Author: Mick Hartley

The latest from Japan (via):

“Air sex was originally invented by guys who couldn’t get girlfriends, but desperately want to have sex,” J-Taro Sugisaku, the self-professed creator of air sex, tells Weekly Playboy.

This may not be quite the revolutionary breakthrough they seem to think – as a magazine called Weekly Playboy should surely well know.

The inimitable Korean Central News Agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on the “gifted thinker and theoretician” Kim Jong Il, who has “glorified the revolutionary idea of President Kim Il Sung as the eternal guiding idea of the era of independence with his outstanding ideological and theoretical activities”:

In the course of a comprehensive analysis and review of the hundred year-long history of the development of the revolutionary theories of the working class, he clarified their limitations and gave an scientific and theoretical verification of the originality of the President’s revolutionary idea which cannot be measured or construed by the yardsticks of preceding theories and the world-historic position of the idea which reflects the demand of the era of independence and desire of the people and holds the highest place in the history of human thoughts.

At the national seminar of party information workers on February 19, Juche 63 (1974), he formulated the revolutionary idea of the President with profound logics and classic propositions, associating it with the august name of the President, and declared the program of modeling the whole society on the Juche idea. This was a historic milestone in definitely placing the revolutionary idea of the President in the position of the guiding idea of the era of independence.

Kim Jong Il has made public a lot of famous works including “On the Juche Idea,” “The Juche Philosophy Is an Original Revolutionary Philosophy,” “Socialism Is a Science” and “The Songun Revolutionary Line Is a Great Revolutionary Line of Our Times and the Ever-Victorious Banner of Our Revolution” to further develop and enrich the revolutionary idea of the President with new principles and contents.

Today, the revolutionary idea of the President is highly praised by progressive humankind as the perfect guiding idea, theory and method of our times and is giving a powerful impetus to the human cause of independence in the 21st century.

There’s nothing really to add to that.

This is at least mildly encouraging:

Intelligence analysts believe that Iran is encountering technical difficulties in mastering the complex process of uranium enrichment. That means the West may have a bit more time than previously expected to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.

The problem, according to intelligence officials, is that the centrifuges that are supposed to enrich uranium are overheating. Some are breaking down and must be replaced. As a result, Iran has not ramped up its enrichment effort as quickly as analysts had expected.

This assessment is based on recent conversations with analysts from several Western nations that are watching the Iranian program closely, and on an unpublished report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that was completed on August 31. To me, it’s the equivalent of adding some extra time to the clock in a tense football game. The urgency remains, but there is an opportunity for a few additional plays before the game is over.

“There’s time, purely from the point of view of the technical development of the threat, to let diplomacy play out in the case of Iran,” says Harvard professor Ashton B. Carter, who closely follows the Iranian nuclear issue.

ad cut off’,” he said. […]

[D]espite the government’s assurances of support, Redeker accused the authorities of leaving him “alone and abandoned”.

Interviewed over the telephone from a safe house by Europe 1 radio Friday, he said that “the education ministry has not even contacted me, has not deigned to get in touch to see if I need any help.”

On Thursday Education Minister Gilles de Robien expressed “solidarity” with the teacher, but also warned that “a state employee must show prudence and moderation in all circumstances.”

Redeker said that “if Robien is correct, then we would never have had any intellectual life in France. The function of politics is not tell us what we are allowed to think, but to defend our freedom to think and speak out.”

According to The Brussels Journal, the editor of Figaro, Pierre Rousselin, has apologised on Al-Jazeera TV:

A number of Islamic countries, including Egypt, banned Le Figaro following the publication of Redeker’s piece. Mr Rousselin said the publication of the op-ed was a mistake. He said the article did not express the paper’s opinion. The article is no longer available on the Figaro website.

For saying Islam is a religion which exalts violence, they’re threatening to cut his head off….a paradox that a philosophy teacher might relish under happier circumstances.

ht way on the M4 towards his home in Cardiff, he became convinced for some reason that he was driving in the wrong direction.

He then pulled over onto the hard shoulder, completed a “dramatic” U-turn and drove seven and a half miles back towards junction 15.

Abdo said he had a “panic attack” and believed after the U-turn that he was genuinely driving in the right direction.

He was slowed to 30mph by police who chased alongside him on the opposite carriageway.

They then raced on ahead, pulled over, jumped over the central reservation and stood on the carriageway signaling him to stop.

Once he pulled over near to Membury Services, police said he still did not realise what he had done.

His wife Fatma, 38, had to be helped out of the car and was taken to Great Western Hospital for treatment for severe shock.

Did they not say anything to each other as they whizzed down the wrong side of the motorway at 80mph?

“Ach, what a country! Look at all these fools driving the wrong way!”.

