Ryugyong Hotel

Interesting and Secret Stuff UPDATED

This is the the Ryugyong Hotel in  North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang,  It's a real monument to the glory of Stalinist communism.  Construction began in 1987,  at an estimated cost of $750 million, or 2% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).  There are no windows, plumbing, or wiring nineteen years later.  It was so poorly engineered that it's literally sagging in the middle, and in danger of falling over.  Kim Jong Il is trying to lure foreign investors to pony up around $300 million to make some corrections.  I'm not making that up. Call your broker today. Anyway, this is all pretty much public, if underreported, knowledge.  Our media usually look for bright spots in islands of despair, like North Korea and Cuba, so maybe it's pure racism on their part that we've heard so little about the glory of  Kim's health care system.  Sorry, I was being snide, not to mention off-track.  There are reasons why a veil of secrecy has been placed over the Ryugyong Hotel.  A veil I am about to lift.  Slowly.  Sensuously.  Whoa. In 1994,  Clinton administration factotums were frozen at the helm after North Korean dictator Kim Sung Il announced he was taking his fuel rods out of storage, and going full throttle into nuclear development.  Privately, President Clinton asked Jimmy Carter to act as an intermediary, despite warnings that Jummy  was a loose cannon.  The White House said that Carter was acting on his own.  My bosses in the, er, import business were quite concerned that Carter might do something very foolish.  To that end I was parachuted into the Potong District of  Pyongyang the night before Carter arrived.  My instructions were to kill him if he tried to surrender the United States to the NorKs.  Posing as a street vendor selling Kimchi out of a goat cart just outside the meeting hall, I would be at-the-ready (my eyes were pulled back with Scotch Tape - hey,it works!).  The conference room had been bugged (still is as far as I know), and if a clear and present danger eventuated, I'd get a signal, and gain access by walking into the hall saying ''I have 6 order Kimchi for Dear Leader."  Once in, I'd spray the room.  Prolly would not have made it home, but that's the price of freedom. Of course that wasn't necessary.  All Carter gave away were a few billion dollars, a nuclear reactor, and 1000 videos for Sung's star struck son, Jong (now North Korea's megalomaniac-in-charge).  In my spare time I did some sight seeing, and was drawn to the Ryugyong Hotel.  You can't not be. It's the tallest building in the country.  What I discovered was astounding.  On close inspection, it's quite apparent that the building was never intended to be a hotel.  I took pictures;  this one was never handed over.  Now you know what we're dealing with.

Dean Esmay- Daily Kos

Nutroots

Congrtulations to Dean Esmay for this dynamite post about ''Nutroot'' Markos Moulitsas.  How bad is this guy Kos?  Think of me and this web site, only twice as frenzied and half as accurate, in control of the Republican party, and you have it. We're talking Rabid Dogs 101. Markos Moulitsas and the Company You Keep by Dean Well, Republicans may have made a lot of mistakes in the last couple of years, but they're generally not stupid. I predicted months ago that Republicans would soon begin combing the far-left hate-blog Daily Kos as part of their opposition research for the upcoming elections. They would be idiots not to. Prominent Democrats from all over the country have openly aligned with Markos and his group of Blame America First defeatists. Voters have every right to know that information before they walk into the voting booth. And so, I note, it has begun with the first in-depth look at what Markos and his sycophantic crew of crypto-nazis are really all about. (Cont) Please read the whole deal.  Here are some of Dean's other links on the sbject. The Company You Keep The Company Ned Lamont Keeps... Ned Lamont's Trousers Are Burning And So It Begins Daily Kos and the Company You Keep

Rock jumper

This made my sphincter slam shut

Click for larger picture

Islam and Capitalism Can Coexist?

D-

Turks Knock on Europe’s Door With Evidence That Islam and Capitalism Can Coexist That's the case today's New York Times makes, based on a backwater region of Turkey. ''Many Europeans and secular Turks have dismissed this poor, largely agricultural region as the “other” Turkey, a non-European backwater where women in head scarves are more prevalent than businessmen in pinstripes. Islam, they argue, never went through its own Reformation and so is not receptive to capitalism and innovation. ''Yet Kayseri and surrounding towns like Hacilar have produced so many successful Muslim entrepreneurs that the area has earned the title of 'Anatolian tiger.'” Great, wish it were so that hope existed.  What's missing from this equation is what happens if/when Turkey's national government falls under fundamentalist rule?  Is there another example we can look to?  Hello?

pirated software

Life with the fast crowd

A US judge sentenced Danny Ferrer to six years in prison for operating a website, BuysUSA.com, that sold pirated software.  What was this guy thinking?  Selling Adobe Systems and Macromedia software on the web?  Anyway, just desserts for Ferrer, but it was one hell of a business. Judge T.S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered Ferrer to forfeit ownership of several airplanes, boats, cars, a helicopter and an ambulance. Among the vehicles Ferrer must give up are a 1992 Lamborghini; a 2005 Hummer; three Chevrolet Corvettes; a 2005 Lincoln Navigator; and a 28-foot Marinette hardtop express boat. Ferrer has also agreed to surrender the proceeds of sales of two fire trucks that were also bought with profits from BuysUSA.com, the DOJ said. - MacWorld

Wal-mart and Christian Cross - Liberal's Hell on Earth

Liberal's Hell on Earth

I don't know where this picture was taken, but it pretty much captures everything liberals hate about America in one fell swoop. If we stipulate that one of those bumpers sports a Support our Troops sticker, it's the whole enchilada.