before I head off to Fukuoka...

Kevin at IA provides an excellent corrective to Fred Kaplan's overoptimistic assessment of the Korean situation.

Satan's Anus roars about Chemical Ali.

ArnoldWatch: The Big Man might consider tax hikes (I think it's good he's being flexible; it fuels my cynicism when politicans back themselves into a rhetorical corner) and endures ankle-biting from Feinstein.

Can the French really have lost this many old folks? My mind simply can't wrap around the figures. Over 10,000 deaths!? The title of the article also makes me uncomfortable.

L'Express has a long article dealing with the heat wave and what went wrong. Article title: "Why the Heat Wave Killed." Some section titles of note within the article: "Information wasn't put out fast enough," and "We're 20 years behind our neighbors." (The French expression "canicule," being used to describe the heat wave, is from the Latin "canis" meaning dog, like "dog days of summer." Frogs killed by dogs.)

Remember the whale fart? Here's news: God farts.

Merde in France smirks about a well-rested and tanned Chirac, back from his vacation in Canada, with 10,000 fewer constituents.

If you've never been by Winds of Change before... let me just recommend the entire blog as one of the most topical blogs I've seen in my admittedly limited cybertravels. It's now on my blogroll.

An alarming ArnoldWatch link: the Washington Post questions Arnold's fashion sense. The Hominid is scandalized.

Flypaper strategy? Terrorism is apparently the "number one security threat" in Iraq now.

Israel and Palestine: more of the same shit.

In case you thought it was all bad news, I bring you this.

Was Ross Perot prescient? The businessman-as-leader meme seems to have gained world prominence.

As predicted long ago by other Koreabloggers, NK will still insist on the bilateral thing.

Defectors? What defectors? North Korea is a paradise, I say!

Your strike of the day. I was wrong: this is well beyond the frequency with which strikes happen in France.

Some empty rhetoric for your reading pleasure.

The South Korean government vs. the press: Round 2.

Yang Suicide Watch: no, I haven't forgotten. Yang's feeling the heat.

Korean cargo workers on strike... yawn...

Korean commentary on US foreign policy.

I'm cutting my blogging off early because I have to prepare for my quick trip over to Fukuoka, Japan tomorrow. Just spending the night in a hotel and trundling back to Seoul to renew my 90-day tourist visa. Am currently working on two visa possibilities-- not sure which will happen more quickly: (1) an F-4 visa for people of Korean heritage (which would be sweet, but might also be deemed unconstitutional by the government); and (2) a regular old E-2 visa to teach. I may or may not have hooked an English teaching gig at Ehwa University. Both the F-4 visa and the Ehwa gig are brainchildren of my buddy Thomas St. John, who gets a shout-out here for his tireless efforts on my behalf.

While I'm on the shout-out thing, I failed to credit my buddy Dave, who originally pointed out the whole Sokal hoax (see below) to me.

So: no blogging on Saturday, unless I do it in the early morning (I have an afternoon flight). I'll probably blog on Sunday, since I'll be back in Seoul around noon, Seoul time.

One week to go until I'm 34 (American age, not Korean age). If you like the blog and want to congratulate me for living this long (I'll be having an "I Outlived Jesus" party), feel free to pass along a donation. Or buy my book, Scary Spasms in Hairy Chasms, either through me directly or through Amazon.com. Buttons are on the left margin.

Stay cool, don't die of the heat, and be safe.
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