Far East Cynic

S.O. and I went out with some of her friends to an izakaya tonight. Actually it was not a true izakaya which is a small drinking bar, but a chain restaurant that specialized in food you eat while drinking. Thus I am full of kani(crab), sushi, and tempura. If I pass out at the key board you will know why. No one spoke English at this little gathering and the men all spoke a guttural, fast kind of Japanese that was very hard for me to understand. I knew what they were talking about, but I got none of the jokes. I had to ask the S.O. to explain more than I wanted to.

Which is one of the things I do not understand. Why, after 6 years of living in this country, dedicated study of the language, and lots of opportunities to use it, my abilities in Japanese seem to have stagnated. I feel like by now I should be fluent, by I am not near. To be sure the last year has been very busy and I had to stop going to Japanese class, but I’ve still been review grammar. Its very frustrating.

Some other things I don’t comprehend:

The OB rule in golf. It pisses me off when, after hitting a fairly long drive (for me), just because I hit a tree right before landing and the ball pitches out of bounds, I have to hit again from the tee box ending up 2 strokes in the hole. Its the worst rule in golf IMHO. You should at least get credit for the distance traveled, because its really frustrating when on your second shot, you top the ball and barely go a hundred yards…..GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

I don’t understand how so many cool music videos of Zarqawi getting dispatched to the nether world can spring up so fast. I wish I knew how to do that. Check here and here for some cool footage set to music. ( It pains me to use a video from the c**t, but you have to me admit, with the political nonsense subtracted , the bombing scenes set to music are cool!).

Speaking of Zarqawai, its been revealed he survived 2, 500 lb bombs being dropped right on his head. He died afterwards in American custody, trying to roll out his stretcher and escape. There is a story there, especially considering the first bomb leveled the building.

I am also amazed at the reaction of both left and right. Rather than celebrate the fact that our armed forces, finally nailed this murderer, both sides are immediately trying to figure out what political advantage it gives them and how to negate whatever it gives their opponent. WTF? Why not just savor the moment, in that a hideous murderer has died the way he deserved to die, in pain, and then wait a few days to resume the sniping. Just because the armed forces got him does not somehow mean that the decision to go into Iraq was the correct one, or that Bush is somehow a lot more intelligent on the subject of Iraq. Nor does it mean the insurgency is over. The administration seems to understand that. It seems blogs on both sides of the aisle don’t.

And speaking of right wing and left wing, I don’t understand how both sides can do exactly the same thing in terms of rhetoric and it does not get noticed. On the right we have people coming unglued over so many things, including criticism of Ann Coulter, and on the left we have folks who don’t realize there is such a thing as biding one’s time and waiting. Its what really frustrates me about Democrats. They have yet to realize that they are going to have work to regain the Senate and House. The war is not just going to hand them an electoral victory. They have to come up with a way to show, as Thomas Friedman says below, that actually can do more than snipe:

Zarqawi’s death, though, also interests me in terms of U.S. politics. Recent polls show that not only are the Democrats more trusted to manage key domestic issues Â? from health care to the budgetÂ? but they have pulled even with Republicans on national security, a traditional Democratic Party weakness. If I were the Democrats, though, I wouldn’t get too comfortable.

What the polls show is largely the result of President Bush’s incompetent performance in Iraq, rather than the emergence of a convincing Democratic national security message or group of candidates respected on defense. When it comes to national security, I’ve always felt that voters don’t listen through their ears. They listen through their gut. They vote based on a visceral sense of whether a candidate understands we have real
enemies and is ready to confront them. What Zarqawi and the recently arrested group of terrorists in Canada remind us of is that, whatever you think about the Iraq war, open societies today are threatened by these utterly ruthless jihadists. Many Americans feel that. If Democrats want to really seize control of the national security issue, they must persuade the country in its gut that they have a convincing post-Iraq strategy to rally the world against these Islamo-totalitarians.

Precisely how is the subject of two insightful, provocative new books. One is “The Good Fight: Why Liberals and Only Liberals Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again,” by Peter Beinart, editor at large of The New Republic. The other is “With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty,” essays edited by Will Marshall, who heads the Progressive Policy Institute.

“Democrats should be full-throated in their critique of Bush,” Mr. Beinart said in an interview. “He has done terrible things. But Democrats are involved in a two-sided struggle: one is against Bush, and one is against Islamic totalitarianism. They are two separate things. You have to have an answer to that second problem.”

And that is what truly worries me and what I do not understand. Too many Democrats are too worried about fags and feminists to understand the background noise has changed. They have to get serious about economic justice and security or they will continue to be outcasts, baying in the wind being accepted by no one but the fags and feminists.

