.

*Snif*
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 15:41

Comments are back!

Let the typing begin... From either of you.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:00

More Flexibility?

How would it be possible?

China calls for 'more flexibility' in talks on N.Korea
Beijing, Dec. 16. (PTI): Acknowledging that differences between the US and North Korea were responsible for the delay in starting the second round of six-party talks on the nuclear issue, China has asked the two countries to show "more flexibility" in holding talks.

China, it appears wants more flexibility in the North Korean talks. That would be China on the bottom and I am not sure how much more flexible everyone can be in this situation.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:14

Lawnmower Chicken

Seems Korea is in the process of getting all medieval on some chickens and ducks due to illnesses.

UMSEONG, South Korea, (AFP) - South Korean health officials have slaughtered thousands of chickens and ducks and sealed off a wide tract of farmland to fight the apparent spread of a highly contagious bird flu virus that could be fatal to humans, officials said.

Quarantine officials had some 3,300 ducks culled and bagged for burial and ordered another 9,000 chickens slaughtered near this small farming town in Chungcheong province, 130 kilometres (80 miles) southeast of Seoul.

I remember back in the day going out to a "Hof" to suck down some not-completely-donkey-piss beer (OB specifically) and chowing down on what we affectionately called "lawnmower chicken". You see, here in the states people get used to the Colonel's way of cutting up chicken. You got your breasts and thighs and legs and wings (and all the icky bits that belong inside). That is pretty much the extant of it except when you head to McDonalds and get Chicken McNuggets which come from the mystery section of the chickens that even their doctors don't get to see.

So anyway, Americans are used to seeing chicken in only a couple of different shapes and sizes each of which is recognizable for what they are. Koreans, on the other hand have an odd way of cutting up a chicken that is both weird as well as dangerous. I know you are saying "Gee, Koreans doing something weird? How can that be?" But it is true.

In order to properly prepare a Korean chicken (or ddakk... doc... ttak... something like that) you need a big open field as well as an industrial strength grass mower. Put chickens in field, crank up the mower, run over the chickens. Voila! Instant "Hof" chicken ready for dipping in the hot oil.

What you get in a "Hof" is a plate of what appears to be nice chunks of deep fried chicken with a little batter and looking yummy. However, when you pop said chunk in your mouth and bit down it turns out that the chunk consists mainly of bones covered by a thin layer of flesh and batter. This immediately pierces the roof of your mouth causing excruciating pain. Which the "beer" does not completely help.

The moral? Ain't none 'cept to watch out for "Hof" chicken in Korea.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:07

Not to Put To Fine A Point on it or Anything...

Last week I mentioned a serious case of delusional thinking when a local boxer's five-week old daughter was beaten and killed. The "priest" in the matter considered that a reason to celebrate. I would put him in the same jail cell as the killer for being stupid and delusional but I know that being stupid and delusional are not grounds for incarceration... yet.

Well it turns out that the boxer, who last week said that god had a plan for everything, has lost his latest and last fight. It seems that god, by killing his new daughter, was trying to tell him to stay out of the ring perhaps. Dude did not heed his lord's word and, glory be to his enlightened all seeing self, got beat down! He should have seen it coming.

Of course he is now sitting alone in his room wondering why god is testing him once again and whether the big guy will be coming for his other children.

Scary enough to keep you up at night.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:54

Saudis Celebrating Hanukha?

Silent Running has the scoop!

I mean, what the Americans have done is a real mitzvah. Saddam should only grow headfirst in the ground like a turnip. Hey, he very nearly did! Ha, I kid!

I was just saying to Izzy and Mendel down at the deli while I was getting Miriam to fix me a corned beef on rye that the rest of the Saudi royal family have been totally nudging me about how the occupation's been going, and now this! Ayze mechiah!

Oy!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:37

What Happens to These Clowns When They Sleep?

We all know now what Saddam looks like when dragged out of a hole unprepared for the glare of television cameras:



But how come he looks as bad as this guy who was rousted out of bed in the middle of the night many months ago?



Is there some kind of ugly pill these guys take before bed every night?

(Corsair the Unhirsute Pirate vows to clean up before the morons of the world arrive to knock down my door... Although knowing them they will probably knock down the door of my neighbor the FBI agent.)
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:32

Ahhh, Those Tolerant Religoids

Went out to the parking lot here at work yesterday to hop into the Corsairmobile to head off to a job site and what to my wondering eyes did I spy but a big void where my up-until-that-morning Evolve Fish had been firmly attached. Did it fall off, I wondered? Course not! It was obviously ripped off forcefully leaving some of the sticky tape stuff still stuck on the trunk.

