Va. Tech: Gunman student from S. Korea - Yahoo! News

I guess America was busy worrying about the wrong Korea

Va. Tech: Gunman student from S. Korea - Yahoo! News

Girls Gone Wild Creator Ordered To Jail

Girls Gone Wild Creator Ordered To Jail

or

Justice Sought for American Victims 22,313,420 through 22,313,427

In yet another non-event, anything short of castration itself will not be suitable to the American appetite for revenge... er, I mean justice.

For those fortunate masses living outside the US, a series of videos collectively entitled "Girls Gone Wild" has been quite a success for the past few years, mostly by advertising in the middle of the night by peddling the dream of endless, attractive flesh to lonely male hearts. It certainly must have worked, because Joe Francis, the one who started this series, sold a lot of copies, netting close to US$30 million/year doing this business. That probably makes at least a million DVDs purchased per year, not counting the number of copies that were dubbed off.

The most ingenious part of the deal? The "actresses" went unpaid, since all he was doing was capturing their public displays of nudity during spring breaks, Mardi Gras, bar mitzvah, whatever occasion these stupid women felt that they could get away with acting out through their inner slut.

So it was years of success all around - this guy making handfuls of cash, the girls reaching brief fame, the American male achieving non-chemical arousal - but finally, the American public woke up and felt dirty about all this. To cleanse itself, eight girls were quickly identified that were underage at the time of their public nudity (think 17 years old here) - yes, these same eight girls that had signed release forms stating that they were consenting adults. If true, this makes for a criminal matter, but we simply fast forward to the juicy part of justice: money. Even the fast forward isn't fast enough, because before a civil court has even ruled on this issue, the public has already cast its vote against him, perhaps making this guy even more hated than Sanjaya.

This idiot should have realized that the only thing that Americans hate more than pornography is the success of others.

Postscript: the linked article above is from The Onion, a satirical magazine, so the "man on the street" responses are simply a joke - the litigation is not.

Net 2.0.1: DieSpace

An article (subscription required) in the latest issue of the Atlantic (May 2007) discusses the trend of group suicide in Japan:

During my first two weeks in Japan, five cars filled with dead bodies were discovered in the woods around Tokyo.

There have been many articles and even a fictional film about the phenomenon. This story cites the trend's inception around 1998:

In 1997... Japan was merely average when it came to suicide. As in France and Germany, there were then about 17 suicides per 100,000 people… [t]hen 1998 saw something of a suicide surge — to 27 per 100,000... Each year more than 30,000 Japanese destroy themselves. That's roughly four times the number who die in traffic accidents.

Since that time, the suicide rate has been steadily rising and breaking records. Pathetic stories abound of people searching for someone to die with.

Apparently, without a global war in which to channel their energies, the Japanese people have little to do with themselves outside of raping those asking for it and those not, whaling and fishing aquatic life to near extinction, buying used panties, and other such pearls. (Who does PR for these guys anyway?)

Given Japan's declining birth rate and its hatred of non-Japanese, the country may soon be just a collection of dead cities filled with robots. Maybe Sony has tapped into something here. By 2040, the chief concern of leaders throughout the region will be whether the Japanese Robo-Lords will demand robot comfort women. China had better start production soon, and others would do well to pay close attention to this upcoming film and determine possible strategies of these Robo-Japanese.

OK, back on point here: why do they really do it? According to the Atlantic:

Suicide, which Shakespeare called "self-slaughter" and which is known in Christian teaching as "the sin against the Holy Ghost," occupies a very different place in the imagination of the West than it does in Japan, where self-disembowelment with a specialized blade has long been considered a proper response to shame or dishonor.

Japan has a long history of families committing suicide together, as well as suicides by cults and militaristic groups, including kamikaze pilots, or samurai warriors who suffered dishonor and hoped to wipe the slate clean. What is shocking about the new suicide epidemic is not so much that it is a group activity as that people are choosing to kill themselves together with total strangers.

