Everybody's Got a Cousin on Saipan

Modern-day "Conservatism": The Real Ideology of Entitlement

2011-04-10T23:17:00.006+10:00

Imagine a tropical island paradise that is a U.S. Commonwealth, a part of the United States of America family. As with most U.S. island territories, this string of islands has a higher-then-average per capita of its population living under the poverty line. In fact, this territory is the largest welfare state in the Union. Many able-bodied young men and women live off of Social Security and food stamps because the net take-home is nearly as much as it would be to have a 40-hour a week job in the private sector at the minumum wage of $5.05/hour. Non-U.S. citizens avail of Medicaid for their U.S.-born children. The U.S tax payer pays for most public education here, a large amount of infrastructure funding and ARRA funds have flowed here buying new school buses, transportation vans for the elderly, disabled, public safety and federal offices; as well as the purchase of use-and-keep laptops for grade-school students and solar panels for government buildings. The residents of the Commonwealth, though U.S. citizens, pay contributions into Social Security but do not pay federal income tax.

A liberal paradise right? Enough to make a deficit-hawk, entitlement-hating "fiscal conservative" froth at the mouth? Only the super-irony is that the Democratic Party is nearly non-existent in this American Commonwealth. This is G.O.P country, through-and-through. The visiting D.C. dignitaries of the last fifteen years have all had an (R) after their names; men named DeLay, Abramoff, Young, Rohrbacher and Steele (no relation of course, different mother for sure).

And what has the U.S. tax payer received in return for millions of dollars in annual funding over the last three-plus decades? 80% of one island that's been in the Pentagon's possession since WWII, never used since the war but there all the same just in case it's needed for military training; another tiny, uninhabited island used for military bombing exercises and a reliable pool of young military recruits; high school graduates and dropouts who have few jobs to vie for in an economically devastated private sector and a nearly bankrupt, local government.

The trend, the commonalities of those "benefits" are pretty obvious. Where the Pentagon of the U.S. empire sets up shop, the entitlements of "protecting American interests" follow. Now that the world knows how the U.S. enriched former Eyptian dictator Mubarak to the point of him being possibly one of the world's wealthiest men, wouldn't it be nice to know how much money was spent to keep the puppet government of the Shah of Iran in power for 25 years? Or the Saudi kingdom for over 75 years now? Or Ferdinand Marcos? How about Reagan's excursions into Central America? Billions are spent annually subsidizing Israel's military. Trillions of dollars have been spent on a combined eighteen years of "occupation" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

All that American tax payer money spent overseas. Military entitlements. All courtesy of "conservative" ideology, which quite unfortunately is the ruling ideology of the current-day U.S.A.. All despite the fact that a majority of the population are against further foreign occupations and subsidies. Meanwhile, right-wing media has convinced the populace that "liberals" are the "tax-and-spenders", the ones that are ruining the nation.

So while "conservative" ideology has aimed to undermine private-sector unions over the last three decades in the name of furthering corporate profits and currently plans to destroy America's social safety nets under the guise of balancing budgets, this same ideology has made just one foreign dictator worth over $50 billion. That's surely a mere drop in a very large bucket of hypocrisy.

But the "conservative" demand for entitlements doesn't end with the Pentagon of course.

"Conservative" ideology has no issues with bloated budgets when it comes to corporate subsidies (those are entitlements too folks!) for businesses that net billions in quarterly profits, like oil companies and corporate agriculture. And who can forget those bank bailouts and subsidies that continue to this day via zero-interest, Fed discount window lending? Ever wondered why you earn less than 1% interest on your savings accounts? The banks don't need your personal money when they can borrow your government's money for free. And when they hide their value-deflated, foreclosed real estate assets and derivatives losses from their financial statements and declare billions in profits by investing free money, well they are entitled to those million dollar bonuses. That's productive capitalism in the tainted world of "conservative" ideology.

