Far East Cynic

All in all a pretty good day today. I had the day off which is always nice, the S.O. took a break from cleaning long enough to do some retail therapy, and I worked out for a good 45 minutes on the treadmill-IPOD playing- channeling my thoughts and anger into a brisk pace and some observations for this evening.

I was even able to extort this out of the S.O. by playing the sympathy card:

“She got more, and better,  Christmas presents than I did!”

Whatever works. Sorry Phib, I like David Halberstam’s books and I want to read this one.

Speaking of Christmas presents-I seem to have hit the mark with the IPOD for her. By my count I have now uploaded over 1000 songs for her and she listens to it all the time with the speaker set up I arranged. I’m having a devil of a time teaching her to use I-tunes on her own-or for that matter trying to get her to sync her own damn IPOD-her eyes just gloss over when I try to explain it. It’s nice to have a purpose in life I guess. Suffice it to say,  her taste in music and mine-are more than a little different.

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The Red and White show is on! (kou-haku-uta-ga-sen)

They just had probably 70 kids on stage dancing and doing the Bottom Biting Bug song. This year like last year we have struck a compromise of sorts. She gets to watch 3 hours of  the show then we get to go to a countdown party and bring in the New Years in proper fashion-with copious amounts of beer, wine and champagne. As I pointed out last year, I guess that’s progress of a sort, although the little voice inside of me keeps telling me I would be happier here or even here. As I have had to do in previous years, I just squashed the voice and moved on.

Tomorrow we will be in Tokyo for a a couple of days to enjoy life,  before the reality that will be 2008 comes crushing down upon us.  One way or another I will have another job by the end of it-exactly where and with whom is still up to events to be determined. Anybody wants to offer helpful suggestions, contacts or anything approaching a job offer in (Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok, Manila, Seoul, or Kuala Lumpur)-please e-mail soonest!

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The end of the year is the time for both reflection and prognostication-I don’t really have much of either. I would encourage any and everyone to go here and read about the Top 10 stories that got little or no attention  but will have an impact on a lot of people-especially Americans.

2008 will be the last year of the Bush administration- Thanks be to God! 385 days till Bush gets to join his predecessor on the list of useless elder “statesmen”.  One observation that I can make this New Years Eve is that one reason the Presidential campaign has started so early and become the colossal farce that it is -is because both parties know that GWB needs to go. He’s overstayed his welcome by at least 4 years. Problem is, nobody knows exactly what they want to replace him with. Do you want a thumper , a jumper, or a humper?

Normally I would prefer the latter, but this year the only Republican candidate I like is McCain. Despite the fact that he is wrong on the war in Iraq, and his affection for Senator Quisling  Lieberman makes my skin crawl; he’s the only candidate that I genuinely respect. I also truly believe that he would never have allowed a guy like Rumsfeld to do the damage that he did to the armed forces.

(And its not that he is really wrong about the ability of American forces to achieve military objectives-its his faith in the Iraqi people that is sadly misplaced. The difference between me and the good Senator is that I feel whatever debt we supposedly owed the Iraqis was more than repaid long ago. It is time for them to stop depending on the Americans to provide security, and run their own country.   McCain being more of an optimist-still likes them.  Wait till he’s President and they double cross him too…………)

Of course the problem will be if McCain wins the nomination-there will be no end of “true believers” who will just never forgive him for not being a “real conservative”, and boneheads like Michelle Malkin will never forgive him for McCain- Feingold. Hey Miss Pinay! I’ll give you a hint. One of you is wrong and it ain’t McCain.

On the Democratic side-their inability to accomplish anything. Or successfully oppose the President on any number of his many flaws and bad decisions. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have screwed this pooch so bad-that it will be tough for any Democrat to campaign against just about any of the Republican nominees. If the Dems nominate Hillary-they will suffer a stinging defeat in the fall. As I have said before-paraphrasing Winston  Churchill, “If {Hillary} were to run against the devil, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. ”

