This is *the* best version of this weekend’s “Obama bowed to a yellow” YouTube story, as broken by a Los Angeles Times blog that was begging for (and receiving) a Drudge link. Shots all around. [YouTube via Rumproast]

Whoa, neato! “Researchers on Thursday announced the discovery of two World War II Japanese submarines, including one meant to carry aircraft for attacks on American cities and the Panama Canal, in deep water off Hawaii, where they were sunk 63 years ago.” They are still operational and Obama plans to operate them, on America and the Panama Canal. No, they are not operational at all. But will Obama still use them? [NYT]

JAPAN’S NEW FIRST LADY IS VERY MAGICAL & SPECIAL: “While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus,’ Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of premier-in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama, wrote in a book published last year. ‘It was a very beautiful place and it was really green.’” [Reuters]

Oh noes this is almost a diplomatic incident or something! Here is Barack Obama leaning ominously over the lap of Japanese Premier Taro Aso during a fancy G-8 summit dinner. White House photographer Pete Souza has surely been around long enough to remember the horrifying incident of 1992 when President George H.W. Bush vomited in the lap of Japanese premier Miyazawa Kiichi — after all, Souza was the White House photographer way back when Reagan was president. What, you don’t remember Bush 41 throwing up in his buddy’s lap? Well come on and look at the video! MORE »

Every human with a brain clearly understands that the best way to “deal with North Korea” at this point or really any point is to nuke Kim Jong Il in the butt, kill all of its civilians (children first, because what do they know?), donate the women to Wall Street banks which can use them as reserves against further drops in mortgage-backed securities, e-mail Texas’ oil to North Korean aquifers so that it might be drilled up, for profit, Establish Free Markets of dildo retail chains, and what else, oh right, let American colonizers vote for shit periodically. This is the respectable centrist opinion, and the government is ready to just run with it once it gets maybe 2 or 3 more specific details about how to actually carry out the invasion of this country. Fortunately, for them, a Pajamas Media columnist has UMM ALREADY DONE THIS? MORE »

This is a couple of months old, but you know what else it is? It’s your “Wednesday Lunch Video” hooray! Yes We Change! Blackface? [YouTube]

All this talk about the economy! Eh, Who cares, it’s finished, so how’s Hillary Clinton’s Dipolomatic Corps doing? She’s in Asia, you know! And oh, what a swell time she’s having, drinking tea with the Japanese royals, taking in Eastern culture, and most importantly, getting the hell out of Washington D.C. Best job in the world, and all she has to do is tell North Korea not to nuke anybody every few days. Here’s a clip from the Indonesian show Dahsyat, which is Indonesia’s version of TRL. Pick a random part of the video and watch for 30 seconds. The “Fun Part” comes at 4:30. [Daily Intel]

Here is Japan’s beloved finance minister, Shoichi “Slurry Joe” Nakagawa, performing his hilarious “drunken finance minister” routine at some G7 press conference. Now he must resign! That’s how they roll in Japan. [MarketWatch]

Pat Buchanan has written a real ripsnorter of a column in the American Conservative about how the Republicans are a bag of salty dicks, for hating Detroit. Detroit could be worse — for example, they could be Japs: “But why this ‘Let-them-eat-cake!’ coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor.” [American Conservative]

Wasn’t the Fed supposed to cut rates in half today, from 1 percent to 0.5 percent? Well, that wasn’t good enough, for this failed economy and economic system. So now it’s “near zero,” which means “zero.” Just like Japan tried for years and years, to no effect! The Federal Reserve Bank is now out of “traditional ammunition,” according to almost-president Barack Obama, and your government is now printing money at an insane pace, and then banks are taking this money and immediately buying U.S. Treasury bonds, because nothing else is safe, and that is pretty much the end of this particular feedback loop. MORE »

Since news is not happening at all in our country this morning, let’s turn our attention to the East and its Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. We trade with them! And what do we trade? Sexy schoolmarm glasses: “Kazuo Kawasaki, the Japanese designer for Sarah Palin’s glasses, is grateful to the Republican vice presidential candidate for making his product famous although he acknowledged he also likes Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama.” Sarah Palin knows nothing. She’s buying Japanese machinery when we’re at WAR with this very same Japan? [AP]