Chinese Militia Shoot Tibetan Monks on Pilgrimage

Haven’t seen this on the mainstream news yet, but I with luck the networks will pick it up soon. I hope there are mitigating circumstances, but it is pretty hard to justify shooting people walking in the snow from a kilometer away. Here is a link to the video and a news story.

North Korean Bloggers?!

I went to youtube to watch a clip of the dailyshow talking about the recent North Korean nuclear test and had some patriotic North Korean movies put onto the upcomming playlist. One of them had the url to the songun blog which looks to be a pro-North Korean blog.

I was floored. I can't decide if this thing is someone's idea of a sick joke or if this is really someone who thinks that Kim Jong Il is actually a great leader. If this is a joke this guy is the best straight man in the world! But he puts stuff on there that is so off the wall that it doesn't seem possible that someone could actually think this. Here is a clip from his most recent post:

"Dear Leader Comrade Generalissimo Kim Jong Il is the most praised, acclaimed, and lauded democratic leader in the world for his immortal feats of building the Workers Party of Korea into a Juche party of Korean style socialism that has never suffered a single error, mistake, setback or fiasco in all its history of people-oriented party-building.

Dear Leader Kim Jong Il is the ideal democratic leader, being leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea carrying aloft the torch of Juche Idea under the sacred Banner of Songun politics that are the lifeblood of the Korean nation and world progressives united in single-minded harmony of total worship of the Leader who is more precious than their own lives.

As I said above, this guy does movies as well. Here is my favorite of the ones that I have seen. Apparently we American's will steal ANYTHING to make people miserable.

The restaurant's specialty is... a PB&J sandwitch?

While waking up today I heard splendid table talk with the road food folks.(listen to it)

Apparently the place's name is Hells's Kitchen, and the food that they raved about was the PB&J sandwitch. The key was their peanut butter which was extra tasty because the peanuts had been roasted. It certainly doesn't look like normal peanut butter. When I first saw it I thought it looked like their spice rub.

I went to their website and saw that the peanut butter runs $6 for 8oz or $9 for a pound. I would buy it in a heart beat to try, but shipping is $10 for orders up to $30. I don't know if I can justify $20 for a pound of peanut butter. Well I suppose that is a reason to try and make it over to Minneapolis.

Space Yogurt Made With Astro-Bacteria

Space Yogurt from Himawari Dairy is now available in Japan.

Himawari Dairy, a Kochi-area dairy manufacturer, reserved a seat aboard a Soyuz rocket that took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome this spring.

"This is probably going to make these guys a little money. I know that I would probably spend a little money to buy space yogurt. The theory seems to be that the cosmic radiation from space is going to promote mutation of the bacteria and as a result you will get something different. However, you could get similar results by sticking the bacteria next to a nuclear reactor. Now who is going to buy that yogurt?"

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Jr. Crime Fighting

Tonight I checked my AMEX card online hoping to see that a refund had posted. While there I saw that my pizza dinner on Wednesday night had been billed for $17.05. I thought that was odd because I remembered that the bill had come to $15.05. I clicked on the more detail feature and saw that I was getting charged for a $2 tip! This is not the first time that I have had a restaurant check come in a little higher than I expected, and usually the yellow slip is long gone by the time I see the credit card bill. This time, however, the yellow slip was still in my jean pocket.

So I was left with the question as to whether or not to challenge the bill. I wasn't sure if this was an institutionalized thing, a bad guy, or an accident. In the end I decided to find out. I called the place and talked with a gal (not someone that I had ordered from). She was obviously confused and said that the manager was out, but if I left my name and number I would be contacted when he returned.

About a half out later the (I think he was middle eastern) manager who had taken my order on Wednesday returned my call. After a few minutes of trying to locate the record of the order on the computer, he said that he had found it and that I could come in and ask for a $2 credit on my next order. At this point I was thinking... probably institutionalized. I'll come by in the next few days get my $2 discount and pay cash. This is a real shame because they are the closest pizza place, the pizza was really good, but who wants to go to a place that rips you off?

About a half hour after the first call I get another call from the manager who amazingly remembers my name from the earlier conversation. He wants me to bring the ticket down so he can take a look at it. Thinking that this might not be a bad time to take a break, I drive down.

He gets the ticket from the back and I see that someone has clearly and very neatly entered a $2 tip and put in the total of $17.05 onto the white slip. I show my yellow slip which does not show a tip being entered. He asks me if it was a heavy set white guy who processed my order (it was). He then gives me $2 from the till and a coupon for $2 off my next order. He asks me if he can have the yellow copy, which I give him. As I leave, he starts flipping through the rest of the credit slips in his bundle.

Update 10/8/2006
Went into day for a large 2 topping pizza and found out that the manager had confronted my cashier. The cashier denied having done any funny business, but was fired.