Far East Cynic

Drove back to DC this afternoon after spending the morning at Wallops Island.  If you ever stay in Pokomoke Maryland-bring a good book. There's not much to do. All I did was drink beer last night and watch the Phillies lose.

On the way back today, since I was passing Annapolis anway-I thought I would stop through the campus. I was lucky enough to arrive in time to watch the parade and also to see lots of Class of 69 folks talking to each other. Since my own reunion is next week, at a real military college, it was kind of interesting to see how they did thing. Pix to follow when I have more time. I need to go get some dinner.

Tomorrow its home. It's been an interesting week. I tallied up the miles I put on the rental car this week. When I picked it up it had exactly 4 miles on it. It was brand new. Now the odometer says 600 and change.

Your tax dollars at work.

Greetings from the Eastern Shore! Spent 4 hours driving here last night for the last part of this particular trip. Regular posting will resume this weekend.

In the meantime. Its Friday! Time to think about beer and this:

Have a great day!

On the road again, deep in the heart of Virginia. Raining like all get out this evening. Accordingly, abandoned plans for a night out.

For the second time in two years a Japanese destroyer has proved the old axiom : Nothing can wreck your day like a collision at sea.

A Japanese navy destroyer and a South Korean container ship collided Tuesday off southern Japan, sparking fires on both ships and injuring three crew members, officials said. The ships collided under a bridge linking the Japanese main islands of Kyushu and Honshu in the narrow Kanmon Strait, Japan Coast Guard spokesman Seishi Izumi said. One crew member on the destroyer JS Kurama was slightly injured with scratches and bruises while two others were suffering from smoke inhalation, a Defense Ministry spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing policy. None of the South Korean ship's 16 crew members ? 12 from South Korea and four from Myanmar ? was injured, Izumi said. The fire on the 7,400-ton container ship Carina Star was extinguished shortly after the collision. The blaze on the destroyer was mostly under control late Tuesday but its temperature was still extremely high, the defense official said. Officials are investigating the case as possible professional negligence and have begun questioning crew members on both ships, Izumi said. The defense official said the Japanese ship's bow was badly burned and mangled, but the vessel was still capable of traveling on its own. The container ship's hull was grazed near its bow.

NHK news coverage:

Looks like a heck of a fire got started. In 2008 the Japanese Aegis destroyer Atago T-boned a Japanese fishing boat. Now this happens. The fingerpointing with Korea ought to be interesting to watch.

Tell me you didn't laugh when you watched this:

I'm going in.

Yea though I walk through the valley of Microsoft-I will not fear Windows 7. If I screw up this install though, it might be a while before I can surface my head here again.

Kind of feel like the Tennessee kicker today-right before he kicked what could have been the winning field goal directly into 300 pounds of Alabama defensive lineman. You should have seen the crowd around the TV's in COSTCO today. I was afraid the lady in front of me was going to turn around and smack us with her purse. She was not amused that me and the guy standing next to me were visibly rooting for Tennessee. The look on face was priceless-and stuck around for a 2 minutes after it was over just to gloat…………..

The Vols could have won it. But they didn't.

People looked at me like I was a space alien when I said, " I hope Tennessee upsets Alabama!".

I might as well have said, " I'd like to have sex with your mother." It got about the same reaction.

"You live in Alabama-why don't you root for Alabama? "

"Well first of all, it's purely accidental I live here-and I'm trying to work on living someplace else. I'm really not keen on living anywhere in the continental US.  Second, I just don't follow college football that much-but you can be damn sure I'm not rooting for the University of Alabama. Or Auburn either."

"Auburn doesn't count."

At which point an Auburn fan overheard, and soon the battle was joined.

Such is the third week of October in Hicksville.

Its been a bad week for posting. I still need to rebut Curtis, a lot has happened on the national scene, and I have had some personal victories this week. All quite bloggable, but there is a little annoyance called work which keeps getting in the way.  I also was able to jump on a real drop in interest rates and refinanced the loan on my house. That was a real coup-with a huge drop in my interest rate.