I also don’t understand why I can’t walk up to Ann Coulter and Michell Malkin and smack them right between the eyes with a Louisville Slugger as hard as I can, but that is a discussion for another time. Rst assured they both deserve the crack of a wooden bat to their foreheads though.

Sake is kicking in now…………

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They came up with a song about my ex-wife. Its a ballad of woe(make sure your speakers are on), best washed down with one of these:

Which leads you to want one of these:

Which is what started the problem noted in the song to begin with! Happy Friday-Beer and babes!

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Could not have happened to a more deserving guy. Agree with the war or no, you have to give this one to the good guys for making a major league bad guy go join his Islamic buddies in hell. Its good news. Hope it was a Navy aircraft that dropped the ordnance…………

I applaud the folks who got this done. F**k him and the rest of his apostate buddies.

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“It all comes down to the age-old bargain: Women exchange sex for whatever they want. Men exchange whatever they have for sex. Call it prostitution, or call it marriage, which is just prostitution with compulsory brand-loyalty. It’s how God made us, probably in a moment of ill humor. Some things just are.”

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I’ve been struggling for the last few days to capture my feelings about the coverage of Haditha in particular and the war in Iraq in General. There are those who feel the media is in a feeding frenzy over the incident and on the other hand, there are those who believe that the incident itself is not the issue, rather the overarching logic of the decision to invade Iraq is what needs to be called into question. ( I think it is no secret where I fall out on that issue….). While researching some quotes, I came across this column by Fred , which highlights the current dichotomy very well. Its worth reading, so I have quoted it in its entirety here. Read and heed………….

On Recent Wars
Things Not Figured Out

May 17, 2006
People ask how we got into our splendid mess in Iraq and why we can’t get out. The question is a subset of a larger question: Why, since WWII, have so many first-world armies gotten into drawn-out guerrilla wars in bush-world countries, and lost? Examples abound: France in Vietnam, America in Vietnam, France in Algeria, Russia in Afghanistan, Israel in Lebanon, etc. Why don’t they learn? The answer I think is that militaries are influenced by a kind of man—call him the Warrior—who by nature is unsuited for modern wars. He doesn’t understand them, can’t adapt to them.

The Warrior is emotionally suited to pitched, Pattonesque battles of moral clarity and simple intent. I don’t mean that he is stupid. Among fighter pilots and in the Special Forces for example it is not uncommon to find men with IQs of 145. Yet emotionally the Warrior has the uncomplicated instincts of a pit bull. Intensely loyal to friends and intensely hostile to the enemy, he doesn’t want any confusion as to which is which. His tolerance for ambiguity is very low. He wants to close with the enemy and destroy him.

This works in wars like WWII. (Note that the American military is an advanced version of the military that beat Germany and Japan.) It does not work when winning requires the support of the population. The Warrior, unable to see things through the eyes of the enemy, or of the local population, whom he quickly comes to hate, wants to blow hell out of things. He detests all that therapeutic crap, that touchy-feely leftist stuff about respect the population, especially the women. Having the empathy of an engine block, he regards mention of mutilated children as intensely annoying at best, and communist propaganda at worst.

On the net these men sometimes speak approvingly to each other of the massacre at My Lai. Hey, they were all Cong. If they weren’t, they knew who the Cong were and didn’t tell us. Calley did the right thing, taught them a lesson. There is an admiration of Calley for having avoided bureaucratic rules of engagement probably dreamed up by civilians. War is war. You kill people. Deal with it.

If you point out that collateral damage (dead children, for example) makes the survivors into murderously angry Viet Cong, the Warrior thinks that you are a lefty tree-hugger. Today, the battlefield as understood by the enemy, but seldom by the Warrior, extends far beyond the physical battlefield, and the chief targets are political. In this kind of war, if America can get the local population to support it, the insurgents are out of business; if the insurgents can get the American public to stop supporting the war, the American military is out of business. This is what counts. It is what works. The Warrior, all oooh-rah and jump wings, doesn’t get it. Vo Nguyen Giap got it. Ho Chi Minh got it.

Thus the furious, embittered insistence of Warriors that “We won Tet of ’68. We slaughtered them! We won, dammit! Militarily, we absolutely won!” Swell, but politically they lost. It was a catastrophe on the order of Kursk or Dien Bien Phu. But they can’t figure it out. The warrior doesn’t understand what “victory” means because he thinks in terms of firefights, courage, weaponry, and valor. His approach is emotional, not rational. Though not stupid, he is regularly out-thought.

Why?

