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Some analysts here, however, have trouble with Shigemura's analysis.

"There have been such rumors," says Kim Tae-woo, a pearl jewelry veteran North Korea specialist at the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses. "Dictators usually do that, but we don't know whether this is real or fake."

The North Korean leader's preoccupation these days, he says, is arranging the succession of his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, still in his late biwa pearl 20s.

Ryoo Kihl-jae, professor at the University of North Korean Studies, is dubious about such reports. Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek, appears to be the most powerful figure after the Dear Leader, he says, "but his authority stems from Kim Jong-il" and two or three generals are vying for control.

For now, says Mr. Ryoo, Kim is "living well," and the akoya pearl reports of a double standing in for him are "just imagination."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Israel and Pakistan this week in part put her stamp on two key areas of American foreign policy. Along the way, she is making a lot of people unhappy.

The Palestinian Authority Sunday accused the pearl jewelry United States of "back-pedaling" after Secretary Clinton suggested that a full freeze of Israeli activity in settlement areas was no longer a precondition to the resumption of peace talks.

Clinton instead chose to laud Israel for making "unprecedented" concessions toward slowing the rate of expansion within Israeli settlements. The Palestinians have said that they would not return to the negotiating table until all settlement construction was halted – a position backed by the United States until Sunday.

"The negotiations are in a state of paralysis and the result of Israel's intransigence and America's back-peddling is that there is no hope of negotiations on the horizon," said Nabil Abu Rudeinah, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

This comes on the heels of a contentious trip to Pakistan. Pakistanis had dubbed the three-day trip a "charm offensive" intended to address pervasive anti-American sentiment in Pakistan – born of the pervasive perception that America uses Pakistan only for its own strategic interests.

"We are turning the page on what has been for the past several years primarily a security, anti-terrorist agenda," she told the Associated Press before arriving in Pakistan.

When Clinton arrived, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi added: "This visit of yours will build bridges."

That did not appear to be the case. Instead, in biwa pearl two town halls, she and the Pakistanis questioning her appeared to talk mostly at cross-purposes.

She talked of America's sincere interest in bringing security and prosperity to Pakistan. They invariably grilled her about why the US is using drone aircraft to fire missiles at terrorist targets in tribal areas. The campaign has had some success – killing the leader of the Pakistani Taliban this summer – but Pakistanis say that hundreds civilians have been killed and that the strikes are a violation of national sovereignty.

"As a PR exercise and the creation of an illusion of debate and dialogue, Ms Clinton's recent visit was a triumph of style over content," wrote The News, an English-language Pakistani daily newspaper. "Ms Clinton … was well briefed and had a lawyerly way of answering questions that left you wondering if she had actually answered the question she was asked – or had answered a question she had asked herself unspoken."

Coming out of one town-hall meeting with Clinton, one assistant professor from the Fatima Jinnah Women's University in Rawalpindi told The Monitor: "Frankly, it was a waste of my time. [Clinton] wasn't interested in hearing the about the layman's problems or the reality of our daily lives."

Curiously the comment that seemed to resonate most with Pakistanis was her disbelief at the fact that Pakistani leaders still don't know where Al Qaeda leaders are. "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," she told a group of newspaper editors during a meeting in Lahore.

Noting the exchange, The News said with a touch of akoya pearl admiration: "She occasionally gave a glimpse of the mailed fist inside the velvet glove."

With President Obama assigning special envoys to the Middle East and South Asia, the trip was seen partly as an effort by Clinton to bring her personal touch, hoping that might help progress in these areas, which has been slow.

She finishes the trip with two days in Morocco, where she will meet with several Arab leaders

If “Paranormal Activity” the ultra-low-budget, documentary-style horror flick that surprised box-office watchers by coming in No. 1 this past weekend, were a stock, it would be a Google share times 675.

First-time director Oren Peli spent just $15,000 making the pearl jewelry film, which has so far grossed more than $65 million in the US and Canada. That’s a record-breaking rate of return of more than 433,000 percent.

The Wrap’s Daniel Frankel crunches the numbers, noting that the the previous record holder, “The Blair Witch Project,” cost $60,000 to produce and garnered a 414,000 percent return on investment. By comparison, “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial” returned a measly 7,541 percent return.

So how did Paramount, which distributed the film, manage to get such an astounding bang for their buck?

Step 1: Use the Interblags

The movie’s Facebook page has over 125,000 fans. Not too shabby, but it pales in comparison to the more than one million fans flocking to “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” “Paranormal Activity,” also has more than 8,000 followers on Twitter. Again, this is impressive, but Fake Michael Bay still has more.