Or how about taxation? No taxes, the "conservative" mantra. The ongoing fairytale of balancing a budget with endless wars, trillion dollar corporate bailouts and lower taxes. America could erase a lot of deficit with a simple quarter-point uptick in capital gains taxes over a million dollars, or force multi-billion-dollar hedge funds to pay higher taxes on their speculative "earnings", simple paper-trading which contributes nothing to our nation's productivity. The Obama administration is making a half-hearted attempt to close tax loopholes for corporations and the extreme wealthy but of course is facing fierce resistance from the "right." Because they are entitled to those bennys, don't you know? It's us serfs down below who can't afford memberships to their exclusive country clubs who are supposed to "suck it up" and surrender our Social Security and the right to collectively bargain because we're the ones who are sucking all the life out of America by sitting on our asses and whining, right?

Today's "conservative" ideologists believe that social entitlements are the cause of America's assumed fiscal crisis. That's not even close to the truth. Since the Wall Street bailouts began, corporate welfare expenses have far outstripped non-contributed social welfare. "Conservatives", particularly the Tea Party wing, like to use the Constitution as a lost standard of national identity that must be reclaimed. Ironic, since the neocon ideology of "peace through force" has yielded two, illegal "wars" that were never declared by Congress as required by the Constitution and those wars, combined with a half-century of financial support for mostly non-Democratic nations have easily been the most depleting debits to the nation's treasury.

The evidence is pretty clear for all who wish to see it. The Citizen's United decision ended any doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court is an activist body of "conservative" ideology, essentially slamming shut the barely-open door of democracy by virtually assuring that elections will be bought by the elite members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or billionaire donor groups like Karl Rove's American Crossroads or the Kochs' American's For Prosperity. The Justice Department now green-lights any and all corporate mega-mergers, many in just the last few years that never would have passed just three to four decades ago, eliminating competition and further allowing price collusion. Mega-elite banking and investment groups, and particulary speculators, aren't being taxed nearly enough on their capital gains; data entry profits that not only provide no productivity and produce nothing but negatively effect world commodity and financial markets, and are increasingly ill-gotten via insider trading and market manipulation.

In the last three decades, the American conservative movement has been hijacked by a powerful group of greedy extremists that have turned it into a failed ideology, an ideology that is now shared by both political parties and which isn't really an ideology at all but rather a well-oiled propaganda machine, in which money and personal gain come long before actions which are good for the nation.

The island Commonwealth that I described at the beginning does exist by the way. I've lived there for most of the last sixteen years. And there's no "liberal" media here, just ESPN, Fox and the Wall Street Cheerleader Channel, better known as CNBC. Imagine that.

Aztecs Win Poinsettia Bowl Against Navy, 35-14

2010-12-27T12:46:00.000+10:00

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Freshman Ronnie Hillman scored four touchdowns and tied his career best with 228 yards rushing on 28 carries to lead San Diego State to its first bowl victory since 1969, 35-14 over Navy in the Poinsettia Bowl on Thursday night.

The game was played on a slick field after 1.5 million gallons of rainwater were pumped out of Qualcomm Stadium overnight. Players went slipping and sliding all night, but organizers met their promise of kicking off on time after several days of torrential rain flooded the field and a portion of the parking lot.

Hillman, the Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year, scored on runs of 22, 37 and 2 yards, and pulled in a 15-yard scoring pass from Ryan Lindley after a beautifully executed fake.

"It was very surprising," Hillman said of his effort, the sixth time this season he gained at least 150 yards. "But the O-line, like I said, you could put a high school senior back there and he would have 1,000 yards behind this line. I can't say enough about them."

SDSU (9-4) hadn't won a postseason game since beating Boston University in the 1969 Pasadena Bowl. The Aztecs had been in only three bowl games since, most recently the 1998 Las Vegas Bowl, which it lost to North Carolina.

SDSU took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter on Hillman's 22-yard TD run and Lindley's 53-yard TD pass to Vincent Brown. Navy pulled to 14-7 on Ricky Dobbs' 30-yard scoring pass to Greg Jones early in the second quarter. Hillman put the Aztecs up by two touchdowns again as he ran untouched 37 yards up the middle with 3:15 before halftime. Navy closed within one score on Dobbs' 1-yard keeper 7 seconds before halftime. SDSU held Navy on the opening drive of the second half, when Dobbs' pass went off Bo Snelson's fingertips in the end zone on fourth-and-goal from the 3.

Lindley completed 18 of 23 passes for 276 yards while wide receiver Vincent Brown had eight catches for 165 yards, also a Poinsettia Bowl record.

