Far East Cynic

You are the Longest serving Prime Minister in Japanese history.

You’ve been branded as “Bush’s poodle”.

You have gotten the JMSDF/JASDF/JGSDF to deploy overseas in spite of popular opinion against these deployments.

You’ve thumped your opponents in a snap election over postal reform.

You’ve done a good job making S.Korea and China pissed off by visiting Yasikuni shrine.

You got (some of) the abductees home and got N. Korea to admit they did it……

You have gotten the Japanese economy to start out of its doldrums……

What does one do for an encore to that?

GO TO GRACELAND OF COURSE……


So that’s where he gets his advice!

TOKYO — When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tours Graceland later this month with President Bush, he wil lbe representing a big constituency — Japan has droves of Elvis Presley fans, and the biggest Elvis fan club in all of East Asia.
Koizumi, of course, is the most famous. Last year he serenaded Bush with “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” at a birthday party for the president. Apparently it made quite an impression — Bush and his wife, Laura, will accompany Koizumi on his June 30 visit to Presley’s estate in Memphis, Tenn. “It’s exciting,” Jack Soden, chief executive of Elvis Presley Enterprises, said Wednesday of the upcoming visit. “Two world leaders, plus Elvis, plus Graceland.” The prime minister is just one of thousands of die-hard Japanese Elvis lovers.

May be he will have some barbeque on Beall Street. Doubt he’ll find any of these there:

And while he could go hear some good jazz, he will be with Bush and that would put the damper on any evening. Rumor has it that while the Prime Minister has an eye for these:

I think Laura would disapprove. We know she would not like the beer for sure……

However in the meantime, it will probably be a real love fest with the PM and the Pres:

Thank you, thank you very much……..for supporting our war.

Beer and babes……with a side order of politics-Skippy-san

Subscribe in a reader

A friend who is still in the Navy and I were doing some quality drinking the other night. He was bemoaning the outbreak of the what he calls “the morals police”. He had recently been down in the Philippines and I had to shake my head at what he told me. They were unable to go out into the town and restricted to the limits of the former Clark AB. Which has to be frustrating enough know that the “promised land” of Angeles is just out there beyond reach. They are limited in what they can drink off duty and where and who with, is also tightly regulated. I asked him what had brought this on.

My buddy told me that originally there had not been these restrictions, then a couple of guys had been stupid and there had also been some hint that when the limits of movement had been reduced to the former Clark EEZ, that Sailors being Sailors, had figure out a way to get the girls to come to them. Which,as you can probably imagine had lead to someone getting caught, and the powers that be being “shocked, SHOCKED, that sex was going on.” Evidently to make matters worse they put themselves on report and and sent a message to the chain of command saying they had found that out. Holy United Nations Trafficking in Persons, BATMAN!

Seems a far cry from my days as Maintenance Officer, deployed with the squadron in Panama, when I had the squadron corpsman put a box of condoms next to the box of ear protectors in the parachute loft, thus offering the guys a discreet way to take some protection with them when they went out into town. Then again, the only women they could “date”, were out in town.

Robert Kaplan has a vignette in his book Imperial Grunts, where he points out that the powers that be had arranged for folks doing the hard work in the Philippines, “had arranged for R&R to be taken in Okinawa because the damn Bible thumpers know its harder to get laid there.” (Which is true to some extent…….).

However I think the problem goes further than just one of sexual mores.

At my previous place of employ I watched the front office give preference to married folks over single ones when it came to summer leave. Even to the point of granting leave when it should have been turned down because it took the numbers too low. In the same week that happened, I watched a guy who wanted to take leave in Thailand get raked over the coals about what he was going to do there. As if that was anybodies business but the service members.

And God forbid, one has a fight with his spouse and it gets turned over to Security / the FAP mafia. My ex learned that lesson all too well that , by just threatening that, she could bend me to her will. I’m not saying that they don’t have a job to do and their have been some bad incidents, but there have also been cases of folks using the system against the service member. Primarily it occurs when commanding officers forget that their advice is “advisory” and not mandatory. And that they can still make “gut calls” in favor of the service member.