It’s not mysterious. An intelligent enemy knows that America cannot be beaten at industrial war. So he thinks, “What then are America’s weaknesses?” The first and crucial one is that the American government enters into distant wars in which the public has no stake. Do you want your son to die for—get this—democracy in Iraq? You diapered him, got him through school-yard fist fights, his first prom, graduation from boot camp, and he comes home in a box—for democracy in Iraq?

The thing to do, then (continues thinking the intelligent enemy) is to make the Americans grow sick of the war. How? Not by winning battles, which is difficult against the Americans. You win otherwise. First, don’t give them point targets, since these are easily destroyed by big guns and advanced technology. Second, keep the level of combat high enough to maintain the war in the forefront of American consciousness, and to keep the monetary expense high. (Inflation and gasoline prices are weapons as much as rifles, another idea that the Warrior just doesn’t get. Bin Laden does.) Third, keep the body bags flowing. Sooner or later the Americans will weary of losing their sons for something that doesn’t really interest them.

However, the Warrior does not grant the public the right to grow weary. For him, America exists to support the military, not the other way around. Are two hundred dead a week coming back from Asia? The Warrior believes that small-town America (which is where the coffins usually go) should grit its teeth, bear down, and make the sacrifice for the country. Sacrifice for what? It doesn’t matter. We’re at war, dammit. Rally ‘round. What are you, a commy?

To the Warrior, to doubt the war is treason, aiding and supporting, liberalism, cowardice, back-stabbing, and so on. He uses these phrases unrelentingly. We must fight, and fight, and fight, and never yield, and sacrifice and spend. We must never ask why, or whether, or what for, or do we want to.

The public of course doesn’t see it that way. In 1964 I graduated from a rural high school in Virginia with a senior class of, I think, sixty. Doug took a 12.7 through the head, Sonny spent time at Walter Reed with neck wounds, Studley I hear is a paraplegic, another kid got mostly blinded for life, and several, whom I won’t name, tough country kids as I knew them, came back as apparently irredeemable drunks. (These were kids I knew, not all in my class.) It was a lot of dead and crippled for a small place. For what?

Cowardice? I was on campus in 1966 on a small, very Republican, very patriotic, very conservative, very Southern campus. The students, and their girlfriends, were all violently against the war. So, I gather, were their parents. Why? Were they the traitors of the Warrior’s imagination? No. They didn’t want to die for something that they didn’t care about.

This eludes the Warrior. Always, he blames The Press for the waning of martial enthusiasm, for his misunderstanding of the kind of war we are fighting. Did the press make Studley a paraplegic? Or kill the guy with all the tubes who died in the stretcher above me on the Medevac 141 back from Danang? Did Walter Cronkite make my buddy Cagle blind when the rifle grenade exploded on the end of his fourteen? Do the Warriors think that people don’t notice when their kids come back forever in wheelchairs?

They don’t get it.

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I finally got around to updating my links. (I need to update Marmot’s though…..).

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And I feel fine.

Today bodes not well as it is the 6th day of the 6th month of the 6th year of the 21st Century. And its now 6 am Central Daylight time. In other words today is 666 day. Oh great something else to worry about.

Today was also the end of the world as they knew it for folks on both sides of the lines invading Europe. Today is the 61′st anniversary of D-day. The day US troops entered Europe and to date, never entirely left. (Say what you want, at least the cold war came with beer and peanuts…and some good port visits. Unlike the current fracas…..).

Today is also the 17th anniversary(+ a couple of days) of the Tianamin Square massacre. Which as Spike notes is being noted by the non-elected government of Hong Kong in a matter befitting the mayor of Fantasyland. Donald Tsang, he of the big bow tie, says that all the matter needs is a little perspective:

All Hong Kong people know well about the June 4 incident. It happened 17 years ago and since then the mainland has undergone remarkable developments, which have brought prosperity and substantial economic benefits to Hong Kong. I believe all Hong Kong people would now assess the matter objectively.

I think Spike sums it up well when he pronouces Sir Bow Tie a frigging moron:

What does he mean by “objectively”? This doesn’t make one iota of rational sense. Although it’s not too far off from a line of thought I have often heard voiced in both Hong Kong and the mainland – we’re making money so shut the fuck up.

The fact remains: the Army -following the orders of a brutally repressive “government” – attacked and slaughtered their own countrymen. The only “crime” those people had committed was to publicly advocate democracy and basic human freedoms. Those who ordered this massacre have never been brought to trial. Nor have those who carried out those fiendish orders. The only people who “paid” for this black mark in the course of human events were those who died or were wounded as well as their families and loved ones. But we’re rich now, so shut the fuck up.