Aztecs Get School-Record 14th Straight Win

LAS VEGAS (AP) - San Diego State left Las Vegas with a school-record 14 straight wins and an unscathed record after two games that proved tougher than they looked going in.

D.J. Gay scored 18 points and the seventh-ranked Aztecs avoided a last-minute comeback to beat IUPUI 56-54 on Wednesday night at the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic.

Malcolm Thomas fell just shy of a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds, despite hurting a toe in his last game for San Diego State, which has its highest ranking in school history. The Aztecs were never ranked until this season.

After shooting an airball to end the first half, Gay took a charge to start the second, touching off a 20-5 run to give the Aztecs (14-0) the lead for good. The Aztecs have the nation's second-longest active winning streak behind No. 1 Duke's 21 straight.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-26T20:50:00.001+10:00

The "Manchurian" President

2010-12-04T16:20:00.004+10:00

I saw a new book release on Amazon.com that caught my eye, titled "The Manchurian President" by an author named Aaron Klein. Though falling short of suggesting that President Obama was brainwashed in Manchuria by Chinese and Russian intelligence officials as was Captain Marco in Richard Condon's 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate," the book does appear to be a Beck-like, guilt-by-association rap of communist, socialist and terrorist "ties" on the President. Beck, Palin and Limbaugh have been riding that gravy train for awhile now. It looks like Klein wants a piece of the action.

However, it's not far-fetched to at least be suspicious that our President may be a "Manchurian President"-type, though of course not in the sense of being kidnapped and brainwashed, nor due to socialist ideology or any other far-left "ism" conspiracy being spun by the right-side of the Money Party propaganda machine that passes as media nowadays.

Last July, I sent an e-mail to David Michael Green, one of the handful of writers whose articles I regularly read. Prof. Green (Hofstra U.) often lambasts President Obama for being weak, allowing the GOP to smack him around, not hitting back from the "bully pulpit" while continuously reaching out in the name of "bi-partisanship." I was curious as to whether David was possibly thinking what I was thinking;

From: Randy Steele
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 12:26 AM
To: dmg@regressiveantidote.net
Subject: How's That Recessioney, Oily Thing Working Out For Ya?

Hafa adai Professor Green,

Bravo on your most recent article, very enjoyable and 100% agreed on by this fan of your writing.

I’m hoping that you are inching closer to the end-game that I believe, which is the suggestion that President Obama was a “Manchurian Candidate” of sorts, chosen by the economic elite, regressive right, Pentagon and whoever else is in charge of this insanity, to be a receptacle of blame, a bumblin’-stumblin’, goin-back-on-his-every-promise, last stake in the heart of the Democratic Party and progressive ideology. Far-fetched sure, but how else can you explain a campaign run so flawlessly, followed up by a Presidency so effortlessly inadequate?

Thank you again for the entertainment and the truth.

Best regards from the heart of the Marianas,

Randy Steele

To which he replied;

From: David Michael Green [mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net]
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:07 AM
To: 'Randy Steele'
Subject: RE: How's That Recessioney, Oily Thing Working Out For Ya?

…could well be, could well be.

Need some evidence, though.

Thanks for your note and kind words!! From very far away too!

Cheers – dmg

I really dig Prof. Green's humorous approach to political critique but I don't think that the evidence that he seeks will be in the form of a dead body or smoking gun, though metaphorically speaking, the country may be heading towards being the former, in part due to the latter in the form of brewing racial and social unrest.

But let's look at some sad, solid facts. President Barack Obama has done nothing to change the Bush-era structure and policies of the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency loaded with oil and mining industry insiders who rubber-stamp drilling and mining applications despite lacking proper environmental impacts or disaster readiness plans. His campaign was primarily funded by Wall Street and he has returned the favor in spades, giving the bankers the reigns of the economy that they crashed, and watered down reform that doesn't lay a finger on regulating derivatives or ending further, sure-to-come taxpayer-funded bailouts. Ending tax cuts for the wealthy? Obama's figuring a way to weasel out of that one as we speak. His so-called deficit commission is blatantly hell-bent on cutting Social Security benefits at a time when millions of Americans need them most. His Bush-era holdover defense secretary and generals have carried on with our dual, un-Constitutional occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan (Congress never declared either "war"). His much-hyped healthcare reform was crafted behind closed doors by medical industry insiders and Democrat senators on industry payroll, while Obama stayed out of sight and pulled a "180" from his campaign rhetoric of providing a debate on a "public option." He was a Bilderberg attendee the year before he was elected.

