Naked Women! Dancing! Beer!

Okay, now that I've got you here, this is what happens when a blogger with nothing better to do has his usual sources of bloggery dry up.  The President has been relatively quiet, nobody's really stepped out to contend for an AH-CRAP award, A-Rod hasn't been suspended/been released/retired yet, and we're two days from Time Machine, three days from Aussie hockey, and four days from a Sunday message.  So what to write about?

Well, we're still alive.  We enjoyed the usual morning walk (saw one deer), took one nap.  Nothing much going on here.

Hmm, here's one I forgot.  My post of June 29 got spammed last Friday by no fewer than NINE spam comments in a THREE minute period, 2:45-2:48 AM, by less than reputable insurance agents working for Fidelity and Allstate, among others.  Well, guess what?  Two more companies off the Martin "buy" list.  Too bad, so sad.

Another story I sat on was one from India that was not so funny.  It seems that perhaps resentment of the universal yet-poorly-supported government "midday meal" program may have boiled over as a bottle of tainted cooking oil was given to a school's cook by the principal.  The cook protested that it smelled and looked "dodgy" but was told to use it anyway.  Now a week later, we have two dozen children dead- some of them buried in the front yard of the school in protest- the principal arrested, and her husband (who ran the store) on the run, and a bottle of vegetable oil heavily laced with insecticide.  Speculation has run back and forth because the husband is a government official from one party and the supplier to his store is from another.  The principal surrendered yesterday.

I found another lovely story in Japan.  A set of elderly neighbors- all five between 71-80 years old- clubbed to death, one burned with his house.  Culprit apparently is another 63-y-o neighbor.  Police found a haiku written on his door:

Setting on fire
smoke gives delight
to a country fellow


Another interesting story I saw in Japan was a piece on how far downhill the China/North Korea relationship has fallen (ironically, I type this with the M*A*S*H theme playing on the TV).  Here are some selected parts:

“It’s definitely eroding,” Adam Cathcart, an expert on China-North Korea relations at Queen’s University Belfast, said of support among Chinese for Pyongyang.

At the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in Beijing last week, visiting truck driver Pan Yude said China paid a high but worthwhile cost in defending its neighbor and ally. But his attitude hardened when asked about the North Korea of today, describing relations with Pyongyang as merely “so-so” and blaming what he sees as stubbornness out of the North.

“It can’t adapt to the trend of world historical development,” he said, standing in front of a display of tanks on the museum grounds, including U.S. Sherman and Pershing vehicles captured during the conflict.

“Up to now, its people are still going hungry and its leaders are militaristic and aggressive,” he added. “To tell the truth, if Russia and China didn’t support it, the country would have quickly ceased to exist.”
Cathcart says factors behind the changing attitudes include the passing of the war generation, North Korea’s reluctance to publicly acknowledge China’s sacrifices, and Chinese authorities giving historians and commentators a freer rein to re-examine past assumptions.

“There’s definitely a revision going on within China, whereas North Korea has really stuck to their narrative. And they have really said Kim Il Sung is the main man, it’s really about his genius,” Cathcart said, referring to the North’s founder and grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un.
“And the Chinese think that’s ludicrous.”


Nice to know that the Chinese have their past sins (and annoying little geeks) to contend with, too.


And of course, also in Japan News ( and Moscow, London, Facebook, and everywhere else in the world), we see Anthony Weiner admitting to yet more texting dick pics, this time to a lady right here in Indiana!  At least when (I'm sure with them it's when and not if) New York makes him governor, they'll know what they're getting.  As will Tokyo, Moscow, London...

Speaking of London, I hear the new third-in-line to the Crown of the UK (since I read today that the Welsh, Scots, and Northern Irish are feeling left out when we say "king of England") finally got a name- George Alexander Louis. Nice of them to honor my dad, Louis "Woody"  Martin, in the name.

HRH Louis W Martin...Hey, I thought you said you had beer??!!