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Some other thoughts about 2008 and the election. One problem on both sides of the aisle will be the target audience the parties will need to woo. The US election of 2008 will be decided by voters who earn between 30,000 to 60,000 dollars per year, have families, and are having to make tough choices to stay afloat economically. These folks have real concerns about the economy, the availability of affordable housing, automobiles, gasoline, and other commodities. The Republicans and to a lesser degree most of the Democrats are acting like its still “morning in America’, and acting like Ronald Reagan with out a booming economy to back up their claims.  Problem is, it is 2008-not 1988-and there are some real issues that lie just under the surface. If you want to know one reason why Edwards is even semi-successful this year, it is because his anger resonates with folks who are not getting a fair break. While the rich get richer. ( Of course Edwards for all his populist talk,  is one of the rich bastards himself-which is why I could not vote for him. But I like it when he attacks some of the hypocrisy that is conservative America today).

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Overseas, here is what I see. In Iraq, troop levels will do one of two things: a) remain constant at about 120,000 or b) be reduced to about 60,000 starting the reduction right about the time the Presidential campaign kicks into high gear.  People will continue to tout the surge’s progress and the cost of that progress, 899 American lives lost in 2007,  will be downplayed as news outlets highlight how the casualty numbers are going down. It remains to be seen if this is simply a return to a baseline level of violence, or if the Iraqis are really starting to put their feuds behind them.  The track record of the Iraqis to date does not promote a lot of optimism.  Even if all violence stopped tomorrow-Iraq will never be the “great example of democracy” to the Middle East. It will simply be another Arab country with a some rich people, a lot more who aren’t and an economy where Filipino’s, Indonesians and Bangladeshis do all the really hard work. Most likely it will be a bigger version of Lebanon-a once great nation that descended into chaos.  Churchill sums Iraq up for me pretty well ( Smart man that Churchill!): Writing to Lloyd George, Churchill, frustrated after all the bloodshed in World War I, asked, “Why are we compelled to go on pouring armies and treasure into these thankless deserts?”

The worst part is that while it is clear that Al Qaeda has been marginalized and they have quit the field in Iraq ( for now), the corrosive effects of their ideas has spread out from its hole to more countries in the Middle East.  The United States has plugged this particular hole in the dam-while doing so cracks are developing elsewhere. Pakistan, Algeria, Lebanon, and in Egypt.

And in Afghanistan? More of the same. NATO will continue its ISAF effort, the US will demand more of Europe,  and Europe will not contribute any more than they have already given. Call it buyer’s remorse for getting sucked into not one,  but two conflicts along side the US. The solutions in Afghanistan are political and economic. More reconstruction needs to be done.  And as in Iraq the central government needs to get its act together. Don’t hold your breath.

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Closer to home, I believe Japan will turn its attention inward and focus on domestic issues. The voters have pretty much told Fukuda-san that’s what they want. I also, and this affects me personally, believe this will be the year Japan wakes up and smells the coffee on the bill of goods it got sold on US defense realignment in Japan. Both sides are going to realize that they came up with some really stupid ideas regarding force structure and base movements-in particular the notion of moving CVW-5 over to Iwakuni-and they will spend a great part of the year discussing and disagreeing on who will pay for what. The US will want the Japanese to pay for everything, the Japanese will want to use their money for other things ( like solving the pension crisis and postal reform).  It will interesting to watch-if not productive for either side.

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Finally, I think the sports year will be disappointing for me. My greatest hope is that China gets its ass kicked at the Olympics-both inside the stadium and outside of it.  Nothing would be better than some type of event that exposes Hu Jin Tao and the Chinese government as the worthless fraud that it is.

In baseball, I’m rooting for Barry Bonds to get convicted-of anything.  That said, I think pro baseball is going to have to go through some real soul searching about its owners and how truly out of sync the management of the game has become.

I’m also pretty sure the Cubs and the Pirates will disappoint me for yet another year.

As for football, either kind, I have no predictions.

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Gotta go to the party. One thing I think is for certain, 2008 is going to be a very interesting year. Change is a coming-for me and for the world-whether either one of us wants it or not. Happy New Year!

And not liking it very much.

The S.O. has been on a cleaning binge, one such that I’ve not seen in recent memory. I just retreat to my computer and hide-every year I forget this little ritual. Mostly likely she realizes there is a 50-50 chance that my standard of living is going to drop preciptiously in six months. Resumes anyone?