So good things do happen to me from time to time.

However the other reason I have been lacking on the posting section-is that I have been curiously unmotivated to do so. I'm not sure why. Being mentally tired from work is a big part of it-its been a hectic few weeks and its not slowing down. Being unappreciated at work is also taxing to my spirit as well-especially when coupled with living a whole hemisphere away from where I should be living. That just sucks the life out of me whenever I think about it.  I could stand being unappreciated on the right side of the international dateline-being on the wrong side of it is just a double wammy.

And finally-to add insult to injury, I've had to go to the doctor for various exams and had to hear the crisp "crack" of the rubber glove on his hand,  prior to my yearly reminder of why I cannot be gay.
 

Anyway.

I do have a couple of thoughts on various and sundry events of recent days. So listed below are a few short thoughts on various subjects.

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Rush Limbaugh is not getting to own part of the Rams. You will forgive me if I don't cry any salt tears over it. Could not have happened to a nicer guy. The son of a bitch should not be rich enough to even think he could be a part owner of the Rams-much less actually go through with it.

Furthermore, its nice to see someone like him, or Michelle Malkin, or any of the rest of the insulated, ignorant fools, who live in the right wing bubble-get called to account for what they say.

Some people do deserve to suffer for their ideas. Are you listening Glenn Beck?

See, the thing about Rush Limbaugh is that he never gets held to account for the foolish things he says. Same is true of Malkin.  She has no concept of how real people live and suffer, because like the fat boy, she lives in a concoon that money and wealth have created for them.

Rush, of course,  has gone on the offensive trashing the NFL and how they are biased against conservatives. Sorry fat boy-it just won't wash. Rush was dropped for a very conservative reason-and one that he should applaud-the odds were good the Rams would not make as much money as they could because of the baggage he would bring to the table.

Now prominent dickheads commentators have made a big deal about supposedly false comments on race that were attributed to Limbaugh.  Exactly three if memory serves. On the other hand there are over 30 that are undeniable-pointedly racist-and in any case,  inflammatory remarks,  that he has made on his radio show.

Which is why he was dropped from the partnership. The NFL is to the right of Limbaugh-and no right thinking owner is going to let Limbaugh's mouth get in the way of making money. Which would have been sure to happen.

Justice was done here. For once-these folks get held to the fire for the stupid things they say.

I get held to account for the stupid things I say-why shouldn't  a fat boy? ( And before anyone  thinks I haven't been held to account for the things I say-trust me, I've got a trail of missed opportunities because of the things I believe- that have stood in my way over the years………).

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I agree with James Fallows, its almost impossible to overfly the airport you are filed to. Unless you are asleep.

Pilots do sleep in the cockpit-especially when they are tired and bored. A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, a pilot in the squadron I was in, was notorious for it. His co-pilot, took it upon himself to teach " the man, the myth, and the legend" ( Stein gets this reference), a lesson. Our intrepid aviator was in the left seat and after the cat shot and the climb out, upon arriving on station, our intrepid hero removes his helmet, pulls a helmet bag over his head, and tells the co-pilot to "mind the store". Off he drifts to dreamland.

Said co-pilot decides to make his move. First, he sets a waypoint and the fly to indicator, to a point out in east bumf*ck. (In the days before GPS, pilots would set waypoint zero to the ship's launch location so they had a reference back to the carrier). Second, he runs the fuel quantity test down to about 2000 pounds and pulls the circuit breaker. This leaves the fuel quantity gages appearing as if there is only a  1000 pounds a side. ( In reality, there is plenty of gas on board, but "the legend " cannot tell with out reseting the fuel quantity circuit breaker) . Finally, he turns the air-conditioning to full cold. The auto-pilot already being engaged, he slumps back, pretending to be asleep. ( All the while keeping an eye on the aircraft and its motions through the sky). As and added bonus-he set the cockpit clocks two hours ahead.

