Killer allergies this morning. Probably won’t be in the mood to post anything for a few days.
Category: Miscellaneous
A Couple Links
The Belmont Club has video of a prototype South Korean border guard robot armed with an automatic rifle.
"Put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply."
(ED-209 image from Starship Modeler.)
In other news, Strategy Page featured a story about the Chinese navy working to make their nuclear submarines quieter.
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Let Freedom Reign
The most important story of Sunday received shockingly little coverage: Miniskirts and hot pants soon to be legalized in South Korea.
Which is not to minimize the the sentencing of Saddam Hussein to death story. But c’mon. Who doesn’t like hot pants?
Japanese Ravens
Figure out novel ways to crack walnuts. Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Bizarre Japanese Inventions
This site says they’re useless, but that’s really unfair. Those eyedropper funnels just MIGHT work.
😉
(Hat tip to The Corner.)
A Few Links
On the decline of Stalinism in North Korea.
How North Korea avoided economic collapse, and what genuine signs of reform in that country would look like.
(Hat tip to The Corner at the National Review.)
The Da Vinci Code, Japanese-style.
(Just for laughs, I might as well toss in Sam Kinison debunks the Da Vinci Code as well. Some of the language is a bit crude.)
An American intelligence officer predicts the Muslim World will be a long-term source of instability – back in 1946.
How’d you like to be the accountant auditing the brass hats of the People’s Liberation Army?
The PLA’s view of recent American military actions.
and, just one more:
Back In Town
Four in the morning now, and I’m wide awake from jet lag. So I’m checking my blog stats, and out of the blue discover that The Foreigner in Formosa has been nominated for an Asia Blog Award.
Sure beats the usual kind of surprise I get after returning from vacation. You know, like the toilet isn’t working, or something.
So a big Xie Xie Ni* to whomever it was that nominated me. I don’t seriously expect to win, but the old cliche’s a cliche because it happens to be true: It really IS an honor just to be nominated.
Heck, I’ll go further than that. Some of those other sites are so good that it’s an honor simply to be listed alongside them.
* Mandarin for "Thank you".
Light Saber Duel
National Review had a link to this student film featuring a light saber duel set to the Dark City soundtrack. (It can also be found here.) I think it features a little of the back-handed swordsmanship style from the short-lived Conan television series.
UPDATE: It looks like the short is three years old, yet suddenly it’s getting simultaneous buzz on several of the blogs that I have links to. Odd how that happens.
Another Sign Of The Apocalypse
US pop diva Madonna wants to buy a house in the Israeli town of Rosh Pina, where the ancient Jewish Kabbalah tradition expects the Messiah to appear at the end of the world.
Reverend Lovejoy: "It’s in the Book of REVELATIONS, people."
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A Few Links
Mohammed over at Iraq the Model discusses the clerical preparation behind the "spontaneous" demonstrations in Iraq following the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra. His brother Omar describes new developments in the Saddam Hussein trial.
Meanwhile, Sandmonkey has a bit of evidence that the Europeans are starting to get fed up in the aftermath of "The Battle of Khartoon." He has more here.
Finally, Wretchard at The Belmont Club had a moving post a while back about World War II poem codes.