IMHO, the trend is going too far. What ever happened to the idea of “On time for work, sober, ready to go to work” as the main criteria? That was always my scale for judging a guy. As for what happens outside the fence, well I believe that there are too many folks going, where its none of their business. Period. Don’t ask don’t tell should apply to heterosexual conduct too.

my.02 cents………….

Subscribe in a reader

While I was in Hawaii I watched the coverage of the Senate debate about the war with utter amazement. I could not understand why the Democrats allowed themselves to lured into something that will only highlight how divided and silly they look and are.

Joe Klein summed up the dilemma they face when he wrote:

“And so, a mystery: How is it possible, with 2,500 U.S. soldiers dead, no discernible progress on the ground and a solid majority of the public now agreeing that the war in Iraq was a mistake, for the Democrats to seem so bollixed about the war and for the President to seem so confident? A good part of it is flawed strategy. Democrats keep hoping that the elections can be framed as a referendum on the Bush policy, and Republicans keep reminding the public that elections are a choice, not a referendum. Last week, in the opening salvo of the 2006 Congressional elections, Bush and Rove were reminding voters that the choice would be between the Democratic strategy of “cut and run” and the Republican war against Islamic “fascists,” as the President called them. It was clear, yet again, that Bush and Rove would surf the complexities of the conflict for their political advantage. “

The Democrats have only themselves to blame for their predicament. Mainly because they have allowed the question to be framed the wrong way. The choice is normally framed as “Cut and Run” vs “complete victory in the War on Terror”. Neither is a correct description of the choices at hand. Their spokesmen and women are not credible (Kerry and Murtha have yet to learn when to keep their mouths shut. Having made legitimate points, it hurts your case to beat a dead horse….). Let’s phrase the question a different way: ” Is it in the United States’ best interest to lose the lives of its sons and daughters for a group of Arabs who cannot and will not appreciate that sacrifice in the first place, and more importantly, will fail to make good on the opportunity that sacrifice has given them because of their adherence to a failed religion and outdated concepts of tribalism?” The answer to that question is no, and the answer was no in February of 2003.

One of the commentators on TV nailed the issue very succinctly. Both parties have “buyers remorse” about the war. Unfortunately wars of choice, based on a concept of “my national sovereignty means something, yours does not” are non- returnable and non-refundable. You are stuck with the consequences of the choices that were made. Sure Saddam is gone, but is the instability we got in its place is not in the best long term interest of both the Middle East and more importantly the United States.

Normally about this point in the debate two lines of argument will surface. The first is that by fighting Arabs over there we will keep from having to fight them on US soil, and second that the military has made progress in Weimar Germany Iraq,- “you simply refuse to see it. We are turning the corner on beating the bad guys and the death of Zarqawi is evidence of that”. 40 people killed in one day in Baghdad yesterday kind of disproves that theory. At best, right now the US military presence is holding the level of violence to a certain level and preventing out right anarchy. That’s not stability and its not sustainable in the long term. Why? Because the American public does not have the patience for the investment in time it will take to let the violence simply burn itself out.

My response to the first argument remains the same as it has been for the last year. You cannot cure a body of cancer as long as there is a force that sustains it and nourishes it. That lifeblood is Islam, the so called religion of peace. The cancer analogy is particularly apt because in the case of Iraq, we are attacking one tumor when the disease has already metastisized else where in the body (the world, as evidenced by the home grown terrorists arrests in Canada, Miami and Europe……). Because the cancer has already spread and we are unable to eliminate its Islamic lifeblood, the best answer is to apply strategic doses of medicine at vital locations and allow the body to stabilize its self and learn to live with the disease. Phrased another way, turn something life – threatenening into a chronic condition. The US efforts in the Philippines and Horn of Africa are probably the best examples of the judicisious applications of that kind of medicine, while the US conventional forces maintain the steady state deterrent posture to keep folks like China and Russia from capitalizing on the effects of the disease.

