FREEDOM OF THE PRESS (IN NORTH KOREA)

Since 2007, the clandestine publication Rimjingang has provided first-hand accounts of life inside North Korea. The quarterly is published in Japan, but its reporters routinely cross the border between North Korea and China to smuggle their stories out of the news vacuum that is North Korea.

Rimjingang was named after a river that flows back and forth, cris-crossing the border of China and North Korea.

Founding editor Jiro Ishimaru comments, “I’m proud of these reporters. I’m committed to helping them deliver a message to the world they are risking their lives to report.”

Ishimaru trained North Korean civilians in the arts of journalism and espionage, equipping them with surveillance cameras that would later provide stunning footage. Some of the scenes recorded include an illegal market where children are scavenging for food off the ground and a town where women and children are forced to work in a coal mine.

A recent video shows the Soonchun Vinylon factory, a site Western intelligence has long considered a production facility for nerve gas. But the video shows a deserted complex overtaken by weeds.

“The story is so complex,” says Ishimaru. “It needs to be told by the people who live it.”

This is Al Gore’s wet dream, the one in which his reporters do not get kidnaped by the North Koreans and rescued by Clinton.

REPUBLIC OF THE CHILDREN

One of Eva Peron’s weirder accomplishments was the establishment of a miniature nation-within-a-nation known as the Republica de los Ninos.

Senora Peron oversaw the construction of the bizarre theme park, which features train stations, plazas and all the usual state institutions, providing the youth of Argentina with hands-on experience in fascist governance. Once a year, the city council of La Plata holds a special session to ratify laws enacted by the Youth Government of the Republic of Children. Hitler only wishes he had thought of this idea.

The park officially opened in La Plata in 1951. The dictator Juan Domingo Peron attended the opening ceremony, as his wife was terminally ill at the time. The previous year, Walt Disney reportedly visited the site, gaining inspiration for a fascist theme park of his own.

NORTH KOREA’S FELICITOUS FRIENDS

Today marks the auspicious occasion of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

According to several articles appearing in the New Light of Myanmar, sympathetic Burmese generals have been celebrating the felicitous holiday by regaling North Korea with felicitations.

In one article, no less than Senior General Than Shwe, leader of Burma’s felicitous military junta, sends "felicitations" to the Chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission.

A similar article details how “Prime Minister General” Thein Sein sends his “felicitations” to the North Koreans.

In a third article, Senior General Than Shwe rears his ugly head again to “send a message of felicitations” to the President of the Presidium Supreme People’s Assembly.

What a felicitous bunch of commies!

The Senior General’s smile is known to melt Dear Leader’s heart.

North Korea makes full use of its chimneys.

ITALIAN BANKERS HOARD CHEESE

The vaults of Italian bank Credito Emiliano are bursting with cheese.

The bank accepts Parmigiano cheese as collateral from cash-strapped cheesemakers.

Credito Emiliano has amassed cheese reserves of 17,000 tons of aged Parmigiano. The 440,000 wheels of cheese are appraised at $187 million.

A BUTTERY DEATH

An emergency crew was dispatched to a steel bridge in Guangzhou, China last month to smear butter over every inch of the 1,000-foot-long bridge.

The scenic bridge had become a renowned spot to commit suicide. The site is so popular among the desperate that eleven people plunged to their deaths there in April.

Chinese officials installed fences and posted notices “asking people not to commit suicide here,” says a spokesperson for the PRC.

Yet the suicides continued, leading to the bizarre application of butter to a bridge.

“That’s not going to stop people from jumping off the bridge,” comments my wife. “That’s going to cause people to fall off.”

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In May, 66-year-old Lai Jiansheng pushed a potential jumper off the bridge.

Chen Fuchao intended to kill himself to escape a 2 million yuan debt incurred over a failed construction project.

Lai was enraged when he saw the would-be jumper on the bridge, holding up traffic. After failing to persuade the police to allow him to negotiate with Chen, Lai broke through a barricade and climbed up to Chen’s perch.

Lai greeted Chen with a handshake before quickly shoving him off the bridge.

“I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish,” says Lai. “Their action violates a lot of public interest.”

Meet and greet.

Pushed by Lai, Chen falls off bridge.

Chen salutes the crowd after pushing man off bridge.

WILD PIGS ATTACK

A disease exclusive to New Guinea causes those afflicted to run amok, stealing objects of little value and attacking bystanders.

Wild-pig syndrome is a socially constructed disorder of the Gururumba tribe. The illness is characterized by involuntary antisocial behavior, followed by situational amnesia and the resumption of normal life.

After looting neighbors’ homes, the tribesman (usually a recently married male) ventures into the forest for several days, returning without the stolen articles.

Wild-pig attacks seems to occur when a man is unable to meet his financial obligations. Those who have undergone the episodes later receive special consideration from creditors.

The Gururumba people insist the illness is transmitted by the ghosts of recently deceased tribe members.

JAPAN LAUNCHES “SPACE PROGRAM”

Japan’s first lady-in-waiting claims to have explored the cosmos during a nocturnal ride aboard an alien spacecraft.

Miyuki Hatoyama is the wife of newly-elected Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama.

In her memoirs, Very Strange Things I’ve Encountered (2008), Miyuki details her abduction and subsequent voyage to the planet Venus.

“While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus,” she writes.

“It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green,” she adds.

Miyuki says her husband advised her that it was only a dream.

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Dream or not, Yukio Hatoyama has long been nicknamed “The Alien” because of his conspicuously extraterrestrial eyes.

He is expected to assume office September 16th.

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In November of last year, aeronautical engineers at the University of Tokyo began experimenting with paper airplanes for use in Japan's fledgling space program.

Hoping to discover cheaper materials for building spacecraft, the engineers reason that chemically treated paper might be able to withstand reentry and landing without bursting into flames.

Venusian First Lady.

Martian Prime Minister.

Japanese Space Shuttle.