Today in Bridge; Today in the Glorious Republic; Today in Paulville; Today in Ziggy
Bobby Wolff has crafted another masterpiece!
They play a strong club, but despite the limited nature of the North hand, Cohen (South) could easily envisage a slam making. Improve North’s diamonds a little and six diamonds might play well. Hence, the quantitative four-no-trump call, which got his side uncomfortably high, as the cards lay.
West, Norberto Bocchi, led a heart to East’s king and South’s ace. Cohen returned a heart, hoping that the defense would not find a club shift, and Bocchi duly won and led a third heart, leaving Cohen unsure who had the 13th heart. He won dummy’s heart 10, cashed his diamond K-Q, and was severely disappointed when Bocchi pitched a spade. At this point, though, Cohen could infer that Bocchi had five spades. He led the spade nine (hoping for a cover from West) to North’s king and was delighted to see East’s 10 fall. Then he passed dummy’s diamond eight to Michael Polowan (East) as Bocchi pitched a club. Cohen won the club return, crossed to the spade ace, and took the diamond ace.
In the three-card ending, West was squeezed in three suits. He had to keep his heart and two spades, so let his club king go. Cohen now threw West in with the 13th heart to engineer a spade lead from the J-7 into the Q-8.
Another demonstration of why Bobby Wolff is the King of the genre of Beat oriented Bridge poetry.
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Some news updates from The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea:
General Secretary Kim Jong Il’s works were briskly studied and disseminated in at least 40 countries and regions and international organizations this year.
His works including “On the Fundamentals of Revolutionary Party Building”, “The Juche Philosophy Is an Original Revolutionary Philosophy” and “Songun Revolutionary Line Is a Great Revolutionary Line of Our Era and an Ever-Victorious Banner for Our Revolution” were published and issued in pamphlet by political parties, organizations and organs including the Communist Party of the Soviet Union(*), the Mongolian Mt. Paektu Association for Independent Development, the Natun Katha of Bangladesh, the Brazilian Photograph Publishing House and the Canta Clara Publishing House of Venezuela.
Foreign papers including a Lao paper, a Mexican paper and a Bulgarian paper carried his works with his photos.
His works were edited in bulletins and posted on Internet homepages by organizations and regional and international organizations including the Switzerland-Korea Committee, the Peruvian Group for the Study of Kimilsungism, the U.S. Solidarity Committee to Support the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front and the South Korean People’s Struggle, the Asian Regional Institute of the Juche Idea, the International Alliance of Societies for the Study of the Juche Idea and Songun Policy in East European and Central Asian Regions and the Korean Friendship Association headquartered in Spain.
Seminars, lectures, reading sessions, briefings and others on his works took place at a total of more than 60 units in different countries including the Party for Unity and Progress of Guinea, the U.S. Group for the Study of Songun Politics and the Finnish National Committee for the Study of the Juche Idea.
That’s why Kim Jung Il is an Internationally Respected World Leader of Culture and Statecraft. (*) Is it me, or does that organization no longer exist?
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There has been no news from the Paulville Movement since March 28. What is wrong with the hardcore Ron Paul fans?
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A description of the enduring appeal of Ziggy.:
Poor Ziggy. He’s perpetually one step behind, one nickel short, one lane away from the fast lane. But we love him for it, because everyone feels like Ziggy now and then.
As for today’s edition of Ziggy, we can all relate to wondering who is drawing mustaches on Garfield — our cat, or our dog.
December 29th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Asian Regional Institute of the Juche Idea:
This institute is one of those hoaxes perpetrated by the dictatorial regime of North Korea. The reason behind such sham activities is not far to understand. It is part of a small clique which a secretive despotic ruler wants to project in a diabolical way to justify his undying ambition to have a big international network. However, this very network is infiltrated by foreign governments to gain access to the dark secrets of the dictator himself. So, it is kind of a win-win situation. No wonder, in a similar way, you had an Australian kangraroo skinner David Hicks once joining the ranks of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Asian Regional Institute of the Juche Idea (ARIJI) sounds big, very influential and reads long. However, its offices are no more than a commercial address in a New Delhi high-rise New Delhi. Its functionaries have a reputation of doing intellectual prostitution. There are just a handful of them and all of them boast of no less a post than a Director or a Secretary General. There are as many orginizations as there are members. All these organizations are constituted of persons from KFA (Korea Friendship Association) ranks.
