crewball North Korean leader Kim Jong Il confused the world yesterday by threatening to nuke South Korea, moments before humping a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Marilyn Monroe in front of thousands of onlookers and international news goons. The time-killing standoff between North Korea and the U.S. sped up a tick when Kim, galled by the United States’ demands for the scrapping of his nuclear arms program and South Korea’s calls for a compromise on the matter, pledged to bomb his southern neighbor, and by its close geographical proximity, his own country, to prove to the world that he means business.

Kim was quoted by a drunken German reporter as saying “You Amelicans so clazy! We nukes you in the Mickey Mouse!�

Experts on the Korean situation insist that Kim is serious, in spite of how goofy he looks. They claim that North Korea has the means, the will, and the lack of parental supervision to follow through with its deadly plan. People totally ignorant to the situation, however, insist that he’s full of shit and is probably just taking the country for a joyride while his dad is away on business or something.

Potent images of Kim Jong Il dancing around in his underwear to the tune of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll� aside, this reporter had more pressing questions for the North Korean dictator. Like, what the fuck’s up with that name? Isn’t Kim supposed to be a chick name? I bet that got his ass karated in grade school. Unfortunately, Kim could not be reached for comment on this or other girly-name topics.

A source speaking under the condition of anonymity had this to say: “I ain’t shittin’ you, man, this shit’s got to be anonymous, I’m not even kidding. Cause what I gots to say is hotter than Halle Berry with some kind of malarian fever, know what I’m sayin’? Shit. So if I read in your paper that Leroy said this, I come to kill your non-confidentiating ass, dig?�

Kim’s announcement was followed by a gala parade and fireworks show featuring workers dressed as large Korean knock-offs of Muppets with names like Grover the Dog and Mrs. Frogfuck. While Kim snacked on royal salmon caught in the vaginas of beautiful women and wine that had gold flakes dissolved in it just for shits and giggles, acrobats flipped through the air and less graceful workers held up flags detailing the glorious nuking of South Korea and the beautiful fallout that would soon spread to the victorious North. The Mardi Gras atmosphere was marred somewhat by the genital electrocution of several parade workers who dishonored the state by pronouncing the “R� in Korea, but spirits rose quickly when a dancing bear wearing a sombrero rolled in on top of a huge rubber ball while wearing a “Made in Korea� tee shirt.

The finale and highlight of the evening was the forced labor-camp imprisonment of anyone who had ever been to South Korea, and their families.

ost-Super Bowl rioting continued in Cambodia, reaching its pinnacle with the torching of the Thai Embassy Wednesday. Several stores and businesses, predominately Thai-owned, were also vandalized and set afire by distraught Raiders fans.

Political pundits, whatever those are, speculate that the Cambodian people live in stressful times and frequently find their only release in American football, particularly the Oakland Raiders. For a people already hit on hard times, especially with escalating ill will between themselves and neighbors Thailand, the loss of the favored Raiders was the last straw.

Sports pundits, if any such people exist, could not be found because once we said it no one in the office could stop laughing long enough to find some.

Expert sports follower Ray "Sport" William, a sports follower for 34 years and frequenter of the bar across the street from the commune offices, could sympathize with the disgusted Cambodian citizens.

"It's a damn shame, a'course," said Sport. "What you have is a real awkward situation 'cause shoddy reporting and populist politics are preying upon a people who are struggling to join a world market.

"With elections coming up in July, the Hu Sen government is whipping up nationalist frenzy to keep attention off domestic problems, including a border treaty with Vietnam that's still not signed yet. What's the best way to get a population furiously patriotic? Give them an enemy, and in this case, Thailand makes a convenient target. Now anything and everything that comes out of Thailand can be misconstrued by journalists who jump on the bandwagon, like alleged comments by some Thai actress that the Angkor Wat national monument really belonged to Thailand."

Sport could not see any immediate relief for the frenzied football fans.

"There's no hope on the horizon, I'd say. At least not until the elections have come and gone and the government is either comfortably in place and can turn the focus away from Thailand, or Sam Rainsy campaigners succeed in turning the eye back on domestic issues and unseat the Hu Sen government."