It becomes another case of cultural divergence: where the West sees (and fears) death as a primary failure of life, the East sees the actual failure as not dying subsequent to failure. There is no room for second acts in Japanese thought.

What does this mean to you? Well, so far, this bit of Eastern nihilism has not yet appeared on other shores, so for those hearty trendsetters looking to score points with their friends, the Atlantic article contains a pretty detailed account of the process: charcoal burners, sealed rooms/automobiles, and the desired result of you and your MySpace buddies asphyxiating.

It may not be all that bad - for some, it beats living in Japan.

Adult magazines, juvenile nation

"The road which we will take is refiling the complaint not only against Playboy but also against other adult magazines," Munarman, a lawyer representing Muslim groups, told reporters. More on this

What did we learn from this exercise?

1. Adult magazines are not welcome in this juvenile nation
   
2. After a colossal loss by the prosecution, they will choose to redouble their efforts and widen the scope
   
3. The Indonesian public is clearly bored as this issue has well exceeded their attention span

Herald.com | 03/25/2005 | Schiavo's parents: Terri tried to speak last week

It was only a matter of time before the true believers made everyone see how nutty they really are.
Herald.com | 03/25/2005 | Schiavo's parents: Terri tried to speak last week: "''I promise you, if she dies, there's going to be hell to pay with pro-life, pro-family, Republican people of various legislative levels, both statewide and federally, who have used pro-life, pro-family, conservative rhetoric to get into power, and then when they have the power they refuse to use it,'' he said."

Bush gives back to the health insurance industry

Lack of health insurance and spiraling health care costs are minor issues - the real concern for the health care consumer is consolidation of their records for access by the health insurance industry

President Bush said today he wants every American to have an electronic medical record within the next 10 years, and so has pledged to increase funding next year to $125 million for demonstration projects to test the effectiveness of health information technology.
According to the White House, most American industries are spending approximately $8,000 per worker for IT, but the health care industry is investing only $1,000 per employee.

To help defray the increased IT costs, consumers can also look forward to faith-based initiatives like praying and wishing things away.
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Suspension + remedial Geography classes

Out of respect for the tsunami victims, the customary free pass to racist black Americans has been suspended as well

The Miss Jones morning show on hip-hop radio station Hot-97 has been yanked off the air amid growing outrage over a twisted tsunami parody song even the boss called "indefensible."
Emmis Radio, which owns Hot-97 (WQHT), said yesterday Jones, whose real name is Tasha Nicole Jones, and her team have been "indefinitely suspended," an action critics called belated and insufficient.

Some hilarity from this cheeky ditty, focused as it is on the non-existent suffering of "chinks" and "Chinamen" who were thousands of miles from the tsunami itself:

There was a time, when the sun was shining bright
So I went down to the beach to catch me a tan.
Then the next thing I knew, a wave 20 feet high
Came and washed your whole country away.
And all at once, you can hear the screaming chinks.
And no one was saved from the wave.
There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away.
You can hear God laughing 'Swim you bitches, swim.'
[Chorus]
So now you're screwed. It's the tsunami,
You better run and kiss you ass away, go find your mommy.
I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head
And now your children will be sold - child slavery.

Why the to-do? It's so funny!!!
More here and here

Token ring is a state secret

We also know that al Qaeda is ruthlessly pursuing the purchase of an AS/400...

In what would be the biggest overseas acquisition by a Chinese company, Lenovo announced in December to takeover IBM's US-based PC division for US$1.75bn.
But three Republican congressmen called for a full security review of the sale this week, saying that the proposed transaction could result in advanced US technology and corporate assets falling into Chinese government hands.

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Seems like old times

Gather up the comfort women and welcome the troops!

Two Japanese military hovercraft roared ashore in Aceh Province on Thursday as Japan began its largest overseas military operation since World War II.

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Unbreakable, sort of

Great - more ideas for al Queda
At Least 10 Are Killed as Trains Derail in California