I can only imagine, of course that its very presence every day in the parking lot so offended some moonbat fundie that that person finally snapped and was forced to assault my very property. Either that or some religoid got a direct communication from god to wander over and deface the back of my car.

Regardless, it shows a decided lack of common sense (had I seen the offender I would have reported said person to our security office), little tolerance for the ideas of others, and no appreciation for the scientific method.

Luckily I had another one in the glove compartment and replaced it immediately. That is why I will always be one step ahead of them.

Now off to the website to order some more.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:34

Commenting Is Busted Again

I had to comment out commenting. It seems to have honked up my whole page.

Time to find another commenting thing again?


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 22:30

Koreans Walk on Their Hands and Wear Sheetmetal Underwear!

Korea is a crazy place. Not only do Koreans sleep standing up they also wear only one shoe (for religious reasons) and eat nothing but camembert (the cheese). I have also heard it said that Koreans were originally from Sweden (by way of East Krapistan) but now have gills which allow them to live in large vats of lemonade. Or so I have heard.

Seems that Koreans are trying to clean up the internet with regard to spurious and incorrect information regarding them (should be easy to do since they can access the high speed internet via their psychokinetic brain abilities):

Ulleung Island is a Japanese territory, and Korea through the 19th century was part of China. That is some of the wrong information about Korea found by people here and abroad who participated in a hunt for incorrect data on the Internet sponsored by the Government Information Agency last month.
The 169 participants found 1,850 cases of erroneous information about Korea, the agency said yesterday.

And here I thought Ulleung Island was a Korean-made habitat where Koreans trapped the indigeonous Ulleungs for use in their highly profitable coat collar industry. And eveyone knows that Korean didn't become part of China until the 20th century when they moved their country on underwater train tracks (built by the Fijians who don't need weight belts to work underwater because of their density) from an area just Northeast of Taiwan to its present location West of Beijing. Duh!

A soccer site, footballranking.com, had the LG Group, with interests in electronics, telecommunications and financial services, as a U.S. conglomerate. On Tourasia.com, Kim Dae-jung, who left office as president in February, was still Korea's head of state. The most frequent error among the cases found was the naming of the East Sea as the Sea of Japan.

The Government Information Agency said it has sent an e-mail to each one of the sites indicating the errors. It will also be opening on online site for Web surfers to report and exchange mistaken information about Korea.

Of course, the name "Sea of Japan" only came into wide use when local real estate conglomerates got tired of the previous name "Korea's Liquid Refuse Dump" and decided to spruce things up a bit.

Corsair the Rational Pirate eagerly awaits his email from the Agency for Information about the Government (currently housed in two chogajips [thatched-roof houses] just down the street from the Korean Prime Minister's residence [called the "Puce House"]) lauding him for his tireless efforts to educate the general public about the wonderful not-Japan place called Korea (which means "elbow" in Hangul, the local pictographic language developed in the 1920s so they wouldn't have to communicate by throwing cooked pasta on the walls and determine the meaning).
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:42

Arrrgh! More Baby Talk!

Corsair the Rational Pirate has, as many of you know, a small band of pirates-to-be: Corsair Jr, Princess Corsair I and Princess Corsair II. I love the all dearly and don't know how I would react were anything awful to happen to any one of them. Horrible awful things happened to this boxer who has to go one with his life:

The waiting over, his infant daughter's weeklong struggle on life support having ended, William Joppy hugged those around him at Children's National Medical Center and silently walked out the door. There were plenty of tears in the room, but none from Joppy.

"I was crying," said Adrian Davis, the longtime trainer of the former middleweight champion. "It was like it affected me more than it affected him."
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Police ruled the death a homicide. Joppy said the baby suffered head trauma while in the care of a 13-year-old sitter from her Mount Rainier neighborhood. "I wasn't there," Joppy said. "I don't know what happened for sure."

His little baby was killed by the babysitter. Someone beat his daughter so hard she died. That really really sucks.

The "support" he received from his "clergy" makes me just as mad as the actions of the homicidal baby sitter:

Joppy, 33, became a born-again Christian in his early twenties. As he explains it, his daughter's death and the fight of his life are just the latest tests of his faith. Rather than shake his devotion, it has deepened.

"My life has had its share of ups and downs," Joppy said. "But He has a reason for everything. He does. It just convinced me to stay on the right path.

"That's the only way I'm going to get to see my baby girl again and ask Him, 'Why?' " That reaction, said friends and members of his camp, is characteristic of Joppy.