It is interesting that the Korean dictator knows well that by opening the ranks of all to KFA, he is inviting foreign informers to the country. Still, he continues with such a policy. It could be a way of managing foreign spies — giving them an licensed corridor. Some years back, a Nepalese opthalmologist Dr. Sanduk Ruit went to North Korea ostensibly to conduct eye operations. However, on his team were National Geographic under cover camerapersons and others, many of them surely must have been collecting information on this rogue nation.
When it comes to ARIJI, there is nothing Asian about it. Its small group of members are all Delhi based petty intellectuals and aged politicians, who only bother either about being on board of some big-sounding foreign organization or are desperately interested in good things in life which they enjoy at the expense of the suffering North Koreans. There is a doddering 82 year old Vishwanath Sharma with a D. Litt. (which he explains on his company site as Doctor of Letters), who also enjoys the very-big-sounding post of being the Director General of the International Institute of the Juche Idea in Tokyo. However, all its functions are mostly held in India. Vishwanath Sharma seems to be an out and out government of India man with his advertising background and with close connections even with the British rulers of India in the past. He still owns a typical government accredited advertising agency. There is a notorious husband-wife pair of Harish Guta and Sadhna Harish who between them hog some half a dozen North Korean posts. Harish Gupta has the airs of a thug who has the world at his feet because of his infamous North Korean connections. His wife was manipulated into holding a college principalship in Delhi, where she indulged in the worst of graft and skullduggery. Harish Gupta too is known to be a dubious man with intriguingly divided loyalties between Freemasonry and North Korean brand of dictatorship. Is he a double-cross agent? Very difficult to say, as the two camps he belongs to are totally incompatible. Juche ideas are an antithesis of the secretive democracy practised by the Freemasons since centuries. Can one equate George Washington (a famous Freemason) with Kim Il Sung? Except for the fact that they both founded two new states, there are no common qualities. Their ideals are far removed from each other.
Although, the functionaries of these so-called organizations are a tired lot with nothing better to do in life, as they have reached the end of their tether, the husband-wife pair seem to be going very strong, in spite of being in their sixties. All the North Korean friends, however, seem to have acquired a steely grimacing look which means cold-blooded extermination; they seem to have acquired it from their role ,the dictator Kim Jong Il himself.
Internation Institute of the Juche Idea (IIJI) website has a Tokyo address and events covered in India with some information on its pages. However, the other website called asianregionaljucheinstitute.com (a big name, no doubt!) just has a 1996 text credited to Kim Jong Il the dictator. How do the institute go about propogating its idea? By holding small meeting of its couple of functionaries ocassionally and inviting their family members and friends, many of whom do not turn up at all. Then, ARIJI officials regularly visit North Korean embassy in New Delhi to drink, eat and womanize. And to cap it, ARIJI ‘top’ officials are invited to North Korea once a year to show to the worn out people of North Korea some foreign friends from a very powerful country. Still, a hidden defense agenda underlying these functioning cannot be ruled out. India needs to have a strategic toehold in North Korea to counter the Chinese stranglehold of the North Korean economy and society. So it could an under cover information gathering and information giving network, partly promoted by the Indian government. The nefarious connexion of A Q Khan with North Korean missiles is well known. That was how Pakistan received crucial ballistic missile technology and in return parted with its nuclear know how and equipment. Question is, is India somehow involved in this secret game? Indian involvement in fomenting the Tamil Tigers is well known. India created the problem to sinfully create Rajiv Gandhi’s Waterloo. What is India’s game with North Korea? Even, the North Koreans also seem to be a party to this game.
In short, let us conclude temporarily by saying, “Hail Juche!”