In the alternate universe my alter ego is boarding a plane and heading for Pattaya Beach. There to rent a “buddy” and bring in the New Year in the most appropriate hedonistic fashion. Here in this universe however, I’m trying to avoid the loud noise of that new vacuum cleaner. The S.O. is a big believer in having a clean house to greet the new year.

Its a tradition of sorts with her. Too bad I can’t convince her of that great western tradition-shagging the male of the house each night till New Years………………..

At least my alter ego will have to be putting up with this. In either universe it sucks to be an airport or train station employee at this time of year:

We will be in Tokyo for New Years day. At least the city will be empty, if the video above is to be believed. The last segment about train service is pointing out that bullet trains are filled to 180% capacity-so its standing room only on trains north and south.

When I first set foot aboard USS Nimitz way back in 1978, there was a black market in T-shirts that said: “BOHICA. Our screws never stop-USS Nimitz CVN-68″.

BOHICA means, for those unfamiliar since its dropped out of the daily usage in naval operations (don’t want to offend the women or homos you know),  Bend Over Here It Comes Again.

Spike  reports that for Hong Kong, that little phrase is most correct. The dickheads in Beijing have screwed them yet again. Sold out by the British back in 1984, absorbed into the worlds biggest dictatorship in 1997, and slowly but inexoribly being swallowed by the seething hordes north of the New Territories-my beloved Hong Kong takes it up the a$$ yet again.

So that’s it. It’s over. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. Democracy in Hong Kong – died before birth.

Donald Tsang-Sir Bow Tie himself-is of course quite happy. He can go on mis-managing Asia’s greatest city. Hemlock probably has the best summary right here of why Bejing hates Hong Kong so:

My far more interesting idea is that the delay is simply out of spite. Making Hong Kong wait five years, then another five years, then another five years is Beijing’s way to send a message to the presumptuous and ungrateful rabble who lived under the barbarians and enjoyed it. This is the People’s Republic of China. You obey the Government not the other way round. You get your make-believe democracy when we say so. Most of all, perhaps, it is a message to themselves to sooth their paranoia. We are in power. We don’t do requests.

It is the end of the year and now its time for the top 10 lists. Here’s one Uncle Jimbo needs to read before he goes off on one his tirades.

And every one else should read it too-before they think the war in Iraq is not an issue for the US presidential campaign. Reprinted from Informed Comment.

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You just might get it. Washington DC wanted an election in Pakistan. Welcome to politics-Muslim style.

Like so many others, I watched the news in more than a little shock that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated.  The media have been endless speculating what this means for US policy and the “Long War”.  I will take the contrarian view and say, “Very little”. Like it or not this is an internal Pakistani matter and there is little choice but for the US to sit back and let this drama play out.

People forget that she was removed from office not just once-but twice. By two different Presidents for corruption charges.  French, Polish, Spanish, and Swiss documents have fueled the charges of corruption against Bhutto and her husband. Bhutto and her husband faced a number of legal proceedings, including a charge of laundering money through Swiss banks. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, spent eight years in prison on similar corruption charges.

A 1998 New York Times investigative report^[15]indicates that Pakistani investigators have documents that uncover a network of bank accounts, all linked to the family’s lawyer in Switzerland, with Asif Zardari as the principal shareholder. According to the article, documents released by the French authorities indicated that Zardari offered exclusive rights to Dassault, a French aircraft manufacturer, to replace the air force’s fighter jetsin exchange for a 5% commission to be paid to a Swiss corporation controlled by Zardari. The article also said a Dubai company received an exclusive license to import gold into Pakistan for which Asif Zardari received payments of more than $10M into his Dubai-based Citibankaccounts. The owner of the company denied that he had made payments to Zardari and claims the documents were forged.

