Author: Joey deVilla

“Set course for the island of Dr. No!”

With the old-school appearance of the submarine designed in the 1950s, the blue-green tones of the exterior photos, and the Great Successor’s poses and angles at which he’s photographed, Kim Jong-Un looks like a villain from the Sean Connery-era James Bond movies in these undated photos released by North Korea.

Click the photo to see it at full size.

“Look upon this sub made from Chinese knock-off parts I got on the military equivalent of eBay, and despair!” the photos seem to say. The Soviets called this design “Project 633”, while NATO’s classification for this sub is Romeo. Designed from lessons learned from captured German XXI U-Boats, Romeo-class subs are powered by diesel-electric engines and were first built in the late 1950s. The Union formerly known as Soviet phased them out shortly after 1961 when they switched to nuclear-powered submarines, and they’ve been decommissioned by military powers such as Syria and Algeria. China still has a baker’s dozen of these sub for training purposes, Egypt operates 3 upgraded variants, and Bulgaria still has one in operation.

Click the photo to see it at full size.

Naughty Korea (as opposed to Nice Korea) is the leading operator of Romeo-class subs, with 22 in its navy. Four of these — presumably the better-built ones — were bought from China, while the remainder were assembled locally with parts bought from China. They carry Chinese-made Yu-4 torpedoes, which date from the 1960s and have a range of between 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) for the original version and 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) for the upgraded version. In contrast, the U.S. Navy’s Harpoon missiles can hit a target 240 kilometres (150 miles) away — that’s nearly 40 times the range of the Chinese torpedo.

“Notify Dr. No that I will be arriving,
and want to see the progress on his jamming device.”
Click the photo to see it at full size.

These photos were released Monday by the North Korean government’s press agency, who reported that Kim, whose polymath powers make Buckaroo Banzai s green as Kim’s sub with envy, taught the submarine’s captain “a good method of navigation”. True to his title, the Great Successor has taken mansplaining to a whole new level.

“Annyeonghi gaseyo, Mr. Bond.”
Click the photo to see it at full size.

I’ll end this with the closing lines from David Blair’s report for The Telegraph:

Mr. Kim’s decision to pay a high profile visit seems at odds with the official doctrine of the so-called People’s Navy, which stresses the importance of camouflage and concealment.

So seriously were these tasks taken that 2004 was officially declared the “Year of Camouflage.”

On the 10th anniversary of that occasion, however, Mr. Kim allowed photographs of the unlikely pride of his fleet to be released to the world.

Cdre Stephen Saunders, the editor of IHS Jane’s Fighting Ships, summed up: “The fact that the Dear Successor is spending time on what, in any other navy, would be an obsolete submarine tells its own story.”

“Minions! Now set course for the island of Dennis Rodman!”
Click the photo to see it at full size.

Smug Button-Down Preppie, pictured below, is using the “No True Galt” debate tactic in his defense of Libertarianism…

Click Smug White Guy #1’s photo to read his opinion.

…while Smug Hoodie Preppie, pictured below, has moved to something he calls “libertarian-socialism”, which sounds a lot like “kosher pork rinds”:

Click Smug White Guy #2’s photo to read his opinion.

Ignoring the content of their articles — which, given the subject matter, is a good idea — these guys are smugness selfie amateurs. Let me show you how a professional does it:

Damn straight.

Hot on the heels of learning that manga eye makeup existed, I stumbled into this product while picking up groceries at Publix the other day.

I don’t think there’s really a need for this when a solution already exists. It’s my understanding that Americans will eat anything that’s been covered with enough ranch dressing, which is probably way cheaper thanks to economies of ranch dressing scale.

And now, some photos yanked from my “random snaps” collection on my iPhone that I shot this week.

I love seeing palm trees everywhere:

Ah, pork. Great meat, or best meat?

I manage to get in at least a half-hour of swimming four times a week these days:

This is a viable business in a place where winter almost doesn’t exist:

I cannot confirm nor deny that I set foot in this establishment:

Yes, there are places in America that aren’t full of 300-pound people on motorized sccoters, where people actually walk or bike to places that aren’t located inside a mall:

And for the next couple of days, this is my office. It’s within wifi range, and there’s a power outlet out here!

It was a bad PR move for a member of the Liberal Party of Ontario to use this in their campaign materials, but it’s AWESOME for a satirist like Yours Truly to use it in his blog. If you’re an eligible Ontario voter, go and vote in today’s election. I did, even though I’m hundreds of miles away, so you have no excuse. Vote!

Manga, which in North America was once the domain of serious comics fans, Japanophiles, and the creepier guys at sci-fi, game and comics conventions, is now mainstream, if this eye makeup display in Walgreens is any indication.