Témoignages du cuisinier de Kim Jong Il

Il est clair que le train de vie du 'Dear Leader' était sans comparaison possible avec celui de ces sujets, ces derniers vivant dans une abjecte pauvreté sous un état policier très répressif.

Par The Atlantic (ceci n'est qu'un petit extrait):

From 1989 through 1991 I was invited often to Kim Jong Il's official residence. There he kept a very large liquor cellar. Famous liquor brands from around the world were lined up, maybe about 10,000 bottles in all.

At the time, Kim Jong Il drank Johnnie Walker Swing for whiskey and Hennessy XO for cognac.

The liquor cellar also had a karaoke set, a piano, and a round table that could seat fifteen or sixteen people. There, I remember, we often sang together the Japanese song "The Bride in Seto."

Un 'geek' attrape quelqu'un qui vole chez eux...

...avec un système de caméra de surveillance lié à son iPhone, le tout coûtant 50$!

Via Economic Policy Journal:

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2011

$50 Motion Detector Camera Catches a Crook
NyPo reports:
A computer whiz yesterday busted a brazen burglar at his Manhattan pad — all while sitting at his work desk six blocks away.
Levent Cetiner, 30, an IT ace at the School of Visual Arts in Gramercy, had set up a motion-detection camera in his West 21st Street apartment that sends him real-time photos of his home by e-mail when triggered.

“I live on the top floor and thought it would be easy for someone to come in off the fire escape,” Cetiner told The Post.
“I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have. Plus, I work in IT, and I thought it would be a cool thing to play with.”

“I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have. Plus, I work in IT, and I thought it would be a cool thing to play with.”

But sometime early yesterday afternoon, it snapped a photo of José Perez-Quinonez, 30, of West Harlem climbing into Cetiner’s fourth-floor window in Chelsea, authorities told The Post.

The high-tech gadget — which Cetiner bought online for about $50 — then promptly sent the picture by e-mail to him.
The stunned Cetiner immediately called 911 and raced home.

He arrived to find his apartment locked and Perez-Quinonez allegedly still inside rummaging through his belongings, snatching his laptop computer and iPad.

“I couldn’t get in because he locked the deadbolt from the inside,” Cetiner said.

The frantic gizmo geek said he then pounded on the door and shouted: “You’re being recorded, and the police are on the way!”
About a minute later, the cops arrived, and Cetiner used his smartphone to show them the picture of Perez-Quinonez scrambling into his top-floor apartment through a window off the fire escape.

La citation du jour

Champagne Socialism: Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow.

-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Les auteurs de South Park: libertariens et irrévérencieux

Par Jean Philippe L. Risi, via le Québécois Libre:


South Park, la série télévisée fort connue de Matt Stone et Trey Parker, aura attiré beaucoup de controverses en 15 saisons. C'est en effet depuis 1997 que les quatre enfants protagonistes de la petite ville de South Park au Colorado observent des situations dignes de Monty Python. Mais puisqu’il s’agit d'un dessin animé, est-ce approprié pour un jeune public?

Pas vraiment, puisque l'auditoire visée est évidemment adulte. Qui plus est, l'avantage du médium est que les créateurs peuvent se permettre un certain niveau de vulgarité qui ne passerait pas avec une méthode plus traditionnelle. Les premières saisons présentent des scénarios assez surréalistes et vulgaires, quoiqu'on remarque déjà que les figures d'autorité sont d'une stupidité effrayante. On y affiche également une grande quantité de stéréotypes qui ne servent qu'à choquer les lobbys sociaux traditionnels ‒ pensons au chef de cafétéria de l'école, qui est un homme noir chantant comme Barry White à toutes les deux minutes.

Peu à peu, on commence à y voir des critiques sociales très claires et dirigées. Lors de la quatrième saison, on y parodie ouvertement la notion de « crime haineux » lorsque des agents fédéraux traînent en justice l'un des enfants qui a insulté un de ses camarades de classe de race noire. « La prochaine fois que tu intimides une personne à l'école, assures-toi qu'elle soit de la même couleur que toi », lui explique un juge après la délivrance d'une sentence de deux ans dans un pénitencier juvénile.

De l'éducation sexuelle à l'école au traitement des mourants aux soins palliatifs, de l'immigration illégale à l'homosexualité en passant par la régulation du taux d'urine dans les piscines publiques, un ensemble de sujets concernant la société civile et le gouvernement y sont abordés avec humour, vulgarité et désinvolture, d’autant plus que l'ensemble des positions du spectre politique américain y sont sérieusement ridiculisées.

« We find just as many things to rip on the left as we do on the right. People on the far-left and the far-right are the same exact person to us », explique Trey Parker lors d'une entrevue.

South Park: message

South Park: message

Le Disneyland fantôme de la Chine...

Par Robert Wenzel:

I am not making things up when I say a good chunk of China's GDP is fake. Things have been built in China, through government planning that register as part of the phenomenal GDP, but have no real value, like 30 to 50 million vacant apartments.

Here's the latest. China has a fake deserted Disneyland-type amusement park. David Gray writes at Reuters:
Along the road to one of China’s most famous tourist landmarks – the Great Wall of China – sits what could potentially have been another such tourist destination, but now stands as an example of modern-day China and the problems facing it.

Situated on an area of around 100 acres, and 45 minutes drive from the center of Beijing, are the ruins of ‘Wonderland’. Construction stopped more than a decade ago, with developers promoting it as ‘the largest amusement park in Asia’. Funds were withdrawn due to disagreements over property prices with the local government and farmers. So what is left are the skeletal remains of a palace, a castle, and the steel beams of what could have been an indoor playground in the middle of a corn field.

Pulling off the expressway and into the car park, I expected to be stopped by the usual confrontational security guards. But there was absolutely no one to be seen. I walked through one of the few entrances not boarded up, and instantly started coughing. In front of me were large empty rooms and discarded furniture, all covered in a thick layer of dust, along with an eerie silence that gave the place a haunted feeling – an emotion not normally associated with a children’s playground...

All these structures of rusting steel and decaying cement, are another sad example of property development in China involving wasted money, wasted resources and the uprooting of farmers and their families...
Click here for pics of the deserted "Disneyland"

The Chinese crash that is going to hit the stock market is going to be very loud. Not only are there empty apartments, children's amusement parks, but also train stations, airports and super trains.