Which brings me back to the Democrats. They have to think smarter and realize that for better or worse, they are on the ship too. They have to see past the politics of short term gain and look to the future. To quote Klein again:

“What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace “cut and run”; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and
sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic. In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats’ only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed.”

What it does not mean is that they have to give the captain of that ship a free pass for his errors in judgment. I disagree with Chap on that. The captain of a ship is responsible when he runs the ship into dangerous waters or aground. This captain particularly deserves to get burned for his decisions because he had better choices offered to him and ignored that. Most probably because of his narrow world view, more importantly because he is every bit as much political creature as his predecessor was. People forget that. Its why I believe the war was timed the way it was. I believe Bush and his advisors believed it would all be over by the fall of 2004 and they would be cruising into a landslide electoral victory and he would have finished the job that his father started. There is ample documentary evidence that the administration was told that was not possible and it was ignored. Ergo, he’s responsible for that.

I have little faith in the current crop of Democrats, so I have little expectation of them being able to win without a dramatic change of focus and ideas. The hope for the future lies in the new generation of Democrats like James Webb, who like me, is a Republican whose party abandoned him, not the other way around. I think only they can lead the party away from “Democrats busy being Democrats, divided, defensive and confused about the war, being lead by Bush’s favorite punching bag John Kerry”. He’s gotta go and never should have been nominated in 2004. Because he was, he lost when victory was possible (and in the only math that matters, the electoral college, they still came close). The Democrats have to wake up and realize in the words of Adolph Rupp (from the movie Glory Road), ” This is the National Championship. They ( the Republicans) came to play. Are you surprised? You are going to have to play the game. Play the game”.

That’s right coach. The Democrats have got to stop expecting victory to just fall in their lap. They are going to have to play smart. There is plenty of material to capitalize on. Leave the war alone until they can step to the plate with a real alternative. Right now they don’t offer one.—to everyone’s detriment.

Subscribe in a reader

Jakartass poses an interesting question:

“How come A blog dedicated to cats that look like Hitler can get 38,000 hits in two months whereas it took me ‘only’ two years to approach that figure?”

Enquiring minds want to know!

Subscribe in a reader

Today was a quick trip in to close out computer accounts and such, say how much fun it was working here (lying through my teeth…), and get the hell out of dodge. Back at the hotel by 12, thought seriously about plunking down the bucks to play Turtle Bay, decided my game is not up for it. So I decided to at least meet it half way and drive along the North Shore of Oahu.

I was very pleasantly surprised. Warned by a buddy to stay away from the very western part of the island(I’m told Haole’s are not welcome there), took H-2 to Schoefield Barracks and then drove NE on the coast road. Drove past Turtle Bay, stopped and looked at the course and decided I need to: take some lessons and come back and play it. It sure looked nice. Drove on farther then decided to turn around and head back to Hilauea (sp?) and have dinner there at a place called Hilauea Joes. Food was good, but I must have looked like a tourist because the waitress I had was not hitting on 8 cylinders. She took almost 15 minutes to get to me for my drink order and another 8 to get my real order. NOT HAPPY. However the food was good and they were crowded. I think they did not appreciate someone in there el solo lobo, and ogling the waitresses and barmaids to boot.

Back to Waikiki and walked around checked out some of the bars and clubs. Went to a store called the Stupid Store (I think) where I saw a classic T-shirt: ” GOLDDIGGER, Like a prostitute, just smarter.” I know some girls like that. Saw lots of cute Japanese and Korean girls. My observation about pairs still goes however. Folded up early (midnight……) and came home. Have to be up early and the rental car needs gas! The S.O. is getting attacked the moment I come in the door……….

Learned a lot about this new job this trip, not sure I liked all of it, drank not near enough of these:

And did not get my hands on one of these:

Nice coolers!

See you back on the right side of the Pacific.

Subscribe in a reader

Well, one day out of the barn over at Sourrain’s and I think she already gave me a “BVR bitch slap” ( literally one across the international date line….).I think I’ve either been insulted or insulted her. Oh well, if you are going to go around watching what you say……you will never get anything said! Go get on the plane!^-^

The quizzes are rigged by the way…..

