Eideard

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A civic activist and vocal critic of President Lee Myung-bak rode a growing call for political change to become mayor of the South Korean capital, Seoul, winning a poll widely seen as a bellwether for the presidential election in December next year.

The activist, Park Won-soon, an independent candidate who was supported by the main opposition Democratic Party, clinched the mayoral race by winning 53.4 percent of the 4 million votes cast, according to the country’s Central Election Management Committee.

His rival, Na Kyung-won, a candidate affiliated with President Lee’s Grand National Party, won 46.2 percent.

“Citizens defeated political power,” said Mr. Park, who refused to join a political party, billing himself as a “citizens’ candidate.” “Through election, they defeated an outdated era…”

Sohn Hak-kyu, head of the Democratic Party, indicated the victory of Mr. Park as an independent would prompt all the liberal opposition parties to regroup toward “a change of governments next year.”

The race in Seoul, home to one-fifth of the country’s 50 million people, was also widely regarded as a referendum on President Lee ahead of the parliamentary elections in April…

The poll, although confined to Seoul, drew nationwide attention by pitting a woman against a man, a political establishment star against an outsider — and Park Geun-hye against another possible candidate for next year’s presidential election, Ahn Chul-soo, a Seoul National University professor whose meteoric rise to political stardom analysts said reflected a gathering storm for change…

Mr. Park, 55, is a former student activist expelled from his university in the 1970s for demonstrating against former President Park Chung-hee, who was assassinated in 1979. Mr. Park later became a human rights lawyer who led two of South Korea’s most influential civic groups that exposed corruption in the country’s powerful conglomerates and accused members of the conservative elite — including President Park — of collaborating with the Japanese during their colonial rule in Korea.

RTFA to get yourself up to speed on contemporary politics in South Korea. Understand that changes like this one are at least as qualitative as the American attempt at the end of the Bush/Cheney cabal. And may actually produce changes that are qualitative rather than quantitative.

Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike’s handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.

State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet.

Uh-huh.

Thanks, Ursarodinia

A Russian man died after burying himself alive in a friend’s garden in the Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk in an endurance test that went wrong, according to investigators.

The 35-year-old man wanted to test his endurance and asked his friend to help him spend the night buried, according to Alexei Lubinsky, a senior aide to the region’s chief investigator.

The two men dug a hole in the garden and put inside an improvised coffin with holes for air pipes. The man also took a blanket, a bottle of water and a mobile phone.

The victim’s friend told investigators he covered the hole with planks and earth to a depth of around eight inches and then went home, after receiving a phone call from his friend telling him he was fine. The next morning, he found his friend dead.

Investigators speculated that a rainstorm overnight could have blocked the air supply to the coffin.

“We know that the victim was a computer programmer and that he has a small child,” Mr Lubinsky said, adding that he probably was influenced by reading stories about self-burial on the internet.

I’m honestly dismayed by the number of truly stupid risks people take with their lives after reading about inane behavior on the Web. If I strolled around town handing out leaflets suggesting idiotic life-threatening stunts for people to try I’d probably be locked away as a menace.

Deservedly so.

Former Republican Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., the Obama administration’s ambassador to China, hinted in an interview with Newsweek that he is considering running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Sources close to Huntsman said he met with political advisors last month on a home visit to discuss the possibility of leaving the administration to join the crowded GOP 2012 field, the magazine said.

When asked directly whether he planned to mount a challenge, Huntsman declined to comment, the magazine said in an article posted on its website Saturday…

Huntsman, 50, is a moderate, pro-business Republican who has been considered a rising star in his party. When Obama appointed him ambassador to China in 2009, a gesture that underscored the president’s oft-stated commitment to bipartisanship, some speculated that the president was removing a potential political rival.

In an interview last month on “Charlie Rose,” Huntsman said it was his sense of duty that led him to accept Obama’s offer, which came six months after he was reelected governor in a landslide.

“I accepted because the president asked,” Huntsman said. “I am a traditionalist in that sense…. If you can make a unique contribution in that particular job, hardship though it might be, you stand up and serve.”

Huntsman, who has lived in Asia four times, speaks Mandarin fluently. “You cannot understand the complexity and color and richness of the Chinese culture unless you are able to speak the language,” he told Rose.