"It was the period in the hospital that was the most difficult," said Steve Nelson, Joppy's co-manager. "She was barely clinging to life. There was doubt whether she would live, and if she lived, how was she going to live? He was as out of it as I've ever seen him. [At the funeral] William listened to the minister very carefully. The minister said, this is not a sad event, this is a celebration, because now the baby is going to be in God's hands. He snapped out of it very quickly after that."

I know dude's got to cope in his own way and shit, but what the hell kind of justification is that "this is not a sad event, this is a celebration"?! "Celebrate" this, mofo! If god wanted the little girl in his hands he could have just as easily kept her in heaven (or wherever... writing baby talk like a religious person is messed up).

What kind of ridiculous justification is this? These religious types always proclaim that babies are a gift from god to begin with. A miracle from heaven! A testament to god's love that he would bless us this way! In this case, however it appears that god is a bit of an indian giver. Drop the baby into your life for a few weeks and then snatch her away so she can be back with the big guy. Why the hell did he ever send her down to earth in the first place?!?

And how twisted is it that this guy calls the death of a 5-week old girl a "test of his faith"!?! Does the girl's new life not enter into things at all? Was this lump of skin, bones, and internal organs created for no other reason than to be brutally murdered so Mr. Center-of-the-Universe can be "tested"?! Arrrrgh! That is what happens when weak willed people are gullibly brainwashed into believing this crap.

(An aside. Why is it that Job as described in the Book of Job in the bible is held up to be some sort of paragon of goodness and piety? Satan shits all over him and his and he stands around taking it like a patsy. He may have come out of it smelling like roses, but what about all those around him who get all killed so that god and test Job's faith? Don't they amount to anything? Don't their lives mean anything? In god's eyes, I guess not)

Shit happens. Bad shit and good shit. It happens to bad people and to good people. There is no plan! Grow up!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:30

Ooooh, Look at the Funny Little Natives and Their Quaint Ways

So this worked-over looking Swedish chick flies into Korea and tells them stop modernizing and go back to the rice fields:

Korea could serve an important role in the worldwide movement against globalization that is eating away our society and our happiness, according to Helena Norberg-Hodge, an ecologist and author of "Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh."
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"The reason why Korea is so important is that you have a better memory of a traditional way of life _ stronger family and community ties and a culture of living with nature," she said.

And in Korea we can see a clear dichotomy (first time word use!) between the unhappy people of South Korea with their noraebangs, ski schools, high speed internet connections, and so much food that they are all on diet plans and the closer-to-the-earth North Koreans who currently enjoy foraging for tree bark and discussing the finer points of stir frying the latest dead comrade.

So this woman flies in and sees the vibrant, high tech society that Koreans have laboriously built over the last 50 years and decides that they really shouldn't be doing that and that they should:

She emphasized that Korea should not continue to follow this path, but work toward decentralization of social and economic systems and lead the local food movement against corporate globalization by supporting small farmers.

"We need to turn away from specialized production for export, and must change to diversified production for home needs," she said.

"I hope Korea will lead the way to become a leading example that starts to choose a different direction from the current economic growth trend."

And how are Koreans supposed to feed each other when you have 48,289,037 people living in an area only slightly larger than Indiana (population 6,159,068)? Should eveyone move back to family farms which are notoriously inefficient and will lead to the deaths of millions (see Pot, Pol)?

Can't live in the past. You can make the future better and cleaner and more environmentally friendly, but not by forcing people to drop the trappings of a modern civilization and live in the 19th century.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:12

Dude Nails It

It's great being a dude!

(stolen from Sgt. Stryker)
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:34

Oh, Well, Not Just a Little Self Serving, Are We?

Here is a quote:

"I think people are catching on and beginning to recognize that this is one of the most serious issues confronting America," said Peter Negroni, senior vice president of K-12 education at the College Board, which develops the SAT, the PSAT and the AP program. "To me, it is the issue of our time."

What, pray tell could this scourge on American society be? Terrorism? Taxes? Old Age? Yellow Teeth?

Nah, the real culprit is:

One in four freshmen at four-year colleges don't return for their sophomore year, according to Education Trust, a nonprofit group that promotes higher academic achievement. One in two freshmen at two-year colleges does not return.

So the fact that people who are not ready for college are not completing college in four years is the biggest problem facing America today? Somehow I don't think this issue is popping up on anyone's radar over there at the White House.

Maybe the issue is that people who are not ready for college will figure out that they are not ready and will skip spending big money to take SAT, PSAT, and AP tests and will therefore not be enriching the College Board with all their hard-earned simoleans. That, I agree may be a huge problem best solved by shoveling huge piles of tax dollars at College Board.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:40

Oh My Effing Goawd, She Got Married in Korea!