“The mainland has undergone remarkable developments.” Yes, a lot of big buildings and shopping malls have been built. (Tsang, advocate of wasting our tax money on this godforsaken Tamar lunacy, should know about that.) The spirit of capitalism has prevailed and a lot of people have gotten rich. But in terms of basic human freedoms, any changes in the past 17 years have been barely noticeable.

What other possible “objective” way is there to “assess the matter” (“assess the matter” rather than “view the slaughter”?) other than to say that a mass murder occurred and those responsible have never been brought to justice?

I still marvel at the fact that that the US had to invade Iraq to change a brutal regime, but China gets a free pass. Oh yea, I forgot about how much US debt they hold and how they allow Wal-Mart to underprice every one else. Bejing must be so proud! At least the food is better in China and the women get to wear decent clothes…….. They will be just as bad in 2 years, but at least the US learned its lesson and will got to the Olympics. Now if Iran would just fold in the first round next week of the World Cup.

Rather than yell at the press for the way it covers Iraq, one should yell at the collective media , liberal and conservative, for the way it treats China with kid gloves. In the old days they had a term for the folks in Bejing: “Commie bastards“. Nowadays they are still commie bastards, but they are trading partners so we have to turn the other cheek…………

Then again, at least the women dress well in China.

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Lex would from time to time have to take cross country’s to Air Force bases. Chap discovered this cache of cartoons that regales his exploits:

At least I ain’t wearing no damn ascot!

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I’m on an anti useless whoreMichelle Malkin kick this week. Why? Because she epitomizes all that is wrong with both conservative blogs and criticsm of the “Main Stream Media”. As I’ll prove tomorrow and have noted elsewhere, there is no such thing, just points of view you purchase. Buy enough of them, you find a middle ground where the truth lies and if not, at least you have done your home work.

Which is why, if this factoid is true, it makes the knowing of it all the more sweeter. Michelle Macalang may in fact be herself, an anchor baby! Now if you have been following the sweet looking Filipina’s writings, she has been bemoaning the fact that legions of Koreans and Mexicans have been making what she has termed “obstetric vacations….”. When in fact she may be the product of just such an adventure herself. Seems her parents came to the US on work visas. So she either got her start before they moved or very shortly after their arrival. Could have been the excitement of seeing the Statue of Liberty. However Michelle seems to believe that what was good for her parents are not good for anyone else:

LAMB: You said that your parents became citizens in `89. When did they come
to the United States?
MALKIN: In 1970.
LAMB: Why did they come here?
MALKIN: To pursue a better life. My dad is a doctor. My mom is a school
teacher. And they`ve always treasured freedom. They`ve always wanted to live the
American dream. And they left 1970, right before Ferdinand Marcos became
dictator. So there was definitely the impetus there. They`re, you know, the –
the archetypal people yearning to breathe free.
LAMB: Were they political in the Philippines?
MALKIN: No. No. No, they weren`t.
LAMB: So how did they — what — what kind of a visa did they get to come here?
MALKIN: My dad came on a — he was — like I said, he was a doctor, so he was training here and had an employer sponsor and then — you know, and then, you know, went on their way, like most people do who have green cards, and then eventual American citizenship.

Don’t suppose it could have had anything to do with the fact that the economy in the Philippines sucked then and still sucks now?

For more info go here.

Maybe its just me, but I think its marvelous that the woman who criticizes babies born to people on work visas is one herself…………..

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Reese dodges the noose. I think he actually is the closest American in recent years to getting the death penalty. Imagine what shock waves that might have sent around here. He’s lucky this happened in Japan and not Singapore, he probably would have gotten the rope. As it is, his life is effectively over, all for 140 dollars…………sad. Prosecutors had wanted life imprisonment, but the family had asked that he get the death penalty.

U.S. sailor gets life for killing Yokosuka woman
Compiled from Kyodo, AP………excerpted from the Japan Times 3 June 2006.

A U.S. sailor was sentenced to life in prison Friday for murdering a Japanese woman in the port of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, during a robbery in January.

Seaman William Reese, 22, a member of the crew of the Yokosuka-deployed aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, was convicted by the Yokohama District Court. He had admitted beating temp worker Yoshie Sato, 56, but said he did not intend to kill her. Presiding Judge Masazo Ogura said: “The defendant spent his money on drinks and killed the victim with the intention of robbing her. His acts were extremely selfish and he took human life lightly. “The malicious crime by a U.S. soldier heavily impacted and triggered fear in people living in the area of the (U.S.) base,” he added. The judge noted, “The victim died in extreme fear and unimaginable pain and the life she was about to lead after getting remarried was taken away.”

