The Sitting Duck Strategy

One doesn’t have to be a Dick Cheney on a hunting trip to know that the target is the mallard sitting in the water and not your fellow hunter . For all the “lessons learned” in this “war on terror”, this real-life accident in all of its VP dimension could not have depicted the prevailing force (farce?) that swayed the course of this war more accurately. This strategy of pouring more and more conventional forces in an unconventional war and raising false hopes of vic...

This report is a little more than a year old and was written some 18 flight hours from the US continent. I guess this can be safely filed away for historical reference.

The Bay of this Mindoro Island which was around 2 hours ferry ride from the southern tip of the Philippines’ largest northern island (Luzon), had actually 5 other interesting beaches, but it was only White Beach which was the focus of most tourist destinations.
It was actually one of the earliest developed resorts, much earl...

In a surprising timing reminiscent of a terrorist 9/11 attack, Mother Nature threw a brickbrat of bizarre weather patterns sending seven (yes,7) tornadoes creating a large swath of devastation to include overturned trucks, trailers,and buses destroyed properties and 19 confirmed fatalities in the wee hours of the morning (3am) today to where? No, not Missouri, not Kansas, not even Texas, but in Florida - central Florida to be exact, particularly in Lake County and the surrounding areas. ...

Twenty-thousand troops to increase US forces for Baghdad - ? What will that achieve against an unconventional enemy that just has to
wait outside of the Green Zone and other parts of Iraq waiting for a lull moment before pouncing back and begin decimating American soldiers in their unguarded moments? What do these 20,000 US forces do against several centuries of Shiite vs. Sunni sectarian conflict
that went on unabated throughout the years of American occupation of Iraq ? This troop surge wil...

A friend emailed me this story which I'm sharing in full.

"At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would
never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: **

When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understan...

Tactics are something you can turn on a dime,” said Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, and an Army veteran with close ties to the military. “Strategy takes time, and that’s the question. Do we have time for a new strategy?”

Any thoughts evaluating the formation of a new strategy cannot ignore reevaluation of the old one. The reevaluation has been consistent on all levels: The present course on Iraq is the implementation of a wrong strategy. It means the over-all rallyi...

I almost coughed out my breakfast cereals one Monday Morning when I started reading a St. Peterburg Times article on gay Republican staffers being accused of downplaying the Foley issue to protect a fellow gay Republican (?!) It was a recent article by Bill Adair & Web Allison and the nearest link I could find on the subject was this: Link

A year ago (or when was that time macho Republican gubernator Shwarzenegger started pooh-poohing “girlie-men”?) you wouldn’t connect Republicans with bein...

This seems like the inevitable question not just when you near the ballot box but more when you face the mirror, with no one else around.

It has to do with the deep sense of self-respect you hold for yourself and for this country – the land of your children and grandchildren, and theirs. Yes, this land checkered by a history we’ve both learned, at one time or another to be proud to come home to as well as to stay away from in shame. All in all, when you compare what’s been achieved in our a...

I don’t get it . US has fallen from its No.1 position which it shared with Finland for the the more than a decade, according to the World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Index. Link: Link

Link Link

The No. 1 spot is now given to Switzerland followed by 3 Scandinavian countries ( #2 Finland , #3 Sweden , #4 Denmark) then Singapore.
I thought a more competitive type of economy was one that was business-friendly, plenty of tax cuts, less government control, unlike the welfare states t...

I had this brother-in-law Bill who was such a patsy for jokes. The guy was smart , well-rounded and had that all-around good nature about him but owing to cultural upbringing (anyway, we in the family think he’s more Polynesian than American in the way he chooses to react), he sort of just became the butt of jokes during family reunions. Every family’s supposed to have a sacrificial laughing stock and Bill just fit into it. He just laughed at the jokes thrown about him – even when they just bor...

Now why did I write this post ? Call it my blood-and guts issue trying to release all the pent-up rage and frustration with everything’s that’s been currently happening in the least harmful way I think it could be released and it revolves around an imagined scenario:

Imagine you are the security-cleared, officially designated Chef in charge of handling meals and dinners for UN guests, prominent among them, of course,(and with equal controversy) would be Mahmoud Amedinejad, President of Iran. ...

Early September, Americans were greeted by news that caused some relief – Oil find in the Gulf of Mexico, some transportable distance from Louisiana.
Link With the choking prices of gas going ever upwards, and after hearing of limited oil supply from the Alaskan pipeline due to leaks in Prudhoe Bay that would need repair of the oil pipes, the news was certainly a welcome relief.

Then came Sunday’s(Sept. 10,2006,) quake, a magnitude 6, quite near the area of the Mexican Gulf oil find, whic...

Lemmesee. Whatsinaname? A rose..blah-blahblah. This Post came to me because of observations I’ve noted on names of business establishments and other advertised stuff I’ve passed by which caused me to chuckle. Some of them:

“Merciful Barbershop” (Gad, I’d hate to submit myself for a trim there!)

“Mahal Kita Honey” ( translated,”I Love You Honey” – natural freshly harvested honey
sold on a Philippine roadside)

“Are you Mandom?” (“huh?!? – Japanese adv...

I know this may sound irresponsible to some people owing to the fact that it was US who stirred up a hornet's nest when we invaded. But time and history seems to be the better teacher and now it's just, with the best intentions, really just damage control. And we've done what we could and bled our resources to try to make the best of a fiasco that would've been better handled than with an outright invasion.

Why don't we (the US military with the blessings of its gov't.) just make an appearanc...

So, from the point of view of someone implementing a command, this issue just can't be ignored . It has to be confronted with the same depth that an ordinary civilian should understand as to what the military is doing thousands of miles away in his nation's name.
We necessarily encounter questions because the concepts themselves lock horns in oxymoronic struggle above our heads.

Just how do you teach people to embrace and utilize democracy to better their lives when you do it at the point of...