ANYWAY……..

Unlike those who are young and carefree, some of us have to work hard for “the man”. And “the man” was wearing me down today. Today was the invevitable “lessons learned” flail where we put slides together to show the powers that be what we should have done differently if we had just known what we were getting into before we got here.

And people don’t understand why US postal clerks “go postal” and gun down and a whole post office full of people………..I had a couple of deserving candidates in my sights today!

The lesson here is too much technology can be a bad thing. This week I’ve been involved in the technical details of a project that will allow people to work in a “virtual office” distributed between key places in the Pacific. Here in Hawaii I was with people who had cell phones on their waist, next to a crackberryblackberry. As for the video teleconference, well don’t get me started!

Do you ever wonder if this rash of instant communication is such a good thing? Now mind you, I’m not anti progress, but I wonder if we are giving senior leadership too much information and so, inviting them to micro manage. Whatever happened to the days of yesteryear, where the fate of entire nations rose or fell, based on the intuition of some young Major…Possibly nursing a hangover while he made the decision? In some cases it seems to me that may be a better alternative.

I’m not anti-technology at all, but it seems to me that too many decisions this days are pushed higher and higher and the decision makers involved have less and less time to understand the issue in play and make a decision. So the decision increasingly rests on who can package it the best.

I often wonder if I could, if I could go back in time and remove one item of technology. If it were me, it would be the video teleconference. I hate them! If one wants a meeting, give me a plane ticket, a nice location and drinks at the bar at the end of the day. That’s where the real business gets done anyway. Now with VTC’s, there are less and less problems solved on bar napkins. To our detriment I think.

So, what say you? If you could turn back the clock on one item of today’s technology, what would it be?

(cross posted to exordinarily ordinary)

Subscribe in a reader

Another busy day today. Mornings have been full, conference call at noon, then I get some free time in the afternoon then a video conference in the evening. Not making it back to the room till afte 8…………grrrrr!!!

I am also busy because I am doing a stint of guest blogging. I’ve been given the kind honor of keeping the blogfires burning over at Sourrain’s blog while she heads to Malaysia for her wedding. So drop on by and pay her a visit. Give her a hug. Tell her what you think about the wedding gown. (I think she likes embroderie……..).

Have you seen the latest Navy photo making the rounds?

Impressive eh? However back in the day, we folks in the Navy got this many ships together all the time. With battleships too. Now though, it takes an act of God to get this many ships together…………Also notice the F-16 in the back right division out of position? Some wiseass I’m working with tried to tell me it was a hornet, till I blew it up and showed him only one tail on the suspect aircraft. Plus Navy guys know how to fly formation!

Have seen zero world cup games.

Have seen lots of cute Japanese girls walking around, in pairs.

Going to play golf tomorrow and try not choke like Phil!

Its not fun to have to tell people, “I’m such an idiot.”.

Don’t feel bad Phil, that’s me on the first tee!

Got to run. Go see Sourrain! And speaking of candles, the Phibian has a great video of why Kim Jong Il needs to watch a little more TV. You shoot a missile…..get it shot down!

Subscribe in a reader

Long day again. This sucks! Its putting a hell of a crimp in my night life……..

I did get a chance to finish an intersting book though. Its called , The Only Way to Cross; its about the cruise liners that crisscrossed the North Atlantic in the first half of the 2oth century. Its a good read and has a lot of good history about all the “biggies”, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, Olympic, Bremen, United States, and a host of others. From reading the book it seems foreign ships, just like foreign airlines now, were the better deal.

I would like to have made a trip to Europe like that I think. At least you could get up and walk around………….

More tomorrow, I gotta get to bed. These long days are killing me! Even if they are in Paradise.

Subscribe in a reader

No time to post today. Also because of the time difference missed calling my old man……..Gotta call tomorrow without fail.

Did you call your father?

Walk a Little Slower Daddy

“Walk a Little slower, Daddy.” said a little child so small.
I’m following in your footsteps and I don’t want to fall.