The real genius was in the way the film’s distributors let the biwa pearl fans decide in what cities the movie would be shown. As the New York Times reported last month, Paramount, after initially releasing the film in 13 college towns, then set up a page on Eventful, that invited moviegoers to “Demand it!” in their town. As more and more “demands” rolled in, the studio gradually widened the release.

Students of social psychology will recognize this approach as not just a good way to gauge viewer interest, but also as a way to influence it. People have a general desire to be consistent in their behavior, and by having someone make the small, initial commitment of clicking on a button makes that person more likely to follow through and go see the film.

Step 2: Don’t spend too much

The key to having an astronomical return on investment is to akoya pearl start off with a tiny principal. Director Peli shot the movie using unknown actors in his own home, which he renovated for the occasion. The whole thing cost $15,000, and he got some hardwood floors and a new stairwell out of it.

By comparison, if, say “Saw VI,” which cost $11 million to produce, were to make a comparable return on investment, it would have to gross almost $50 billion, which is about 25 times what “Titanic,” the highest-grossing film ever, brought in.

Step 3: Don’t factor in the marketing budget

Even though the film cost only $15,000, Paramount spent about $10 million attempting to let people know about the film. That’s not a lot by Hollywood studio standards, but if you factor it into calculating your return on investment, it sort of ruins the whole thing.

Anyway, here’s the trailer:

So the Playstation 3 is getting its stream on.

Two years after Netflix first rolled out instant Web streaming of movies to its subscribers, the Sony gaming console is getting in on the act. Once limited to pearl jewelry computers, Netflix instant streaming is currently available on the XBox 360, LG and Samsung Blu-ray players, TiVo, a set-top box from Roku, and even some special TVs.

Playstation 3 roll-out of the feature is expected for November, but PS3 owners shouldn’t expect to just turn on their consoles sometime after the end of daylight savings and have instant access to the thousands of titles in the catalog.

Why?

“Initially, watching movies instantly streamed from Netflix via the PS3 system will be enabled by a free, instant streaming Blu-ray disc that is being made available to biwa pearl all Netflix members,” according to the official press release.

Why’s it needed?

“The free instant streaming disc leverages Blu-ray’s BD-Live™ technology to access the Internet and activate the Netflix user interface on the PS3 system, which must be online via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.”

In other words, the PS3 doesn’t yet have the software to akoya pearl deal with Netflix’s interface, and until Sony releases a software update (downloadable for free), PS3-equipped Netflixers will still have to do the disc shuffle. How very 2003.

Call it “one disc to rule them all.”

Netflix members can reserve their free PS3 dummy disc by heading here, and can expect delivery (likely in one of those joy-inducing red envelopes) one business day after they’re released.

Come on, it’s Halloween 2009. You know the Google logo is going to recognize the holiday. And sure enough, the Google folks are celebrating Halloween by not only changing their logo (or doodle) but putting up many images to acknowledge All Hallows Eve.

They could have played it many different ways. Perhaps a salute to pearl jewelry that terrible Halloween song “Monster Mash.” Or maybe in light of the new mega-movie “Paranormal Activity” they could have made the logo more horrifying.

But instead it’s a straight up nod to the tradition of trick or treating. And they went for the “treat” angle rather than the “trick.” Think candy instead of toilet paper on someone’s house.

Go to Google to check it out. In case you don’t know the URL, just Google Google.

Keep on clickin’

The logo is fairly simple. A ghostly white “G-o-o-g-l” followed by a piece of orange candy with a jack-o-lantern impression. Click it again. Now each letter of the biwa pearl Google logo is displayed with a piece of candy — including our favorite “Smarties.”

Click it yet again. Now it displays how you want your Trick or Treating experience to go — tons of candy and no pretzels, fruit, or anything remotely good for you. The logo isn’t even recognizable anymore but who cares — you scored big.

And finally, if you click it one more time, Halloween’s over. Just wrappers of Halloween candy already eaten. And a few half-eaten pieces of candy. You know, the lousy stuff that you received from the house down the street.

No tribute to Charlie Brown however and his unlucky streak of receiving a rock at every house.

As this is an ultra-politically correct world, the akoya pearl display of trash on the screen might be a bit unsettling to some.

We don’t know if Google is choosing to recycle the candy wrappers. Because if you click on the logo again, it takes you to search results for Halloween 2009. Take heart, Earth-firsters, because we told you yesterday how to celebrate a Green Halloween.