Our intrepid hero finally wakes up because he is cold, clears his eyes, pulls on his helmet,  and looks at the guages. At which point he goes berserk when he thinks he is 480 miles from the ship, with only 2000 pounds of gas, and a co-pilot who is "asleep". The back end of the aircraft ( where I was mission commander) was deselected on the ICS, but I'm told I missed a full fledged nervous breakdown.

And to add insult to injury, he got a "No Grade" coming aboard.

I still smile when I think about it. I doubt the NWA pilots are smiling though. They are probably figuring out how they can get jobs flying drugs from Panama.

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Someone has to tell me how KBR is allowed to get away with things like this:

I realize, KBR recruits a certain type of person for the lousy jobs they have to do-but really, how can anyone support this type of behavior? And if its a false accusation, why don't they deliver the proof?

A satirical website called “Republicans for Rape” is encouraging people to call the thirty Republicans who voted against Franken’s amendment, and tell them what they think about that.

Sometime later, I need to comment on the Pentagon's overuse of contractors, but that's a more complicated subject than most people think. And I'm hardly an objective observer since, if the location is right, I would sign on the dotted line. But to allow this to go on is over the line,  if you ask me.

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The Atlantic has an interesting article on where the E-Reader revolution is taking us.

Today it seems to me that there are at least three major classes of popular personal technology that have yet to be fully consolidated into a modern Swiss Army Knife: cell phones and computers and I think e-readers will soon fill that trio. The arc of personal tech history dictates that functions don't remain separate for very long. Someday the idea of an e-reader designed merely to read will seem as limiting as the cell phone that doesn't receive emails or the desktop that won't fit in your satchel. It will still have an consumer audience, but it will be seen as behind the wave.

I just want to know how I can get the new stuff back fitted into my Kindle.

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Did you ever come across a movie running while channel surfing, that you just had to keep coming back to? The other night after the baseball game, I did. After telling the S.O., that I did not feel like going to bed, I happened upon a movie on the Indie Channel: The Civilization of Maxwell Bright .  At first it seemed a movie right up my alley. 

Fed up with American women and determined to procure a docile Asian wife, an angry L.A. misogynist gets a mail order bride from China. Who just happens to be the ever delectable Marie Matiko:

Patrick Warburton plays the male lead-and suffice it to say, he makes me look like caring sensitive feminist advocate by comparison. At least at the beginning of the movie. There is a scene where he is arrested by a bunch of female cops that is just a classic. You have to watch that far in the movie to see it-but his quip about the female cops showing up at the crime scene is pretty funny. However-and this may be a plot spoiler- this is the Indie Channel. Our hero Max is going down at the end the movie. Still, it was a pretty interesting movie. Probably would not have paid to see it in the theater-but its worth  seeing on DVD.

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And finally, like Maxwell, it would be nice if the Yankees just rolled over and accepted fate gracefully. However, especially since they are going back to New York-that's not going to happen. The "A's" better bring their A game-and even then, I'm not sure its going to be enough. However, you have to admit, last night's game was what a baseball playoff game should be-suspenseful all the way. ja ne!

I don't have one-except I watched the ALCS last night. The Yankees are not supposed to rally like that.

This weekend ought to be very interesting.

Another reason to hate those guys:

10-1.

F*ck the f*cking Yankees!

At work, whenever I can get away with it-I change the channel on the flat screen TV's they have in the passageways. It has become someting of a sacred duty. There is one in the hall by the elevator that somehow always is on Fox News when I come in to work.

So with just a quick divert over there, I flick the button to CNN or ESPN and the balance in the force is restored. I do it as a public service.

Rather than in any way maturing, Fox has in recent months become more boisterous and demagogic in rallying the opposition against Obama. The "fair and balanced" mask has been slipping with increasing frequency—as when a RNC press release was regurgitated so lazily that it repeated a typo on air or when a reporter wondered why other networks weren't doing PR for "tea parties" that Fox covered the way the Hearst press covered the Spanish-American war. On Fox, fact-checking about the president's health care proposal is provided by Karl Rove. For literary coverage, it features the bigot Jerome Corsi's rants about Obama and John Kerry. Meanwhile, the crybaby Glenn Beck has begun to exhibit a Strangelovean concern about America's precious bodily fluids, charging the government with trying to invade our bloodstream by vaccinating us for swine flu. With this latest misinformation campaign, Fox stands to become the first network to actively try to kill its viewers.

