Friday Post

Quickly now...


While the West celebrates the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, South Koreans remember their war dead.

A Memorial Day from a couple of years but still moving.


Screw you, North Korea:

North Korea has detained a 56-year old man from Ohio, accusing him of an unspecified crime after he traveled to the communist-led country as a tourist, the nation's state news agency and the man's family said Friday. The North is now holding three Americans.

The state Korean Central News Agency identified the latest detainee as Jeffrey Edward Fowle. It said he arrived in North Korea on April 29 and authorities were investigating him for committing acts inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit. It did not give details.

U.S. officials confirmed the detention but didn't identify the person for privacy reasons, nor comment on reports that he was held after leaving a Bible in his hotel room.

A spokesman for the family said, Fowle, who is married with three children, was not on a mission for his church.

One of the other two U.S. detainees is Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who has been held since November 2012, and is serving 15 years of hard labor for what the North says were hostile acts against the state.

Every defector is a middle finger to the Kim regime:

Joo Yang, who defected from North Korea in 2010, did an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit Wednesday and explained what it was like to leave the oppressive country and experience life in the outside world.

North Korean defectors have to escape the country covertly. Some of them were basically brainwashed by propaganda growing up — one defector who spoke to UK newspaper The Independent said she was raised to believe that Kim Jong-il was a god who could read her mind.

Yang joined her family in South Korea in 2011. An NGO helped her travel through a "modern-day underground railroad" to escape North Korea. ...

Q: What kind of feelings did you have when you arrived in South Korea and saw the quality of life that many people have? How did you adjust to this?

When I got here I felt like South Koreans could eat the kind of food that North Koreans eat on special occasions (명절, festival days) even every day.

Most ordinary North Koreans eat 'corn-rice' as their staple food, but that is rough. But on special days like Kim Il-sung's birthday some people can eat white rice. In fact some people can't even eat white rice on those special days.

But in South Korea, even homeless people eat white rice!

As for how I adjusted... well it tastes pretty good, so I'm adjusting well! Even though sometimes I miss North Korean food too... 

How many fingers am I holding up, Kim Jong-Un?

Well, what do you know?

Mothers tend to get more satisfaction than fathers from talking to their children, and more kids translate into greater happiness for parents, according to a study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.

The study by Park Jong-suh puts the "satisfaction level" of mothers talking to their kids at 69.7 percent, but that of men at only 54.7 percent. The older the father, the less time he is likely to have for the conversation of children, with dads in their 50s stretching to 49.4 percent and those in their 60s barely bothering to pretend at 44.2 percent.

The study was conducted last year among 9,350 married men and women.

But for both parents, a greater number of children means greater happiness. For families of two to four people, parents' satisfaction with their kids was scored at 68.8 percent, but in families of five or more people it rose to 73.2 percent.

Low birthrate and the possibility of an attack from North Korea makes South Koreans unhappy.


Moving on....


Caught:

Justin Bourque, the 24-year-old fugitive who announced “I’m done” when arrested early Friday in a resident’s dark backyard, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and two counts of attempted murder.

He appeared in court, packed with about 70 people, under heavy guard. Bourque was remanded to appear in court July 3 after the Crown and defence asked for a month to prepare.

His appearance lasted about five minutes and Bourque did not speak or show any emotion, staring forward at the judge while he was in court. A tactical officer armed with an automatic rifle stood at the back of the courtroom.

After three local RCMP officers were shot dead Wednesday evening followed by more than 24 hours of a massive manhunt in which parts of this city of 70,000 were in lockdown, police zeroed in on the unarmed Bourque and took him into custody.

The resident in whose backyard the dramatic arrest took place said Bourque stated, “I’m done” when officers cornered him.

At an early morning news conference Friday, spokespeople for RCMP New Brunswick said it was a “miracle” the ordeal ended with no further injury or death.

Now, let the pointless debates about our already strict gun laws and Bourque's motivations begin.


Wow, I bet that Bergdahl deal really fixed everything:

This morning, TIME Magazine featured a chilling interview with an Haqqani network-affiliated Taliban commander who was intimately involved in negotiations with the U.S. over the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The takeaway: More kidnappings are “definitely” to come as a result of the deal.

“It’s better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of useless people,” the unnamed commander told TIME by telephone. “It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work hard to capture such an important bird.”

I'm sure Putin will listen:

U.S. President Barack Obama urged Russia's Vladimir Putin during a brief informal meeting in France on Friday to seize the opportunity to ease tensions in Ukraine after the election of Petro Poroshenko as president, a White House official said.

Obama must realise by now that his words are meaningless.


Will the gas plant scandal go away before June 12th?

Late Thursday, the Ottawa Citizen reported that OPP detectives served a court order at Queen's Park asking staff to hand over key records regarding the alleged cover-up of the Liberal government's $1.1 billion decision to cancel the construction of two power plants during the 2011 election campaign. ...

 The police also indicated that, as part of their due dilligence to obtain the court order, they had interviewed former premier Dalton McGuinty, in April.

Nope.


Despite having Quebec physicians sign a petition against euthanasia, the Quebec legislature voted 94-22 to allow active euthanasia, once more underlying how Quebecois politicians are so out-of-touch with the average Quebecker.


And now, let us end this day on a mellow note- animals of the Great War.