That was the first thing I thought when I saw this pic:

U.S. pop singer Britney Spears (news) waves to photographers, wearing South Korea (news - web sites)'s traditional costume 'Hanbok' during a photo session in Seoul, Monday, Dec. 8, 2003. Spears arrived in South Korea Sunday for her Asia tour to promote her new album, 'In the Zone.' (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)

Something just doesn't look right on that girl. But with the rise of all the bleached blondes in Korea I guess she wouldn't look all that out of place walking the streets of Seoul (or, more likely sitting in a window in Miari).
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:36

Thought They Were Talking About Me

Until I checked the scale:

"The copulatory organ is large and stout," said the team of scientists, led by David J. Siveter of the University of Leicester in England, in their report today in the journal Science. "The prominent copulatory appendage indicates that the specimen is a sexually mature adult male."

All well and good so far.

But:

An animal's soft body parts hardly ever remain apparent as the organs fossilize and are gradually replaced by stone. But in the case of the 425 million-year-old crustacean, only two-tenths of an inch long, the scientists were able to clearly discern a penis.

Only two-tenths of an inch? Now it sounds more like me...
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:51

Cool Way to Shop

Being the plugged-in, 21st century pirate that I am, I am doing most of my shopping online. The best thing that I have found about shopping this way is collaborating with others. I can call up the Pirate Mom, give her a URL, wait for her to bring up the item on her screen and then ask her if this is the sort of thing that Mrs. Corsair would like (them both being of the feminie persuasion and all).

Played the same game with the Corsair Sister regarding various of our offspring and their wants and needs.

Makes Shopping Easy�!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:00

Buwahahahahahaha!

Better get your checkbooks out, you US imperialists, North Korea is looking to get paid!

Pyongyang, November 29 (KCNA) -- The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and the National Reunification Institute made public a memorandum on November 28 after making a joint comprehensive survey of the human and material damage caused by the U.S. imperialists to the south Korean people since it occupied south Korea on September 8, 1945 and estimating its total amount.

And what is that total amount, you ask?

  9,343,020,050,000 dead people reimbursement

 13,105,728,120,000 wounded people reimbursement

  4,281,665,880,000 property confiscated

  5,145,398,340,000 damage caused by destruction

  2,341,469,900,000 damage caused by aid(?)

  1,413,903,760,000 damage caused by trade and market opening

  4,233,270,160,000 damage caused by US monopoly capital

    127,792,170,000 loss cuased by US bases in South Korea

    705,395,760,000 payment for US troops upkeep 

  1,083,633,580,000 forced purchase of war equipment

    577,742,910,000 loss from war exercise

    780,000,000,000 environmental damage

-------------------------

 37,905,750,770,000 total monetary damages

Other damages:

~200,000,000,000 art treasures looted
~ 12,000,000,000 drugs smuggled into SoKo "rendering the people mentally and physically deranged"
~100,000,000,000 sexual damages "They have brutally violated many south Korean women and reduced them to sexual slaves, producing hundreds of thousands of foreigners' whores and mixed-bloods."


Totals: In order for the US imperialists to make good with the peace loving people of the land of the Morning Calm (who never hurt even a fly until the US imperialists showed up):

$43,139,020,630,000 (that would be 43 trillion dollars, a paltry sum for imperialists like the US)

But that is OK, since it really is only $159,774.15 per person in the US (which is where all the imperialists live... except for the ones in Japan).

So where do I send my check?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:18

Looks Like the Korean Military is Getting All Soft

Beds?!? We don't need no stinkin' beds! Why in my day we slept in a shoe box in the middle of the road. We would get up at 10 o'clock at night half an hour before before we went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison...

The military has started to replace wooden floors bedecked with blankets at camp barracks with individual beds, the Defense Ministry said yesterday.
The change, which aims to improve soldiers' living conditions, will be finished at front-line units by the end of this year, the ministry said.

Many Korean soldiers still sleep on a wooden floor elevated from the ground in barracks, which usually house 25-30 soldiers.

I used to watch TV and even visited our Korean compatriot's barracks a couple of times and actually asked "Where do you sleep?" There was one big room with raised wooden platforms on either side of a middle walkway. These were the "beds". The troops each got a bedroll kind of thing that was rolled up during the day and slept on at night. When I went through basic training we all slept in one big room but we got individual beds. These poor Korean soldiers had to sleep all together the whole time they were in the service (except for the 2 days a month they were allowed off base to drink soju and meet up with hookers Room Salon girls).

Now they get to sleep on beds. Next thing you know they will want to get of base 3 days a week!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:41