Prosecutors had demanded life in prison. They indicted Reese for fatally beating Sato on the morning of Jan. 3. They alleged that Reese had tried unsuccessfully to grab Sato’s bag on a sidewalk, and had then forced her into a nearby building and beat her for 10 minutes.
They accused Reese of stealing 15,000 yen from Sato and fleeing the scene. Japanese police arrested him four days later. Prosecutors said earlier Reese had told investigators he wanted money for drinks. Reese’s lawyer said the sailor had no intention of killing the woman but did not deny that he was aware his actions could result in death.

The U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement does not require the U.S. military to hand over suspects before indictment, but the United States agreed in 1995 to preindictment handovers in serious criminal cases. Reese’s case marks the first time the United States made such a handover in a slaying.

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Chaby here. I’m Skippy and S.O.’s cat.

Skippy-san would like to have posted something witty and original about news and newspapers, but after he downed 15 plates of Sushi at Kura sushi this evening( The S.O. had 7-All plates 105 yen!), S.O. is asleep on the couch and Skippy-sama is drooling into his pillow on the bed………I’ve seen this before after they eat too much sushi. She’ll wake up cranky, go back to the bedroom and wake him up and make him take a shower. He’ll fuss about not wanting to get up. She’ll say something quick and nasty in Japanese about being kitanai (dirty……).

Since nobody brough me any fish, I don’t care if they get up at all. Except I need to get some water. Think I’ll go drink out of the toilet and then go scratch up one of the S.O’s dolls. See if they forget to bring me maguro! (tuna…………). That’ll show them who really runs this house.

Oh, one other thing, Skippy thought all of you should read this latest article by Thomas Friedman……..before he passed out, he mumbled something about the Frank Rich article being pretty on the mark too. Big deal. Where’s my milk?

Chaby-kun

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Early to bed. Early to rise. Makes a man……..a lousy blogger. Played golf with S.O. and we walked. Between that and a trip to the treadmill at the gym, I was sawing logs on the couch at 7:45 pm. Either I am getting old or I need more exercise!

Surfing the internet is always interesting, you never know what red light district you are going to stumble into. Like when I was looking at one of the anti Malkin blogs that read her blog (so I won’t have to……). I especially like it when Ryan catches her in ……..well it may not technically be a lie, but it sure has nothing to do with the truth.

That little adventure lead me down another road, where I discovered quite by accident, that the lovely Filipina had taken severe objection to Wonkette’s criticism of her new video waste of bandwith blog Vent. Apparently, she is really touchy about any thing linking her to the oldest profession. So she became totally unglued when Wonkette posted its send up of her video blog. Asking the question, “Do you think this is funny?”, she then calls the authors and supporters of the post “liberal bastards”. Not content just to attack the messenger she makes sure every one knows who the author of the post on Wonkette was and how hateable he is. Which soon led brigades of her sycophants over to his blog to post equally educated comments.

Which, by following a link to another liberal blog, I learned a new word, queef (v. as in to queef). Decorum prohibits me for defining it for you here. It seems to get used a lot in sentences like,
“ping pong ball queefing bitch malkin”. Which by the way is from a google link Michelle Malkin posted about herself, on her own blog.

THERE I DID IT! I got that phrase worked into a sentence. Now thanks to the popularity of Imelda MarcosMichelle Malkin, I can get a whole lot of hits on my blog. Time will only tell if my experiment works. However it did make for an interesting little excursion in bloggerville.

One other thing too. Calling Michelle Malkin a whore is just so low rent. It does a disservice to the legions of hard working sales professionals out there. I suspect if the truth were able to be known, the only correct description would be starfish. If Ms Malkin wants, she can run a rebuttal to that proposition. THAT would be entertainment!

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No post yesterday. As we get ready to move, the S.O. and I have been going together to the gym every afternoon. We’ve taken to eating a big lunch, then doing treadmill and stair-stepper in the late afternoon and then a very light dinner. Last night I did that, had a beer (or 3…..) and I went down for the count.

A friend passed the following along to me, from a retirement ceremony he attended. It was from a Parachute Rigger. I had never seen it before, but I think its great. Good advice for PR’s and for life in general. I always thank my lucky stars that during my flying days, I never had to use a parachute……but its nice to know that this was their creed:

Pack every parachute as though you were going to jump with it.

Allow for human faults, and look twice for mistakes.

Remembers that the other fellow’s life is as dear to him as yours is to you.

Always be sure-never leave it to guess work.

Chance is a fool’s God-don’t depend on it.

Hunt for trouble-don’t wait for it to corner you.

Unless you would jump with the parachute yourself, don’t expect the other person to.

Till men grow wings, they will need parachutes.

Everytime a rigger makes a mistake or oversight there is another potential murderer loose.

See that it isn’t you.

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