Bhutto maintained that the charges leveled against her and her husband were purely political.^[16][17] “Most of those documents are fabricated,” she said, “and the stories that have been spun around them are absolutely wrong.” An Auditor General of Pakistan(AGP) report supports Bhutto’s claim. It presents information suggesting that Benazir Bhutto was ousted from power in 1990 as a result of a witch hunt approved by then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The AGP report says Khan illegally paid legal advisers 28 million Rupees to file 19 corruption cases against Bhutto and her husband in 1990-92.^[18]

The assets held by Bhutto and her husband have been scrutinized. The prosecutors have alleged that their Swiss bank accounts contain £740 million.^[19]Zardari also bought a neo-Tudor mansion and estate worth over £4 million in Surrey, England, UK.^[20][21] The Pakistani investigations have tied other overseas properties to Zardari’s family. These include a $2.5 million manor in Normandy owned by Zardari’s parents, who had modest assets at the time of his marriage.^[15] Bhutto denied holding substantive overseas assets.

Bhutto and her husband until recently continued to face wide-ranging charges of official corruption in connection with hundreds of millions of dollars of “commissions” on government contracts and tenders. But because of a power-sharing deal brokered in October 2007 between Bhutto and Musharraf, she and her husband had been granted amnesty.^[19] If it stands, this development could trigger a number of Swiss banks to “unlock” accounts that were frozen in the late 1990s.^[15][19] The executive order could in principle be challenged by the judiciary, although the judiciary’s future was uncertain due to the same recent developments.

Like it or not,  the US has made its bed with Pervez Musharraf. This was a marriage of convenience driven by geography-it is tough to invade a landlocked Afghanistan without Pakistani overflight rights. Especially when you don’t like Iran very much. That one fact has allowed Musharraf to get away with literally, murder. There are going to be a lot of questions about whether the government was involved in this-there have already been accusations that the government did not provide Bhutto adequate security. “We have a bad habit of always personalizing our foreign policy,” says P.J. Crowley, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “We’ve done it with Musharraf, and we did it with respect to Bhutto. We are very good at providing technical support to the Pakistani army. We are not good at building indigenous or effective local political processes or strong institutions of government.” Given the realities on the ground, the U.S. is likely to continue to throw its support behind Musharraf. “In terms of political leadership, Pakistan does not have a deep bench,” says Crowley.

In perverse way this could actually help the US-it gives Musharraf a clear cut reason to reimpose martial law and take a heavy hand on dissent. That in turn could shore up the US position against the Taliban since the election and Bhutto’s criticism of the government have made for chaos for about 6 months now. Then again-Musharraf has allowed the Taliban sanctuary in Waziristan-operating on the first law of thermodynamics: when the heat is on Afghanistan, it is not on Musharraf.

Unlike some, I’m not so worried about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. They are Pakistan’s insurance card-both with India and the US-and Musharraf knows it. They will keep them under close lock and key.  However whether this is just the opening salvo of a bigger descent into chaos is a good question. 

I’v always maintained, as James Fallows does,  that the current US “War on Terror” is  a catalyst that made a locally contained “tumor” metastisize elsewhere in the world “body”.  To my mind this proves my point. We will see what transpires in the upcoming months. 

I’m still trying to figure out if I agree with this:

Who I would be in the 14th century. 

Your Score: The Harlequin

You scored 44% Cardinal, 38% Monk, 41% Lady, and 45% Knight!

You are a mystery, a jack-of-all-trades. You have the king’s ear, but also listen to murmurings of the common folk. You believe in the value of force and also literature. Truly you are the puzzlement of the age.

On the other hand, this quiz got me sized up just about right:

Your Score: The Carnal Lover

50% partner focus, 66% aggressiveness, 55% adventurousness

Based on the results of this test, it is highly likely that:You prefer your romance and love to wild and daring rather than typical or boring, you would rather pursue than be pursued and, when it comes to physical love, you concentrate more on enjoying the experience rather than worrying about your performance.This places you in the Lover Style of: The Carnal Lover.The Carnal Lover is a wonderful Lover Style, though it is often confused with terms like “player” or even “slut.” The Carnal Lover is not necessarily either of those things (though sometimes is) but is instead a lover of life, romance and pleasure. The Carnal Lover is a treasure to find, though can sometimes be difficult to keep happy once found, because a Carnal Lover often loves a variety-filled life.In terms of physical love, the Carnal Lover tends to be dynamic and driven, and can therefore be quite pleasurable. Given the right motivation, and the right lover, the Carnal Lover can be a delight in bed.Best Compatibility can probably be found with: The Surprising Lover (most of all) or the Devoted Lover, or the Liberated Lover.

