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…………