Sometimes your steps are very fast, sometimes they’re hard to see;
So walk a little slower Daddy, for you are leading me.

Someday when I’m all grown up, You’re what I want to be.
Then I will have a little child who’ll want to follow me.

And I would want to lead just right, and know that I was true;
So, walk a little slower, Daddy, for I must follow you!!

- Author Unknown

And one of my favorite poems:

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings-nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run-
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And-which is more-you’ll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Subscribe in a reader

Brain is jello right now so I can’t jump in the deep end of the pool this evening. Combination of wind, rain, bad golf and real frustration at people who cannot plan properly……..(Like the people I will be working with this week…).

I did sneak away for some golf today at Kaneohe Bay. Tomorrow is actually going to have to have a teleconference because it will be Monday in Japan, so I left at noon today thinking I could be changed and up there by 1. Alas I forgot about H-1, the auxiliary Honolulu parking lot. Thus by the time I got to the hotel, changed, preflight the clubs, it was 1:30 when I was leaving the hotel. Accordingly I rolled up to 18 racing the setting of the sun. Hawaii golf is interesting because of dealing with the wind……(and the 2 hole rain shower……..). The wind seemed always to be across, or in my face. Then again Kaneohe has a signature hole on number 13:

My ball is the one slicing towards the beach!

Ala Moana Mall is a great place for girl watching. The food court there is a great place to park oneself at a table corner, eat, and watch an assortment of women pass by. The place is full of Japanese and Chinese tourists, Hawaiians, assorted others, and lots of women who have curves in the right places and no curves in the wrong ones. Its especially interesting to watch the Japanese and Chinese girls as :a) they are usually dressed in some sort of dress/skirt/capri pants with heels………… They usually look much better than their American tourist counterparts.

Speaking of Japanese girls, walking around Waikiki has confirmed what I first observed in Guam. Lex would be proud of these women, they understand fighter aircraft tactics exceptionally well. Whether its at the mall or the bars in Waikiki, you see the same things over and over again. Japanese tourist girls always deploy in sections or divisions (2 plane or 4 plane..). The singleton is rare indeed. They understand the idea of mutual support and they have radar contracts that are ironclad. If one loses sight or radar lock, or if you try to get one to break away for a 1v1 engagement, the other one almost immediately changes course and rejoins on her wingman. These even seems to happen in the presence of large amounts of alcoholjamming or deception. And of course being here means that its hard to get a “wingman of opportunity” to keep dash -2 busy while you attempt to convince Dash-1 that you can rock her world. And speaking of alcohol they also stay on their booze ladder, and that also makes breaking down their defensive posture difficult. It can be done, I know-been there, done that, got the T-shirt-but it seems to me its the exception not the rule. Which is a shame because there are a lot of bimbotargets here for the picking……..Sigh.

And as for the news………well that should wait for another time.

Lids..Closing…..Sleepy….Need less beer. Watching the US open reruns makes me sleepy. Here come Phil again!!!! Yech………

Ja ne!

Subscribe in a reader

Out the door tonight for a trip to Hawaii. Believe it or not its for business ( well I may get in one afternoon of golf…………..).

It will be a busy trip so blogging may be light. Hope to find time for these:

Sadly, don’t think I will have any time (I know I won’t have any……) for these:

A man’s got to do what a man has got to do!

Subscribe in a reader

The “Dream Team” that is. Its time to get a legal defense fund set up for the Marines.

Watching the uproar over the “Hadji Girl” video and the resultant failure of the Marine Corps to defend its own guys has me really wondering what will happen when the results of the Haditha investigation are completed. Seems more and more to me, like there is a need to assemble a crack defense team to defend these guys against the steamroller that is going to come their way.

Lets look at the whole Hadji Girl thing in its proper context. First, the video makes it pretty apparent that it was done in the context of a gathering of Marines and only Marines. Now mind you , I have nothing to base that on but the appearance of the video. Second, the lyrics of the song make it very apparent that they are a put up of the fact that the insurgents result to despicable tactics like using children and others to lure Marines and Soldiers into traps. No where do I see anything like the idea that the singer is seriously endorsing the ideas put forth in the song. So it seems to me, that if anybody needs to apologize, its the moron who brought the camera, and the nitwit who got the idea to post this on the net. Any aviator who has ever been to a focsle follies knows exactly what I am talking about. The first rule of thumb is ALWAYS leave your cameras in the stateroom. Like I need more pictures of me mooning the CV-43 air boss. ( True story by the way……….).