Or, for that matter, anyone who says yes…………………..

Test is here!

H/T to Miss Izzy!

What Mike Huckabee wishes he could say to the Arabs……………

Lots to blog about, no energy to do it. However I was interested to see GI Korea explain why we just wasted 12 weeks of our lives working on a pointless project.

At the time, the project director said that we HAD to get this thing done before the Korean Presidential election so as to lock in the results. Some very wise heads (of which I was just a minor chorus player) pointed out at the time that , there was really no sense in that-the ROKs were just going to back away from what they “agreed to” once the election was over.

It seems that those wise men were right. And the self important Marine was wrong-again.

Santa-san came!

Never made it to Mass last night. I had intended to go but, I could not stay awake after 11. So, with a heavy heart-because believe it or not I really wanted to go-I trudged off to bed. The S.O. stayed up for a while to watch NHK. (Which is what I think put me to sleep in the first place!).

This morning though, an interesting thing happened while we were still in bed. ( Get your minds out of the gutter!). The S.O. began humming a Christmas carol. She does not know the words by heart to most of them, so I joined in and together we sang. And sang. And sang. Silent Night. Jingle Bells. O Come all ye faithful.  And my personal favorite, Angels we have heard on high. Her voice is beautiful-mine not so much. But it was fun. With a quick but firm, rebuff to my other advances-we got up and started the day.

Gift giving worked out Ok. She only cringed at one gift-the bright sweater I bought her.  I surprised her with one gift-I got her an IPOD. Now I will be spending the afternoon trying to set up an I-tunes library for her and making dinner. The conversation will be all in Japanese since the guests we invited are Nihonjin so my poor brain is going to get a work out.

Merry Christmas!

Hope it is all you want it to be. By the way, what is your favorite Christmas carol? Here is mine (You can leave your answers in the comments):

Well, its come and no doubt will soon be gone. It is Christmas Eve here in Japan. This could possibly be my last Christmas in this country-a lot will depend on the breaks in the new year to come. It will not be for lack of trying to stay, but rather on a lack of enlightenment on the part of potential paycheck signers. No matter-whatever is to be is to be-but if I do leave,  it will only be for as long as it takes to get moola and schoola to get back! ( At least to one of the good countries on this side of the date line).

Yesterday  I had to take the S.O. to buy a new vacuum cleaner. The old one had died-the motor chewing itself up with a horrendous shriek. No big deal you say? Well for a woman who is incredibly obsessed with cleaning and sweating the fact that we have company coming for Christmas dinner, this is a huge catastrophe. So off we went to Kojima Electric. For TWO AND A HALF HOURS we looked and looked at vacuum cleaners. Hell, I don’t even spend that long looking at a new car to buy. We must have tried every combination on demo carpets and floors. In the end we settled on a Sanyo that to my mind-was way overpriced. 270 dollars? For a vacuum cleaner? But it was what she wanted.

I’ve been of a very mixed mind this day. I’ve tried to get really psyched about the day, but I just cannot. There is too much weighing on my mind. I think I understand how people can become really depressed during the holiday. Not that I would do anything drastic-were I by myself I would probably find someone equally as lonely and shag the stuffing out of her, failing that just watch old movies, drink my self insensible and maybe stagger to Mass at midnight. Since none of those options are available tonight, I’ve settled for some melancholy blogging and probably some TV watching later. Even the gift giving aspect has been mostly ruined this year. The S.O. knows what most of her gifts are-I can’t even surprise her with some nice jewellery since she badgered me into taking her to buy the one she wanted. All attempts to be nice and sweet ultimately succumb to the selfish instincts that are always just below her surface. Not her fault really-I think its part of the female Nihonjin genome.