Let’s see: A bright, well-educated moderate conservative. Supports bipartisan politics on behalf of the needs of the whole United States. An understanding participant in global economic matters, capable of negotiating from a position of experience, understanding and competence in Asia.

Har! It is to laugh.

A Polish singer and tabloid celebrity has put up posters of herself stretched out on the sand in a provocative bikini as part of her campaign to win a Warsaw district council seat in municipal elections on November 21.

Several of the posters…are to be seen around Warsaw’s Bemowo district bearing Sara May’s slogan: “Beautiful, independent, competent.”

“The deeds count, not the words, so I will not promise anything. I live in Bemowo in Warsaw,” May, whose real name is Katarzyna Szczolek, wrote on her English language website, adding that she would try to make the city a better place to live in.

Ah, yes. Poland maintains their tradition of interesting poster art.

The election? Oh.

Rich Iott, second from right, in a Nazi SS Waffen uniform

And it ain’t the guy in a kilt!

A Mexican politician who was expected to win a state election has been killed on the campaign trail.

Rodolfo Torre Cantu, who was running for governor in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, was shot along with four of his supporters.

Police say he was on his way to a series of campaign rallies when his convoy was ambushed by hooded gunmen…

Tamaulipas has been the scene of a fierce turf war between rival drug gangs fighting over access to lucrative drug smuggling routes to the United States.

The BBC’s Julian Miglierini in Mexico City says Mr Torre Cantu had made the fight against drug-related violence his central campaign promise.

Our correspondent says that only hours before he was killed, Mr Torre Cantu told a rally that he wanted the people of Tamaulipas to feel safe and to be able to walk the streets without fear.

So much for campaign hopes and promises vs. corruption and drug gangs in Mexico.

Political observers across New York are asking today whether Erie County Executive Chris Collins has irreparably damaged his prospects for statewide office after he compared Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to Adolf Hitler and an Antichrist during a Saturday speech in Buffalo.

Collins has already apologized for what he called “a poor joke,” delivered during a speech at the county Republican Party’s annual fundraiser in the Adam’s Mark Hotel.

That’s when the county executive referred to French seer Nostradamus’ prediction that the world would experience three Antichrists in conjunction with the Apocalypse, whose origin is the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

Collins then said it’s generally accepted that the first was Napoleon, the second Hitler, and that he was “pretty sure” the third is Silver, an orthodox Jew from Manhattan…

“He’s the former shining light of the Republican Party,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant from Manhattan who studies ethnic and religious voting patterns.

“Never mind the anti-Semitic content,” he said. “It makes him look nuts, and it doesn’t add to the discussion…

One of those attending Saturday’s dinner called the statement “unbelievable.”

“It was staggering,” said the Republican, who asked not to be identified. “It took my breath away.”

This is why spin doctors invent words like “misspoke”.

Jerks who can’t and won’t deal with society’s bigotry always have to fall back on some silly rationale to cover their buns when they let crap like this slip out.

A fatal moped accident occurred Sunday night, and police believe that the driver was text messaging minutes before the crash. Douglas Flores, 41, was killed when his moped crashed into a telephone pole. Flores’ vehicle was seen driving off of the road before the crash at around 9:00 p.m. Sunday.

Witnesses also told deputies that he may have been trying to text message while driving the scooter.

The sheriff’s office said that the investigation may include looking at Flores’ cell phone records at the time of the accident.

Right now, the sheriff’s department has not been able to locate his cell phone at the scene of the crash.

I imagine that cellphone traveled a pretty fair distance before landing. The telephone pole didn’t move at all.

Oh, one TV report said he wasn’t wearing a helmet, either.

Sen. Barack Obama has picked Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, multiple Democratic sources tell CNN.

The longtime Democratic senator was long considered a likely choice for vice president, but the buzz surrounding him intensified after he returned earlier this week from a two-day trip to the Republic of Georgia after Russian troops invaded.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, brings years of experience that could help counter GOP arguments that an Obama administration would be inexperienced on foreign policy.

After trying for the presidential spot enough times, certainly name recognition is there. Plus, Biden’s extensive foreign policy experience might make a difference.

Thanks, K B