Kim Jong-Il may have died recently, but on this site he continues to look at things every day. Lots of things: tanks, sewing machines, rope, etc.
Of course, one thing he wouldn't be looking at today (if he were alive) is wikipedia, reddit, or boing boing -- all of which have gone dark to protest the SOPA/PIPA legislation. So you can now look at Kim Jong-Il not looking at these sites.
I recently picked up a copy of George Soloveytchik's biography of the eighteenth-century Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin at my local used bookstore (Maxwell's House of Books in La Mesa). Potemkin was fantastically rich, one-eyed, and the lover of Catherine the Great. (Wikipedia link). But he was also more eccentric than I ever realized. For instance, he sometimes received official visitors wearing an old dressing gown and no pants. This anecdote also caught my eye:
He could be vulgar and cynical beyond belief. One day he was passing through his dressing room with two important courtiers who stopped to admire his famous silver bath. "If you can excrete enough to fill it," said Potemkin to one of them, "I will give it to you." The courtier turned to his companion, who was notorious for his voracity, and said: "How about attempting this business on a fifty-fifty basis?"
If you live in Lake County, Colorado, the last thing you want to do is get hurt. Or have your house catch on fire. Why? Because the current Lake County sheriff, Ed Holte, is using the county's emergency services as a political tool. Even going so far as to instruct dispatchers to send sheriff's deputies to all emergency calls first, including medical and fire calls. The situation came to a head when the captain of the fire department, Dan Dailey, was handcuffed and placed in a cell while responding to an emergency medical call. Read the article for more.
Was Jesus Gay? Elton John seems to think so. He stated as much in a recent Parade magazine interview. Of course the mere idea struck terror into the hearts of all homophobic Christians and those who choose to interpret the bible as saying "discriminate openly" rather than "love thy fellow man".
And what about those silly gay people who want to serve in the military? Surprisingly, a recent CBS News poll asking about Obama's wish to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, finds that a majority of the public support allowing openly gay men and women to serve. But what's even more surprising is that the same poll doesn't want homosexuals to serve. I suppose the poll was worded badly. Or maybe the people who answered that poll still think gay means 'having or showing a merry, lively mood'. In that case, who wouldn't want a bunch of merry old souls in the military?
It’s an election year in the UK, and politicians there are suddenly more image conscious than ever. None more so than incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who - at his wife’s suggestion - has swapped his regular Kit-Kat munching habit for a diet of bananas in an effort to slim down a bit. While it’s nice to know that the British PM’s wife is perhaps a reader this blog, she’s obviously not a regular one, or she’d have known that portly politicos are more trusted. Now if only he’d show the common touch by going on a bacon binge (Orange News).
Mind you, Mr. Brown is not the only statesman trying to avert a bleak future this week, an unnamed Arab ambassador got the shock of his life when he finally lifted his new bride’s niqab, only to find she had cross-eyes and a beard. The groom immediately went to court to have the marriage annulled, claiming he had been tricked into the marriage and that the bride’s parents had used pictures of her attractive older sister to deceive him. The court found for the groom and dissolved the marriage, but turned down his demand for $150000 compensation (Daily Mail).
But perhaps he’s been a bit quick to judge by appearances. Two Chinese men certainly were when the found a hoard of 20 clay artefacts in an old tomb they discovered in a field near their home, only to later sell the whole lot to a collector for less than $2000. Unfortunately for the pair, theirs were rare finds from the Sui-Tang Dynasty, making the collection over 1000 years old. One item alone, a pottery figurine, recently reached $150,000 at auction (Daily Times).
More fortunate was Wendy Jones of Aberglasney in Wales, who took the old plate she’d had perched on her sideboard for years – except on those odd occasions it had fallen off it - to a TV antiques show, in a plastic carrier bag, only to be told it was part of a rare, Prussian royal service worth over £100000 (Telegraph).
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.