Yet instead of applause from Big Business and being labeled as a continuation of Bush/Cheney/Rove, amazingly the President is getting hammered from all directions by the Fox and Tea Party crowd; socialist, commie, Muslim terrorist sympathizer, you name it. BP blowout in the Gulf? Obama. High unemployment, that's been 30+ years in the making due to subsidizing manufacturers to ship jobs overseas? That's Obama's doing. No progress on the occupation of Afghanistan despite being there for nearly ten years and no clear goal ever being laid forth? Yep, his fault too. Your wife burned the meat loaf last night? You get the picture.

But you know what's more amazing? He just takes it with no retaliation. The rad-right side of the corporate media, along with GOP legislators, kick him in the nuts repeatedly with steel-tipped boots, yet he continues to supposedly reach out for conciliation. Mr. Happy. The truth is that us guys, we get royally pissed off when someone simply cuts in front of us without flipping on their turn signal. This President just sits back and takes verbal abuse of epic-proportions, loaded with some pretty far-fetched shit from people with serious financial and political agendas, never steps up to the plate to defend himself......and we're supposed to believe that this stuff isn't staged?

Think about it. He's a corporate stooge of a level that would make "Saint" Ronnie smile, yet he allows the "right" to frame him not only as a liberal extremist but far, far beyond that. Come on, this guy isn't even liberal! Obama couldn't carry FDR's lunchbox. Government takeover? Really, so where are the dividend checks?

You have to consider the possibility that this is all staged, with the strings being pulled from high above, out of sight of the crowd, with the torpedoing of the Democratic party and liberal ideology as the ultimate goal. I know that I do.

Here's another guy's opinion along the same lines:

"Pres O: What the F… Don’t You Get About Republican Intentions?"

A Cold November Rain

2010-09-28T17:13:00.011+10:00

"Our national problem isn't that we honorably disagree over two equally respectable philosophies of governance and therefore don't get along because we're all such good citizens that our passionate commitment to the public as we each see it best pursued leads us to be occasionally intemperate. No. Our problem is that there is a group of elite raptors who are seeking to vacuum every ounce of wealth out of the pockets of the other 99 percent of us and scoop it into their own pockets instead, and that they've employed a set of politician stooges who have in the last several decades jettisoned all meaningful behavioral limitations on what they're willing to do to achieve those ends...........It is precisely what we should expect to have happened. It is precisely the product of three decades of Atwater/Gingrich/Rove style politics.

"These people cannot be negotiated with, because they are not interested in public policy-making that is in the national interest. That's not their mission, and only a naive fool or someone who had spent the last thirty years underground excavating the seventh moon of Jupiter would fail to understand that."

David Michael Green, "'I Have a Dream' 2010 Version"

Prof. Green is simply stating the obvious. It tweaks the mind trying to figure out how part of the nation can be so propagandized and caught up in all of the delusional rhetoric of socialism, communism, the forged birth certificate of a Kenyan-born Muslim President, government takeovers and the rest of the rot being spewed by the morally insane "right."

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Which segways us to my next bit of recommended reading, this one being a new entry from one of my favorite independent writers, Robert Parry, who "broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980's for the Associated Press and Newsweek." His website is consortiumnews.com.

"America's Decoupling From Reality" is a short, historical bit about the rise of the "neocons" during the Reagan administration. The neocons are the foreign policy idealists and propagandists who successfully politicized the CIA and who used "fear, exaggeration and outright lying to get the American people behind Reagan's support for brutal military regimes" in Central America. The success of these programs led to the greater build-up of the radical, right-wing media that we've seen over the last decade in AM talk radio and at Fox network.

"With only a few exceptions, the U.S. news media let itself become silly putty in the hands of the neocons, who had returned to power under Bush-43 with a much broader foreign policy portfolio than Reagan had ever given them. Whereas Reagan confined them mostly to Central America, Bush-43 gave them the strategically vital Middle East.