Now for some truth in advertising and what this particular controversy has to do with Haditha. I do not, and will not, believe that a bunch of Marines went nuts there and just wantonly shot anything in their path. I firmly believe that the Marines in question felt theatened, felt that someone was threatening them, and , rightly or wrongly, felt they were acting in self defense. Until the investigation proves otherwise, I’m willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Why the later reports came out the way they did is troubling, but I’m just not prepared to accept the idea that the Marines did anything, but respond to what they felt was a threatening situation.

So watching the Marine Corps cave into the Muslim- American Bund, makes me shake my head in disbelief and start thinking about organizing a charity to get these guys the best legal defense team possible. Given the way some of the recent court martials have gone, they will need as much legal muscle as they can get.

I mean think about it. The prosecution has to prove that the Marines acted without provocation and exceeded their authorized rules of engagement beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense only has to prove that there was a reasonable doubt about the idea of acting in anything, but self defense. From the stories I’ve seen so far the prosecution has its work cut out for it.

BUT, that is where I part ways with those who say that the military justice system is somehow better than the civil justice system. Maybe, but the defendants in the military justice system usually don’t have an abundant amount of resources to spend on attorneys and like military doctors ( which I have had far too much of an unpleasant experience with), no matter how many professional walls and safeguards are built in, the military lawyers are still dependent on the military for their livelihood. Having some smart guys like Charles Gittins , to keep the dealers honest is for the best interests of both sides. Trouble is, he’s a busy man these days dealing with stupid trials that tie up his time for no good reason. It’s not like the Marines have ever tried to railroad anyone before…(SIC)……

So I’m ready to give money to the defense fund. Getting these guys acquitted might be one of the best signals that could be sent both to Iraq, and to the boneheads at home that: A) we are putting our troops in a tough spot repeatedly, refusing to resource their efforts properly and despite that, they are doing the best they humanly can, B) that maybe the Iraqi’s need to realize that they need to throw more and more of the insurgents to the wolves , get off their ass and fix their hell hole of a country, and c) that this is a war, and wars are fought by people and bad things happen. Perhaps its time for humans to find a saner way to run the planet. The issue with Haditha is not that happened, but that it happens so very rarely.

Bottom line? O.J. got a good defense. These Marines deserve that or better……………
If it does not fit, you must acquit!

Subscribe in a reader

Lost on the stock market that is. Just less than 10 days ago the DJIA was at about 11,400 now its at 10,700. And these things always happen right after my automatic deposits go into my mutual funds. I feel like a salmon swimming upstream. Pushing hard but making no progress………

It seems amazing to me that the markets reward for good news is a down turn. What’s up with that?

Subscribe in a reader

Because they suck at soccer football. As the Phibian points out, they got beat by Mexico in the first round. You are always winning when Persians are losing!

But, what is not the love about just about anyone that makes Iran look bad? Bask in it. We can’t do it, let the Mexicans. We are all “North Americans” now.

Meanwhile, this morning I picked up my Asahi Shimbun to learn that Australia beat Japan 3-1.

Must have been early in the game. Too many smiling Nihonjin!

There is also this annoying little matter of the US losing to the Czech’s………
3-0. Then again, its not like this is real football.

Speaking of real football, Bubblehead posted a column on why he hates soccer and why he feels its opposed to real American sporting values. He points out that :

……don’t expect me, or other Americans, to start demanding more televised soccer other than every four years — unless they change the rules. If they get rid of the “offside” and “handball” rules, and allow real tackling, and have you carry the ball over a goal line rather than kick it into a net, and get some hot cheerleaders, then Americans will embrace the game — not before.