Plus I marvel at the irony of where the world is today. I remember 8 years ago being in front of the TV watching the speculation of what the new century was supposed to bring. Technology was supposed to be improving our lives, freedom was supposed to be on the march and mankind was supposed to be making progress. Now, eight years later, mankind still digs raw material out of the earth, turns it into machinery of incredible death and destruction, uses it to perform that very art-and then the practitioners of that art wrap it up in  some sort of higher purpose.  All sides wrap it up in some lie about how moral it is. The Deity whose son’s birth we are celebrating, for another year declines to intervene and put a stop to it. Sadly, I think 2008 is going to be like 2007-basically an ongoing rerun of the year 2001. Americans will argue over petty things ad infinitum and no one of real substance will be nominated to run any of the important governments in the world.

Twas always thus, however.  Which points up, in my opinion why Christmas is very necessary to the human existence. Christmas is about hope and it is about reflection. About reminding yourself what is really important and what is just BS. I think the need to have this type of catharsis is why non-Christian nations have come to decorate and celebrate Christmas in their own ways. Yes, the commercial piece is there-which is why Japanese are flocking to KFC’s, patisseries for Christmas Cake and couples all over Japan are standing in the cold at train stations nation wide seeking out their dates. ( As I pointed out last year, Christmas in Japan is sort of a second Valentines Day.)

The New Year will come and then it will quickly be back to business as usual. Without this little excursion into the emotional,  the changing of the year would be too much to bear.

So enjoy your day! I hope that each and all receive some sort of blessing on the day and that there is some event or gift which brings a smile.

For some reason today I have been thinking about this story, The Gift of the Magi by O Henry. Della and James have much to teach each of us and its always nice to read about young lovers who are still wrapped up in the ideals of love-unsullied by the bruises and scars that life deposits along the way to old age.  I went and re-read the story today and it remains, for me, just as fresh and exciting as the first time I read it-in middle school- a long time ago and in a land full of fat women, far away.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”

What can you do? The popular media makes it seem easy to live your dreams, to radically change your life, to pick up and go to the place you dream of in your heart. Would that were really so, I’d be sipping Scotch right now, looking out the window on to Victoria Harbor and preparing to go down the Travelator later on in the evening. With each passing year the options diminish and the weight of what you thought were seemingly minor decisions rises up to smite you down.

Truth is, the folks who write those tales, have their bills paid and are not crushed by debt and by outside emotional baggage.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Put something on and take the man in your arms and kiss him. God knows he-and all of us long suffering men deserve some sort of affection-be it real or imagined. That too needs to come in greater quantities, but women never seem to realize that.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Merry Christmas!

To Christmas.

Its the holiday weekend! That means you need these:

And perhaps later on tomorrow evening, a chance to retire and open “presents”:

Heading out with the S.O. this weekend for some pre Christmas revelry. Golf? -yes. Posting?-probably not. Hopefully we will support this worthy endeavor.

However I did come across this little tidbit on the Navy Times web site.

As many as nine of the Navy’s 26 three-star admirals could retire by the end of summer as part of a series of moves by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, sources tell Navy Times.

Any guesses as to who’s going and who is staying? Or better yet who should be going-tomorrow.

Pathetically misguided about Iraq he may be, but Christopher Hitchens still writes with great style and conviction. It took me a long while to finish his book, god is not great-How religion screws up everything. Took a while because I had to stop and put the book down because I found myself agreeing with him. Which was especially troubling when he was ripping apart Christianity. I logged too many hours in Charleston pews as well as spending FAR TOO MANY years married to a frigid, mentally deranged,  Catholic spendthrift to take on the unabashed atheism that Hitchens seems to wear like a badge.  Dissecting his book is a whole other post-but suffice it to say I think his book is one long angry rant at the Deity for being mean and unfair. An understandable sentiment, but not necessarily enough to disprove His existence IMHO.

But I digress.

Hitchens is right on target however with his latest column in Slate Magazine, where the erstwhile Englishman reminds Americans of an important part of their own Constitution:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States

Hitchens, in his rather blunt form, points out what I have also noticed: This election has become all about religion-at least on the Republican side:

However, what Article VI does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is. My right to say and believe that is already guaranteed to me by the First Amendment. And the right of Huckabee to win the election and fill the White House with morons like himself is unaffected by my expression of an opinion.

