South Korean Politics and Elections

New post dating method

I have decided to change how I date the posts, with the post date being the date that the article in question was published in the original publication rather than the date I but it on the blog.  I retrofitted the new method on posts from the last six weeks of the presidential election.

I hope to get posts on the national Assembly elections caught up by Wednesday afternoon.  The plan is to then go back and get a few articles on the presidential transition and a few other articles of interest.  If all goes well, I will be completely caught up by April 20 and I and settle into a comfortable 5-10 posts per week.

Of course, I remember writing something similar a few times before.

New party links

Time to update the party links:

Can SKPE come back?

Talk about bad timing; I was hit will extra loads of work just as the presidential campaign was getting heated up.  Three months later, I find myself hopelessly behind in posting. 

To try to make up for lost ground, I will try to get 20-30 posts in per week for the next five or six weeks.  I will reach back as far as the archives go at my regular sources (Korea Times, Chosun, Joongang, Dong-A, Hankyoreh) although I think only the Times will get me back to November.  I will supliment that will somethings I can get from Google searches.  Hopefully, that will fill in most of the gaps.

One good thing about reaching so far back is that I have the advantage of hindsight when picking which articles I think are important.

If all works well, I will have this blog back in good shape by the middle of March.

(Update:  I will have to go all the way back to page 55 on the KT list to get to October 29.  I will have to do closer to 40 posts per week to catch up by the ides of March.)

That's President Lee Myung-bak to you

Just a note:  This Blog will refer to "President Lee Myung-bak" starting December 20.  While he is not president until the inauguration, the transition period is an important part of a presidency and will be recorded as such.

That's "President Lee Myung-bak to you"

Posts referring to Lee Myung-bak after his successful election to the presidency will be listed under "President Lee Myung-bak" unless they specifically are about the campaign.  That applies even if it the event discussed took place before his inauguration.

Updated party labels

I have updated the Uri party labels to UNDP so old Uri members look like this:  Kim Dae-up  (Uri UNDP). 

I realize that I may have moved some members who have not joined the new party.  I also know that a couple of Democratic Party members have joined the UNDP and will change their party labels later.

I have also changed Sohn Hak-kyu from the GNP to the UNDP.

SKPE note: Category for 2007 inter-Korean summit

Starting with the post-October 5 analysis pieces, the 2007 summit has changed from a political event to a historical one.  So future references to it will be listed under 2007 inter-Korean summit.

Almost caught up (I mean it this time)

OK, I am up to September 7.  I hope to get up to September 26 (including the Chuseok holiday) by Monday and will then start getting pieces from multiple sources again. 

Although I think the Korea Times is the best English-language source of Korean political news, I am sure I have missed a lot of August and September news by relying on only one source.

I hope I will not fall this far behind again.

updating a link

I am finally going to update the link to the Uri Party United New Democratic Party.  Here is the link button:

SKPE coming back online

August was crazy-busy, so I had to basically stop posting just as things were heating up in the GNP race.  I will try to get 25+ posts a week in over the next few weeks to try to catch up on the stories I have missed over the last few weeks.