Or, as Professor of Asiatic Politics at Columbia University Dom Jutney said, "There's always next year. You can't keep Oakland down. This year Tampa Bay wanted it more. Next year it's all Raiders, baby."

The Thai Embassy in America, while not currently in flames, could not be reached for comment. Which is a polite way of saying they hung up on us repeatedly, which was really pretty thoughtless considering we were calling long distance and they charge us for the first minute whether we speak for a minute or ten seconds. A second call to determine if they would pay the charges for the first call was not received any better, which leaves us with two unpaid long distance calls.

The Cambodian Embassy was more receptive, leading us to believe they can't be all bad.

"The riots are terrible. It is sad that a collection of outraged individuals are representing Cambodia to the world in their violence, especially in this time of potential war and political difficulties in other areas of the world. It weighs heavy on this country's heart. If only Jerry Rice had succeeded on those two-point conversions."

Anyone who's ever showed up naked on the shores of Greenland expecting a lush tropical paradise, only to have his dong bit off by a penguin, is liable to be curious as to how the island got its misleading name. Likewise for any cold-loving Eskimo freak living in Iceland and wondering why his balls are sweating all the time and why everybody makes fun of his bulbous whale-fur parka while they're all kicking it in Hawaiian shirts and jams. The mystery of why Iceland is green and Greenland is icier than Catherine Zeta-Jones' chest cavity is something that has vexed tourists, indiscriminate immigrants and the uninformed for centuries.

The reasons behind this cartographical bait-and-switch date back to ancient times. In 330 B.C., the ancient explorer Pytheas sailed north from France to try and find some place to dump a dead horse that nobody wanted to take off his hands. Back in those days you couldn't just dump a dead horse by the side of the freeway like you can now, there were laws and steep horse-carcass-disposal fees. Pytheas's horse died of shock after walking on the explorer having sex with his wife's hat rack, and so even beyond the expense of paying somebody to dump the corpse off a high cliff, Pytheas was not looking forward to explaining to someone why the horse died with such a surprised look on his face.

So the explorer set out in his ship, with the horse's body in tow, beginning to smell even more ripe than a horse does when alive. Six days north of Britain, and a day south of the edge of the world where you could peek around to the other side and see the word search puzzle and maze game on the back, Pytheas found a beautiful uncharted island. After taking a quick look around to make sure he didn't see anybody he knew, Pytheas dumped the horse and planted his own personal "Found it!" flag, as a warning to any other explorers inclined to claim the island for their own, and their horses.

Iceland was populated mainly by embarrassing corpses and explorers' flags until the 9th century, when it was settled by Norwegians who brought with them a number of Celts in their luggage. Around this time the island came to be known as Tholböp, an Icelandic word meaning "Land of Easy Women." But the natives there eventually changed the name to "Iceland," so Vikings in the area would look at their maps and say "Fuck that, sounds cold!" and instead carry on their raping and pillaging in Greenland, where they would freeze to death because Greenland is nothing but a big hunk of ice floating out in the ocean. Nobody said the Icelanders didn't have a good sense of humor. This has been evidenced in the high percentage of Icelandic men named Snorri and in the nation's major exports: pet rocks and really hot women who look like Björk.

The half-dozen natives of Greenland didn't appreciate having their island's name changed without being consulted first, but the resulting bumper crop of dead Vikings washing up on their shores soon assuaged all of their concerns. This development served to found Greenland's economy, which was soon booming with the import of dead frozen Vikings and the export of Greenlanders who thought it might be nicer to live somewhere else. Those who remained lived the good life, as much as any life lived in constant oppressive cold on top of a giant hunk of ice can be called good, and they were content to sing songs about snow while huddled inside their igloos made of piles of dead frozen Vikings.

Greenland was originally known as Igapaquk, an Inuit word meaning "Eeh, it's okay." The first colony on the island was founded in 500 B.C. by a lost band of Inuit sailors from Canada who were very pessimistic about their chances of finding something better if they sailed on further. Legend has it that these early inexperienced pilgrims only stayed on Greenland because of a linguistic snafu which caused them to confuse the two meanings of the word "settle," one being to build a colony in a new land and the other to accept something shitty even though you could probably do better.

So now that the globe's great lie has been exposed we can move on to more pressing questions, such as what do they call really nice dishes in China? Stay tuned.

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