land of charming redheads

Paragh Khanna in Pyongyang is a marriage made in fuckwit technocrat heaven - the airport in one of the world's poorest countries is so easy to clear -  and as such normally worth ignoring. But this bit was especially repellant

Most of those labeled defectors into China are actually economic migrants, and even in Pyongyang one can tell which children come from poor villages by their ragged sandals and brownish hair, made lighter by long hours under the sun in the fields.

A light or reddish tinge in the hair of normally dark-haired children is evidence of chronic malnutrition, not a consequence of some spartan, austere but basically productive agricultural regime. In a North Korean context it's likely to come from protein deficiency through subsisting almost entirely on corn porridge. Khanna's explanation sounds like something his minder told him, which he then went on and puinted to CNN's readers.

Comments

[chris y]

A fun parlour game is to construct a conspiracy theory about yourself if you were knocked down by a bus tomorrow.

I once received a letter out of the blue from some woman who was after details of my father's career because she believed him to have been an intelligence agent both during and after WWII. She was "writing a book" about minching mallecho in British East Africa, and felt that dad's efforts were part of the story.

I pointed out that he would have been hard put to it to do much agenting during the war at least, since he spent most of it in various POW camps. But she was unabashed and wrote back suggesting darkly that it was just as she thought.

I imagine she was a loony. However, if I am ever run over by a supertram, I shall take comfort in my last moments in the thought that the driver is certainly the son of a Nazi spy active in Tanganyika, who has been plotting revenge these 60-odd years.

[seeds]

RE: deleted D notice comments. I find the idea of a D notice fascinating here but I'm trying not to let myself get carried away.

It's not crazy to think that any news site that accepts comments would set up a filter to instantly delete anything that says "super injunction" or "D notice", since, when in effect, these are things that the sites aren't allowed to mention the existence of, on pain of contempt of court or being snubbed by their government sources, respectively.

They're never going to engage in an is there / isn't there debate because if they do it once they will always have to do it. So better to delete any and all mention. Plus they'll probably take offence at the idea being mentioned in any thread, rightly or wrongly, because it's insulting to suggest that they sometimes gloss over the truth to their readers.

Oh, and many of the commentators on Murray's site sound pretty barmy, whether they're on the money or not. There may be other reasons for mods to delete their comments, aside from accusations of a D notice.

[seeds]

A fun parlour game is to construct a conspiracy theory about yourself if you were knocked down by a bus tomorrow.

if I am ever run over by a supertram, I shall take comfort in my last moments in the thought that the driver is certainly the son of a Nazi spy active in Tanganyika, who has been plotting revenge these 60-odd years.

Bus, supertram, light aircraft... "even a heart attack's not uncommon for a man your age"*

The difference is that these methods all leave room for head-shaking at conspiracy theorists and pointing them towards actuarial tables.

OTOH, executing an entire family (plus passerby) is understandably going to raise eyebrows amongst even the least imaginative audience.

*Cigarette-Smoking Man to Skinner, "Paperclip", S03E02

[Richard J]

True, but given how rare events like this are in real life (outside of bad thrillers), qualitive Bayesianism (oxymoronic, I know, but you know what I mean) means its tricky to decide between 'secret gambling debts', 'family disputes', 'something completely bizarre' and 'omg teh Mossad'....

[Jakob]

Richard: follwing ajay's query, I assume SWF is Sovereign Wealth Fund?

[ajay]

Jakob: I am pretty sure it is, yes.

[ajay]

it's tricky to decide between 'secret gambling debts', 'family disputes', 'something completely bizarre' and 'omg teh Mossad'.

Why pick just one?

"Listen, I know you don't get on with your brother, but if you don't help him pay off the money he lost betting on the walrus fights, the bookie says he's going to send Lev and Shlomo round to have a word!"

[chris y]

ajay is clearly correct and should contact M Maillaud immediately with this information.

[Richard J]

ajay + jacob> Yes, it is.

[Seeds]

French police rule out martians and vengeful spirits

[Seeds]

Richard, I do take the point that lots of totally ordinary details start to look suggestive in the right context and not all of these exciting-in-context details can possibily be relevant (unless he really was knocked off by his brother on behalf of Mossad, who were really targetting the French nuclear scientist on the bike. Or something). I'm sure that if / when the truth comes out, it will be simultaneously a lot messier and a lot more mundane that I had expected.

My cite here is Libra by Don DeLillo, which I think nails perfectly the atmosphere of coincidence and cross-purpose that any genuine conspiracy would involve.

Even better actually, I think Errol Morris's six minute short film about the Umbrella Man makes the case perfectly. And it's worth watching anyhow.

[Simstim]

Ex-RAF cyclist witness speaks:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/13/french-alps-shootings-cyclist-describes-scene

[Phil]

"Rather unpleasant."

[Cian]

The quiet heroism and basic decency of the man is pretty striking in that piece. By the end I just wanted to shake his hand and say 'thank you'. He knew what had to do, it was unpleasant. He did it.

[Account Deleted]

Good for you to have written this about Khanna's disgraceful column on NK. I wrote a longert piece on this myself and referenced this page. Well said.
http://asiansecurityblog.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/pyongyang-isnt-laid-back-leafy-or-what-parag-khanna-didnt-learn-in-nk-5/

[Richard J]

Strictly OT, but strangely relevant: I had lunch with one of my Korean colleagues today who was curious to know as to how you could distinguish a Scotsman from an Englishman. I muttered something about red hair being a rough indicator and left it at that.

[ajay]

"Same as in Korea. The ones from the north are red-haired, three inches shorter, and don't have any money."

[dsquared]

OTOH, executing an entire family (plus passerby) is understandably going to raise eyebrows amongst even the least imaginative audience.

These things are often narrowcast to a small but highly valuable audience (like the ads in the FT's How To Spend It supplement). Whoever zipped that bloke from my village into a holdall and then wiped out absolutely all DNA in his flat was clearly sending a message to somebody, and I bet that somebody understood the message to be something like "This Is The Sort Of Thing We Can Do, And Nobody Will Care".

[CMcM]

how you could distinguish a Scotsman from an Englishman.

So no-one's translated Wodehouse into Korean then?