News of the Day (January 8/9)

Actually, the big news of the day for yours truly was the Jets OT win over the Chargers. It’s the only reason I’m still up at 2 AM, and thus putting this entry together in the first place. However, since no one checks out this blog for NFL scores . . .

Japanese Defense official admits relations with PRC are “very cold”: The admission came from Defense Agency Director-General Yoshinori Ohno, who is touring several neighboring nations to “explain the country's beefed-up defense policy” (Epoch Times). Japan is moving away from its old pacifist policies due to “potential instability in Northeast Asia . . . specifically . . . North Korea and the Taiwan Strait.” Ohno also said that “Japan is keeping a careful eye on Chinese military activities”.

Falun Gong rally held in Taiwan: About 3,000 practitioners created the “Great Wall of Justice,” a 4-mile long human chain (Washington Post, last item) to call attention to the Communist persecution of their faith – which is now halfway into its sixth year and its second top Communist, as Jiang Zemin has handed over power to the Great Pretend Reformer – Hu Jintao.

Stalinist-controlled northern Korea wants end to U.S. “hostile policy” and long hair: Kim Jong-Il’s regime struck propaganda blows on two fronts. The regime lambasted U.S. policy on the eve of Congressman Tom Lantos’ visit to northern Korea (note: Lantos’ previous criticism of the regime ensures that won’t be a friendly visit), while demanding the U.S. “show through action that it is giving up a hostile policy aimed at toppling our system, and take the road toward coexistence” (Washington Post).

Meanwhile, the regime also “launched an intensive media assault on its latest arch enemy – the wrong haircut” (BBC). In this case, long hair “‘consumes a great deal of nutrition’ and could thus rob the brain of energy.” Leave it to the Stalinists to force the rest of us to appreciate the mullet.

You don’t say, or you wish you didn’t: Gordon Prather, following the age-old Washington rule of kicking a man when he’s down, lays into outgoing State Department hawk John Bolton. Prather’s World Net Daily diatribe shows signs of derailment throughout, but the train finally leaves the tracks and hits the ravine with this line: “Bush had unilaterally abrogated the IAEA-monitored Agreed Framework with North Korea.” Perhaps Prather missed the Stalinists’ 2002 declaration that the 1994 deal was “nullified” as they boasted of their uranium-based nuclear weapons program.