That Rupert Murdoch may skew the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is somewhat beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's successful model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to experiment with a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. It's Fox that led CNN's Lou Dobbs to remodel himself into a nativist cartoon. It's Fox that led MSNBC to amp up Keith Olbermann. Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Through its influence, it has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

Now if I could just change the channel during a two hour VTC…….

Nonetheless, that's why George H.W. Bush is right aout politics in America.

It's October and I just watched the Yankees lose! That's a cause for celebration in and of itself.

Now its time to grab some beer and sit down and watch the home of real baseball, the National League, slug it out.  Part of me wants the Dogers to win because I'd like to see Joe Torre shove it up Steinbrenner's keister in the World Series and part of me wants to see the Phillies take it.

Talk among yourselves about what baseball does for you…………

Bet she has great control over the plate!

Was George H.W. Bush. Find out why, here.

For the record, I'm OK with him calling out Olbermann.  Because he is right, both sides have lost any sense of perspective. And while I enjoyed watching Bush Senior's son get beat up by him, it still does not constitute any sembalance of journalism.

However, there's a point that has to be remembered. The United States is at war in Iraq-an unecessary war that has cost the lives of almost 5000 Americans, because George W. Bush had twisted ideas of how to "fix" the Middle East. And was obsessed with Saddam Hussein. I'll probably never forgive George Junior for that-definitely as long as American troops remain mired in that God forsaken country. A country which is becoming unraveled, just as the surge opponents predicted.

Nonetheless, the point remains valid. The American voter has so lowered the bar on what it expects from a President, that George Senior was the last occupant of the Oval Office who understood what needed to be done and that you govern a country from the center-not from the left or the right.

Simple truth is Bush senior could not get elected by today's electorate. Not because of anything Bush did-but because the electorate has become a lot dumber than it was in 1988. We would not have had George Jr or Obama,  if the American electorate actually had the smarts to understand anything. When we live in a world where a useless whore like Sarah Palin is taken seriously as a possible presidential candidate and  teabaggers, are considered reasonable parts of the political debate-well it proves my point. American voters are, by and large, stupid.

Had to drive to Birmingham today. Nice drive but the weather was cold. Back now-was going to post but started watching the ALCS after the Virgina Tech game. Extra innings now.

Oh yes.

F*ck the f*cking Yankees!

Got to get back to the TV. Bottom of the tenth.

UPDATE!  Yankees pulled it out in the bottom of the 13th. I hate those guys.

 You are from Pittsburgh if you get all the references in this You Tube. ( Yinz should watch it all……). 

I know where Zelinople is!

This has a lot of true facts about my home town.

The Sunday after the wedding, I took Harumi down to see the center of the city.  Suffice it to say , she was underwhelmed-after all she’s seen the bright lights of Tokyo. And I will admit, Pittsburgh can’t compare to that-at all.

Nonetheless, for me, Pittsburgh was and will remain my home.  Of course, with an unemployment rate above 10%, gainful employment is not exactly on the horizon there. However, Pittsburgh remains a special place for me. So I wanted to get some pix of the place, and I wanted to ride the incline. My father even wanted to go. So off we went.

It was a great day for pictures:

This is the Monogahela Incline. There’s another one down Carson Street.

The view from Mt. Washington:

A good view of the point!

And I also took some shots looking back towards Oakland:

Off in the distance you can see the Cathedral of Learning. I went to summer school there in 1976-a long time ago and in a Galaxy far away! Thank God the Steelers were not in town! Otherwise traffic would have been a mess:

Not quite the same as Three Rivers!

But still a great city:

Rep. Buyer is a Citadel Graduate by the way.