But wait,  there is more. In particular I liked his send up of the pompous souls who insist that they respect the Constitution- while all the while demanding that each and every Presidential candidate meet a moral litmus test when it comes to issues that are of importance to the hypocrites so called “values voters”:

Isn’t it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It’s not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of “faith” at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It’s not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything “faith-based.” It’s that when they are even slightly criticized for their absurd opinions, they can squeal as if being martyred and act as if they are truly being persecuted.

Bill O’ Reilly call your office. Santa just lost the War on Christmas.

Read the rest of the article. Personally,  I’m thinking Giuliani is looking better and better.  Any man with 2 ex wives and the balls to pay for his mistress on the city payroll is a man who understands my needs - very well.

Navy Times has been digging around about the recent return to communism change in liberty rules on USS Kitty Hawk.  Its not a pretty story. In a nutshell , the leadership thinks that treating Sailors like children is somehow a productive way to improve conduct ashore:

So you’ve got liberty in Japan? First, fill out this form. Then, get your chief’s OK. And if you want to drink, don’t forget your liberty buddy. And remember to phone in each day, even on your weekend off.

Those are just some of the rules for sailors stationed in Japan aboard the carrier Kitty Hawk, at least until the ship hands over its berth next summer to the George Washington before its eventual decommissioning.

Kitty Hawk sailors are living with some of the strictest liberty rules in the Navy, even when their ship is at its home port in Yokosuka with other forward-deployed Naval Forces commands.

Every Kitty Hawk sailor E-6 and below, and anyone planning to drink off base, must have an authorized liberty buddy and a detailed individual liberty plan that requires approval from his superior. Any change to that plan must be reported and approved by the first khaki in the command chain. The liberty restrictions — often tightened after a spate of off-duty and alcohol-related incidents involving sailors — don’t always end there, according to sailors and fleet spokeswomen.

An old mentor of mine had what he called “the quarters test” when it came to public pronouncements and giving awards. Namely could he stand up at quarters and give a guy an award or make an announcement with out having the 80% of the Sailors who do the right thing and want to do well for the Navy-not stand there and say under their breath ,”You have got to be shitting me!”

This does not pass that test. Or pass any other standard of common sense either.

The authors of this policy need to be beaten severely with one of these:

A friend of mine was at  a party the other night and was talking to a victim person who was subject to this. His friend said that what it was doing is the exact opposite of what was intended. Its forcing people to lie and that is never a good thing. It is also snowing the CPO’s under with stupid unnecessary work.

It is never a good idea to come up with a policy that almost begs one to break it. And if you look at the so called liberty plan-its practically begging one to lie. Consider this one question:

Do you plan to be off ship between 0200 and o500? If so what will you be doing?

Well if you must know, I’ll be in Roppongi waiting for a train that does not run for at least 3 hours. Accordingly I will be trying my damndest to get this cute little Nihonjin to go with me to a love hotel so that I can be off the streets in accordance with command policy . (The truthful answer)

This is about one thing and one thing only. Covering a lot of senior officer asses if something does happen. They can say they were practicing “intrusive leadership”.

The author of that little word play should be lined up against a wall and shot. Good leadership does not have to be intrusive and good leaders know where the limits of their authority begins and ends. Trying to regulate every detail of a Sailors private life is a privilege that does not, and never did, exist. Its against the law, its against the rights of a Sailor and it is just not a good way to do business.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. If you take the incident rate of an FDNF ship and stack it up against a comparable size ship in CONUS, the FDNF ship will come out better every time. They would never try this in San Diego or Norfolk. The ACLU would sue the Navy faster than you can say “report chit”. Everyone is afraid of a big incident like happened a couple of years ago when a Sailor murdered a 56 year old woman. A liberty plan would not have solved that problem and it won’t stop a similar one now. It also does the Japanese population a huge disservice.

Treat people like children-they will behave like children. Let ‘em be adults-most will accept the challenge and relish it -not a peep will be heard. However with this policy it would appear that one’s reward for a job well done……….is more punishment.

For the JMSDF.  Tracked missle-shot down same.

Hopefully the Jonger…….and the Chinese will take notice.

It has been big news on the TV today. Unfortunately I cannot find a clip to post this evening and could not get to the VCR in time to tape it. So you will just have to settle for this JMSDF motivational PR Video. Its a pretty good video: