Probably not the real Kim Jong-il
-"Dear Leader" dearly departed?-
There's been some speculation about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's health. A new photo released by the secretive nation is supposed to show Kim in good health, but what it really shows is that North Korea has Photoshop. The image, available from the BBC, shows a pretty decent cut and paste job of Kim posing for a photo with about a hundred or so soldiers. But obvious errors include mismatched pixels, shadows cast at the wrong angle, and a continuity error involving a seam on a bleachers.
"It does seem likely that he's still ill. They sometimes don't realise that what a domestic audience will accept won't necessarily work for a more sceptical international audience," North Korea expert Aidan Foster-Carter says. "You think they'd be a bit more proficient at doing this by now!"
While the consensus seems to be that Kim is seriously ill, probably hospitalized, others have speculated that his condition has stabilized at dead. A Japanese analyst believes that Kim has been an ex-dictator since 2003, when he died of diabetes. "Already he has died. A lot of information came from Pyongyang," says Professor Toshimitsu Shigemura. "A Japanese TV station checked his voice print four years ago and the result was the voice was different..."
How do you explain video of Kim walking among the living since 2003? Doubles, like Saddam Hussein used to use. Shigemura says no one can be absolutely certain that Kim is no longer among us, but that contacts he has in North Korea tell him they're "maybe 60 per cent or 70 per cent [sure] it's possible."
So who might be running the Democratic People's Republic of Korea right now? Who knows? Some other nut, I guess. I hear other dictators will soon be looking for a job, maybe the DPRK is hiring... (BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
-Headline of the day-
"O’Reilly throws down the gauntlet in the War on Christmas."
Is it just me or are the dark forces of secular progressivism breaking out the War on Christmas earlier every year? Geez, it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Can't we destroy that sacred American tradition first? For those of you new to this destroying Christmas thing, it's easy. Whenever someone says something like "Happy Holidays," instead of "Merry Christmas," it means they hate America and want to eliminate Christmas (and, yes, people really believe this).
While O'Reilly uses this stunt every year to pump up his own ratings, blaming a non-existent "War on Christman" on an invented "secular progressive movement," there are signs that Bill-O is losing a war he made up.
According to the report, "For the past two nights, O’Reilly has been offering bumper stickers reading 'We Say Merry Christmas' to anyone who orders his book off his website."
Unfortunately, Bill went all secular progressive himself last night, telling viewers that his website has merchandise for the "Christmas and Hanukah season."
What? Say only "Merry Christmas" you liberal, America-hatin' son of a bitch! Say only "Merry Christmas!" (Think Progress)
-Bonus HotD[s]-
#1. "McCains ask supporters to put country first."
John McCain asks backers to support Barack Obama. "We urge you to join us in not just congratulating Sen. Obama, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together as a nation." McCain said in a statement. "Whatever our differences may be, we are all fellow Americans."
#2. "Cross burned on lawn of Obama supporters in Hardwick [NJ]."
According to the report, "The charred cross was partly wrapped with a homemade congratulatory banner that declared 'President Obama Victory '08' and had been stolen from the lawn the night before, police said."
Thanks John, but class at the end doesn't undo the lack of class you displayed in your campaign. Why don't you just go the fuck away and let the grownups fix what you screwed up, OK? We can just add it to that big long list of Republican failures -- right between "invaded Iraq" and "blew up the economy," we can put "made it OK to burn crosses in people's yards again."
On the bright side, if these pricks keep pulling this kind of thing, they're going to keep getting their asses handed to them at the ballot box. So long, dumbasses. (The Hill, Star-Ledger)