Now he may have a point (operative word being may), but I think he is ignoring some of the positive benefits about soccer, especially for us living overseas:

1) Its a great reason to get drunk in pub.

2) It gives you something to do in a pub, while you get drunk.

3) If there is a crowd present, the men will invariably go nuts about the game, the women will get bored and your odds of scoring with said women may actually have just improved.

4) There is usually better beer in bars where soccer is shown than in bars where NBA basketball is shown. Give me a pint of lager over a Bud Light any day of the week.

Gambare Nihon!

Subscribe in a reader

As I mentioned yesterday, I would like to take one of these and bring it right across Ann Coulter’s forehead:

I skimmed her new book today at the book store. I’m not going to buy it because I’ll be damned if I am going to put money in her (Louis Vuitton) purse. If I want to see strident propaganda I’ll get from the library.

I wonder if she is really a ladyboy?

What bothers me the most about Coulter is that she is guilty of exactly what she accuses her opponents of doing, namely being intolerant of opposing ideas. It seems to my uneducated brain that she has decided to take this “tough broad” approach to everything political and laugh all the way to the bank. The people who agree with her, sop up what she has to say and those who don’t fall into the trap of wrestling with a pig. The pig likes it and all you do is get dirty.

Which brings me back to the baseball bat. In my gut its what I want to do to morons those who espouse ideas I do not agree with. Its why I could not be President of the United States. Too much compromise and cajoling inolved. I just want to be able to impose my will on people and have them be unable to do anything about it.

Except of course life does not work that way, and jail is not an experience I want to try. So it means I have to work hard to keep my temper in check and look at the things that people are saying based solely on the facts that I can ascertain. I don’t have to agree with her, but you win more arguements with a quiet and firm tone than you do with shrieking.

Because it’s on facts, where most of Coulters diatribes tend to fall apart. Consider what happened after she wrote this in 2001:

In her latest book, Coulter criticizes the four New Jersey widows who pushed for an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The women also backed Democrat John Kerry’s presidential candidacy in 2004.

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much,” Coulter wrote.

Evidently, the widows’ sins are that they pushed for an independent commission to investigate 9/11 intelligence failures, they are critical of the Bush administration and they endorsed Sen. John Kerry for president. Even though, both sides of the aisle said that the 9-11 commission was “fair and balanced” . And that the Republicans have been equally quick use those widowed or deprived of a relative in the war / and or 9-11 if it suited their agenda.

There are some conservative commentators who are un comfortable with her approach. She has been asked more than once if she is concerned that her stridency will keep people from hearing the correct message. Consider the following from Captains Quarters, hardly a hotbed of liberalism:

However, if one ever needed proof that the political spectrum resembles a circle where the extremes meet, this should provide it. In fact, it reminded me of another pundit whom the Left lionizes and the Right reviles: Ted Rall. Why Rall? Three years ago, Rall made essentially the same point in one of his crude cartoons and got rightly panned for it. It became one of the reasons that the Washington Post ended its association with Rall in 2004.

Whether Rall or Coulter says it, impugning the grief felt by 9/11 widows regardless of their politics is nothing short of despicable. It denies them their humanity and disregards the very public and horrific nature of their spouses’ deaths. The attacks motivated a lot of us to become more active in politics in order to make sure our voices contribute to the debate, and it is impossible to argue that the 9/11 widows (and widowers, and children, and parents) have less standing to opine on foreign policy than Ann Coulter or Ted Rall.

Its a free country in the US, but having lived for a while overseas makes me a little more sanguine about that. Ann needs to be careful what of what she says and how she says it. In Singapore if she had attacked the PAP she would already have been sued for libel. I think sometimes she underestimates the value of the freedom she has been given, and as I have pointed out before, she is just wrong in painting the media as some monolithic bogeyman.

Which probably leads to the obvious question:

If Ann Coulter were an overweight, 50 year old hag, with curly hair and ankle hose would she be as popular? Same goes for Michelle Malkin, would she be working in Neptunes?

Or pehaps this would be more likely.

Maybe she really wants that……………….

Subscribe in a reader