“But Ali…”

A five year driving ban? Why not for ever? The man’s clearly shown himself unfit to be in charge of a motor vehicle on the public highway. The thought of him back on the roads in 5 years, at the age of 73, is not comforting. They can kill, these cars, especially when you get idiots driving them. Is it such an appalling breach of his civil liberties to be permanently denied the right to drive? Take a train or a bus, for God’s sake.

Enough – before I start to sound like Richard Littlejohn.

concerned about contemporary holocausts – real holocausts that we are witnessing in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and so on.

Muslims – victims of real holocausts.

From the footage we see of the cartoons – and the views expressed – the exhibition isn’t so much a challenge to the West’s hypocrisy as a straightforward exercise in holocaust denial and classic anti-semitism.

So….here’s a once-proud country that feels undervalued on the world stage, part of a wider culture that sees itself as the perennial victim, humiliated by the West and in danger of corruption from shallow Anglo-American values; a country where the Jew becomes the scapegoat and official culture is rabidly anti-semitic; where the president, a small-minded extremist, extols martyrdom and the glories of dying for one’s country; where the answer to the search for national pride is in the acquisition of military might to match the great powers – though purely, of course, “for peaceful purposes”. Marx hasn’t got a great record when it comes to predictions, but let’s hope he got it right with that “second time as farce” line.

Too many men in China (via):

China’s controversial one-child policy continues to widen the gender disparity in newborn babies, according to a new report.

In 2004, 121 boys were born in China for every 100 girls, according to the government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). That is up from 2000, when the ratio was 117 boys to 100 girls…..

The 2006 edition of the CASS report on population and labor in China describes how the gender disparity has grown since the Chinese government instituted its one-child policy in 1979.

In 1982, the ratio was 109 boys to 100 girls. By 1990 it had increased to 111 for every 100 girls, to 117 in 2000, and to 121 in 2004.

So the rate of increase of the gender disparity is increasing: up 6 points in 10 years, and now up 4 points in 4 years.

121 to 100 is quite some imbalance. If the annual birth rate is, say, 20 million, that’s getting on for 2 million surplus boys every year. Just one more factor to add to the increasing social tensions.

On the other hand, we could be entering the golden age of transplant surgery.

Tokyo’s subway is notorious for its male gropers, whose unrestrainable urges led to the introduction of some female-only carriages. Now, though, would-be gropers can happily grope away – for a fee, of course – in the Train Cafe (via Japundit):

Train Cafe is a members’ only club and is staffed by young women dressed in school uniforms or aprons. Membership costs 5,000 yen and there is a 2,000 yen payment for a cup of tea levied with each visit. A subsequent payment of 3,600 yen for 20 minutes permits members to partake of Train Cafe’s services.

Those services are carried out in a room refurbished so that it looks exactly like the inside of a carriage on the Yamanote Line, the train that loops the central Tokyo area. Young women stand at strategic points in the carriage and patrons are permitted to fondle them in whatever way they please. An extra payment of 5,000 yen gives patrons the option of selecting the woman they want to ride with for a 15-minute period.

Male customers, of who the club says there are 4,000, are not allowed to ejaculate in the establishment….

“During the 20 minute session, the trip takes you from Ikebukuro to Meguro (about one-third of the Yamanote Line’s 60-minute complete loop). With each stop, the doors of the carriage open and the girls get on and off the train. We use actual recordings of the conductors’ announcements and LCD screens outside the window display actual footage of the trip along the Yamanote Line,” Train Cafe’s operator tells Weekly Playboy. “We cannot be beaten when it comes to reality.”

Train Cafe’s operator tells the weekly that the club’s membership is largely based on men in the early to mid-40s. He adds that many customers enter the establishment saying that they had just ridden trains and been driven almost mad by temptation, but made it to the club before tackling an innocent woman commuter.

“We have a crime reducing effect,” the operator says.

Far from feeling demeaned, women working at the club say they enjoy it.

“I loath real chikan [gropers]. But if I’m attacked by one, I’m too scared to do anything and just shut up. I really, really hate it,” 20-year-old Rin tells the weekly. “But here, all the customers are members. You know you’re going to be felt up and it’s a good place to make friends, so I enjoy it.”

The Train Cafe: where you meet a better class of groper.

I’m (cough) no expert here, but surely much of the kick is to go undetected: it’s all about furtiveness. You surely don’t make friends with someone while groping them….do you?

ven better, just use bum? But oh dear no, a bum to these ignorami is some kind of tr….ow! get off me! help!“) from Mark.

Via The Brussels Journal, a quote from Wim Uyttersprot, CEO of the Brussels company U2U, in a message to an unidentified Israeli businessman:

I value your interest in my company, but after the destructive and inhumane war crimes that Israel committed in Lebanon, and because of the apartheid regime that your government is enforcing in Palestine, U2U does not see it fit to connect itself with Israeli products. I hope the political situation in your country changes completely and will be based on peace and respect for non Jewish cultures. Warm regards, Wim Uyttersprot.