Inside the Asylum

I'm getting old. I've never heard of any of this.

Daggering is a newly accepted name for an activity that has been present in Jamaica’s dancehalls for many years. It is roughly the equivalent of the Caribbean’s “cabin stabbing”, another crude style of music and dance. “Daggering is a dance that makes you unleash the beast! If you ain’t know what I mean think about every sex position and put it in a dance,” commenter Driva said of the dance.

But before you rush off to try it, be aware that authorities in Jamaica have banned daggering ... not because it's "rude" but because

Jamaican doctors were prompted to issue a warning on the dangers of daggering when presented with a range of fractured penises

Ouch.
(Via Kiwiblog)

I thought only medieval monarchs had food tasters?

A US "taster" tested the food being dished up to President Barack Obama at a dinner in a French restaurant, a waiter said on Sunday. "They have someone who tastes the dishes," said waiter Gabriel de Carvalho from the "La Fontaine de Mars" restaurant where Obama and his family turned up for dinner on Saturday night.

Soleiman Haim lived in Iran all his life until his death in 1970. He was a Persian Jew, and author of Persian-English/English-Persian dictionaries. So what Muslim world?

The Sydney Morning Herald reports

Sea Eagles Hold off Plucky Roosters

and

Cowboys Brush Aside Bunnies

Yep, it's just another day in Australian sport.

Gordon Brown is a moron. Well, we knew that already, and I guess he does have a bit on his mind at the moment ... all the same, this one has got to rate up there with Obama's fight against the curse of privacy. Here's what Brown had to say at the D-Day commemorations:

"And so next to Obama beach we join President Obama in paying particular tribute to the spectacular bravery of American soldiers who gave their lives on Omaha beach," Brown said.

If you'd forgotten or somehow missed Obama's gaff, here's a reminder.

"And I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of privacy uh in that region."

I've quote passages like this before from KCNA, and it bears repeating. If you read it for the first time you'd imagine that the North Koreans are about to go to war at any moment. After you read it repeatedly over years, you start to realize that it's just par for the course. That's how they always talk. At first I thought it was just posturing, but the more you read this stuff, the more you come to realize that this is just their typical state of mind. With regards to my previous post arguing that the North Koreans will interpret Obama's words as a threat of war, read this, and then tell me that I've over reacting.

Let us wage a decisive struggle... and frustrate the U.S. imperialists' war moves, drive the U.S. forces out of south Korea and achieve the independent reunification. Let us thoroughly foil Japan's desperate bid to stage a comeback to Korea, while working hard to create a crisis on the Korean Peninsula and go without making apology and reparation for its crimes... The South Headquarters of Pomminryon will join the seventy million Koreans in their positive struggle to foil the war moves of the U.S., Japan and the Lee dictatorial regime [in South Korea] and achieve the independent reunification.

Obama delivers some provocative words to North Korea. If I'm reading diplomatic language correctly (and assuming that Obama the Unready understands that words spoken in diplomacy carry particular meanings and subtexts, which is not a safe bet, I know) then Obama has threatened North Korea with a response that does not involve diplomacy, or which (at minimum) forces North Korea to engage in "diplomacy" as defined by Obama, and which is a strong response that will punish them.

Obama said "North Korea's actions over the last couple of months have been extraordinarily provocative... Diplomacy has to involve the other side engaging in a serious way in trying to solve problems, and we have not seen that kind of reaction from North Korea... We are going to take a very hard look at how we move toward... I don't think there will be an assumption that we will simply continue down the path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways. We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

Did Obama just threaten North Korea with attack? Does anyone know of any other kind of response that involves punishing unwanted behavior that does not involve diplomacy? It's possible that I'm over-reading this, but if I see it this way, does anyone care to take odds over whether the ultra paranoid North Koreans will read it in the same way?

So let's take a set of known facts: the North Koreans are armed to the teeth; the North Koreans are paranoid, regularly accusing USA and Japan of planning a "re-invasion"; the North Koreans have either achieved the ability to produce nuclear weapons or are very close to it depending on how you interpret their recent tests; it is possible to interpret Obama's words, delivered at the D-Day commemorations of all places, as a military threat.

Holy crap.