Far East Cynic

Bin Laden

“Victory only has meaning in its effect on the events of the future”-Herman Wouk Remember this phrase as we discuss the events of Sunday Night. As we were laying in bed-the sun having gone down long before, and the only light in the room being that of the solar walk

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An unexceptional nation

 One of the ideas that has come to the forefront in our current political debate-is a very flawed one. That it has been allowed to take root in our civil discourse is indeed a tragic development for the nation as a whole and it is probably the one thing that

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The unintended consequences.

When you make changes in haste-they seldom turn out to be good ones. What I am about to chronicle in this post is an example of a change made by these guys-that is 100% at odds with what they supposedly want from those they inflicted it on. In their haste

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What happens when they throw us out?

I’ve been watching the events in Bahrain with considerable interest. Not because I think we can influence events one way or the other, in fact I think our best course is to sit tight and wait events out. I am however, amazed at the naivete shown by many American journalists

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Thundering hoof beats…..

As the four horses of the apocalypse come thundering into town. Grover Norquist and I actually agree on something: Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said he wants to build a center-right coalition to advocate for considering pulling out of Afghanistan in order to save the hundreds of billions

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Food for thought….

After the first of next year the campaign for the White House will begin in earnest it would seem. Politico,taking a break from its job as mouthpiece for the GOP, points out that all the likely candidates will have one thing in common: Lack of military service. Of the 16

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Morning quote….

For a guy who had a lot to drink last night-I feel remarkably good this morning. Speaking of last night, here it is summed up nicely: “What this election suggests to me is that the United States may have finally lost its ability to adapt politically to the systemic crises

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October 25th……

Today is the anniversary of three different battles. The nostalgics and historically myopic among the blogosphere will focus on St. Crispin’s day. The more nautically minded will focus on the fact that it is anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, an American naval victory-but as Herman Wouk pointed out,

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So easy even a caveman can do it…..

But not, evidently, a teabagger. Do simple arithmetic and revamp the federal budget to actually bring the deficit down in any type of meaningful way. Over at this website, there is an interactive budget simulator that allows you to do puts and takes against the federal budget-with the goal of

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Follow up

Col Sellin is not going quietly into that great good night-as he returns to Finland and his job with an IT company ( where he was before he got ordered up to active duty). This post is right on the mark-as was his other one about the atrophy of our

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