"Not surprisingly, the neocons reprised their old strategy of perception management, stoking excessive fears of Iraq’s mythical WMD programs and stomping out any counter embers of doubt. For millions of Americans, the WMD lies became truth as they were repeated everywhere, from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times."

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Holy cow!! Is #18 a man or a bear? A Manbear? I had no idea Tea Partiers that got bus'd in to disrupt townhall meetings do the same for NFL games too. Check that.....thing out.

Carrot-Top as a middle-age maniac?

Sean White's Mom?

Sean White's Dad?

Oh America, why oh why are you so angry all the time?

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This was copied from the wall of a CA friends' Facebook page this past week:

"I, _________, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, risking my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor, so help me God."

I've been seeing a lot of Yahoo article comments lately as well that invoke the Constitution, folks from the Beck and Tea Party flock who swear that "I will fight and die for the Constitution", etc. Noble and admirable sure, yet never do any of these posters ever reference our two illegal, un-Constitutional and undeclared "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, those "wars" that eat up a huge chunk of your federal tax money? Or the unquestionably, un-Constitutional Patriot Act. Or the Supreme Court's ridiculously un-Constitutional and corporatist, judicial activism of the last decade.

Why is that and what are you defending the Constitution against then?

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So Larry Summers has resigned as chairman of the President's National Economic Council, or better known as Obama's "economic guru." That's only twelve years too late and won't be newsworthy until he is posthumously chastized to-the-bone by history for the destructive deregulation of financial derivatives, the mega-trillion dollar hidden market, that he was instrumental in ushering in. Don't believe for a minute that bad mortgages and Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac's malfeasance resulted in the trillion dollar Wall Street bailouts that continue to this day. That was a result of unregulated MBSs fraudulantly layered on top of the same securities over and over and packaged as AAA-investments, then insured by trillions in CDOs that had no underlying assets to collateralize. If it sounds like an unintelligible scam, then it surely is. Only this one resulted in the largest transfer of tax-payer money to the robber-baron elite ever seen, all created by "a man of Larry's brilliance" and others like him such as Robert Rubin and Phil Gramm.

Not many deserve a short retirement as much as this guy.

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Who is calling Obama anti-business? The same Wall Street guys who robbed us of billions (some would argue trillions), continue to do so and are hatching ways to permenantly do so? Why would anyone continue to listen to those guys? Because they haven't figured out yet that the corporate-owned media has the same boardmembers and major shareholders as does Wall Street I suppose. The last sentence just defined "Foxbot" I believe.

The entire manufacturing sector and its' jobs are gone, homes are being foreclosed and money for college education, health care and retirement is drying up. Amazingly, "conservatives" say that we've had it too good and that things like Social Security and unemployment insurance support laziness. Meanwhile, we're told by the big-corporate-owned media that corporate fat cats and Wall Street banksters require more tax breaks and subsidies, which would supposedly be beneficial for the country, that old "trickle-down" theory.  The establishment elite on both sides of the political aisle are bent on cutting Social Security while letting the Pentagon keep increasing their budget for foreign occupations.

I am 47-years old and have been paying into Social Security for 31 years. I've never collected SS or unemployment benefits in my life. SS had better freakin' be there come my retirement time. If you buy into the rotten propaganda that the SS program requires cuts rather than better regulation, while at the same time tax breaks for the extreme-wealthy should be extended, I'd like to hear from you and hear your reasoning.

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I'll end this rant with some Matt Taibbi, from his blog at Rolling Stone.com. And thank goodness for Rolling Stone though what does it say about the sad, sad state of American media when you have to wade through magazine covers of a near-naked Lady Gaga or a stoned-out Russell Brand in order to get to the best, "mainstream" political writings?

"There’s nothing in the world more tired than a progressive blogger like me flipping out over the latest idiocies emanating from the Fox News crowd. But this summer’s media hate-fest is different than anything we’ve seen before. What we’re watching is a calculated campaign to demonize blacks, Mexicans, and gays and convince a plurality of economically-depressed white voters that they are under imminent legal and perhaps even physical attack by a conspiracy of leftist nonwhites."

"The Fox/Rush/Savage crowd in the last 18 months has taken the anti-Muslim fervor that launched a phony war in Iraq, carried George Bush to re-election, and pushed through the Patriot Act, and re-directed that anger at a domestic nonwhite enemy. In doing so they’ve achieved a perfect storm of political cross-purposes: they’ve almost completely succeeded in distracting the public from the real causes of their economic misfortune (i.e. Wall Street corruption), they’ve re-energized a Republican party that was devastated by eight years of Bush-era corruption and incompetence, and, as usual, they’ve made Rupert Murdoch a shitload of money........ It’s just our bad luck that driving frustrated/broke white suburbanites into a race-hatred frenzy happens to be good business for these folks. And all of this is race-baiting-for-cash is borne out of the same short-term, indifferent-to-consequence thinking that we saw from the Wall Street guys in recent years -- who created mountains of deadly leverage capable of destroying the global financial system for the sake of a few one-year bonuses."

"The fact that Fox and co. are doing what they do for these dreary commercial reasons makes it even worse, of course; at least Hitler really hated Jewish people. But that also means there's a bright side. To me that indicates that if Fox and Glenn Beck can be induced to jerk off to some perhaps similarly profitable but less toxic hate-fantasy.....it won’t have us steaming toward widespread racial violence like we are now."

Goldman Suchs

2010-07-10T20:57:00.002+10:00

On June 28, Barron's Tech Trader Daily page published an analyst report from gambling-house Goldman Sachs titled "Solar: Goldman Launches; Says Buy FSLR, JASO; Sell WFR, STP."

I'm no fan of Goldman Sachs but am a big fan of solar energy as a longterm investment, and particularly of STP, or Suntech Power, a Chinese-based manufacturer and marketer of photovoltaic solar power systems. I've been in-and-out of their U.S.-sold ADR's for over five years now and have been looking to get back in as the stock, as well as the entire solar sector, have dipped near their 52-week lows.

Goldman's sell rating on STP with an 8.40 target price, 11% lower than their price that day, prompted me to leave the following comment on the article:

6:28 pm June 30, 2010

SaipanSolarMan wrote:
Goldman? Is anyone still listening to these crooks? I’ll seek stock advice from my grandma before I look to this outfit for advice. What a joke.

On June 29th the stock dipped below $9/share and nearly did again on June 30. On July 1 I put in an order at 8.96/share and got in. After a nice 3-day market run where the solar sector particularly benefited, I sold my shares today at 11.25 on a market order. In-and-out quick is not my preferred method of investment but these are highly-manipulated markets nowadays and I've reconciled myself to playing their game. Making money going opposite a Goldman negative call is that much more gratifying. I couldn't resist leaving this comment tonight on the same article:

6:14 am July 10, 2010

SaipanSolarMan wrote:
Thanks Goldman! I took your advice above….and did the opposite. Bought STP just below 9 and just sold today at 11.25. A tidy 23% gain in less than two weeks. You guys rule!!

The most overpaid jobs in America have to be at Goldman Sachs.

Spring Soccer Festival

2010-05-16T19:35:00.005+10:00

The Northern Mariana Islands Football Association 2010 Spring season Football Festival, U6 division, San Antonio Elementary School, Saipan, CNMI. May 1, 2010.

The Way We Were

2010-03-17T13:19:00.006+10:00

The way we were.......B.C.................Before Children.

This is my favorite photo of just the two of us. I really miss those little orange shorts.

Get America Out of Afghanistan

2009-11-21T20:32:00.008+10:00

"Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that willl never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made. As such, I submit my resignation."

This past September 19, Matthew P. Hoh, a U.S. Marine officer and DoD Senior Civilian Representative for Zabul Province in Afghanistan, submitted his resignation from his post in a four-page letter damning the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. If you haven't yet read it, you should so click here .

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan."

Unfortunately and as usual, there is far more to our "presence" than the "why are we there?" question.

In late October, The New York Times reported that the CIA has been making payments for years to a suspected major figure in the Afghan opium trade, the brother of the Afghan President Karzai, who apparently collects huge fees for allowing opium-filled trucks to cross bridges that he controls. Poppy fields in the south and west of the country reportedly produce the raw material for an estimated 80% or more of the world's heroin consumption. The Taliban, who outlawed poppy production during their reign, now relies on the trade to support its operations against U.S. and NATO forces.

Meanwhile, the ethnic-majority yet highly fragmented Pashtun insurgency against the U.S. occupation and installed government is made up of multiple groups of peoples who have always fought against foreign occupation of their lands, as they have done for centuries going back at least 2300 years to Alexander The Great and as recently as their driving out the Soviet army, with U.S. support, a few decades ago.

Now the U.S. is the occupying nation while aligned with an installed, non-representative government whose army and police are comprised of mostly non-Pashtuns. Further, besides the President's brother, Hoh states that Karzai's "confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts."

Meanwhile, as the DEA increases the agency's presence in Afghanistan, the suspicion grows of CIA involvement in the Afghan opium trade, which is currently feeding a new heroin epidemic not only in the U.S. but in Western Europe as well. History from just the last four decades knows that this wouldn't be a first.

Then there's the recent Presidential election, in which the U.S. is accused of sponsoring election fraud, where according to the New York Times article, Karzai's brother was a key player in producing thousands of fraudelent ballots for his brother's re-election.

From "America's Drug Crisis: Brought to You by the CIA" by Dave Lindorff; "In a country where finding printing presses is sure to be difficult, and where transporting bales of counterfeit ballots is risky, you have to wonder whether an agency like the CIA, which has ready access to printers and to helicopters, might have had a hand in keeping its assets in control in Kabul."

"The real story here is that where the US goes, the drug trade soon follows, and the leading role in developing and nurturing that trade appears to be played by the Central Intelligence Agency."

The Times article exposing the CIA link to a drug-kingpin, brother of a known corrupt, U.S.-sponsored President should be it, the last straw for the American public. Kudos to The New York Times for bringing this crazy shit to the usually censored mainstream media and to Matthew Hoh as well, who surely sacrificed his career to do what he believed was necessary. A majority of Americans are opposed to these illegal, neo-conservative wars. Now is beyond the time for the organization of massive demonstrations on Washington.

President Obama isn't being forceful and appears to be trying hard to not have to make the call against escalation of forces. For what and to what end? The President and Congress don't pull America's strings anyway. With everything that we now know and even suspect, it's time to get America out of Afghanistan and reign in the elite internationalists', war-thirsty control over U.S. foreign policy via massive public pressure.

Harvest Fest Night and Youth Soccer

2009-10-24T20:12:00.008+10:00

On Friday, Oct. 16, Grace Christian Academy hosted their annual fundraising dinner, this year entitled "Harvest Fest Night." Richard's kindergarden class performed a song and dance bit. Richie's the fried egg in the middle while his best bud, Paul Lister is the salt to the right. It was a fun evening with a number of good student performances.

Richard joined soccer league this year for the first time and I, kind of by default, ended up as his coach. We are with the MP United football club, u6 (6 & under) division. This is my squad, along with my assistant coach, Ayuzo Kaga on the left, standing above her two daughters. We have a pretty good squad, 3-1 so far. Richard and the girls are ultra-solid on D, we've given up just three goals in our four games, while the other boys take care of the push to the opponents' goal.

It's a hoot watching the kids play.

Coach Daddy and his protege before our game in San Roque at a really nice elementary school campus sitting right on the lagoon.

Lyssa Rae prefers to do her cheerleading from her favorite rocking squirrel in the park of our home field on Navy Hill.

No jobs = No recovery

2009-10-24T10:57:00.011+10:00

This.....is.....awesome!!

"Hell, it takes Eli Manning, quarterback of the New York f...ing Giants six years to make a hundred million dollars!"

As the editor of the MonkeyBusinessBlog, where I linked this video from, said "get a bat and turn the music up. Then cut up your credit cards and send them back to where they came with a big GFY message. Pull your money out of the big boys' banks and put it in the local community bank...if you can find one."

This guy is off the hook, a should-be blue-collar hero with a rallying cry for anyone who's been deeply burned by the Great Financial Meltdown. A long clip but well worth it however he drops lots of F-bombs so be forewarned.

"And PLEASE people, lets not forget his batting skills! He's swinging from both sides of the plate and he's crushing EVERYTHING!"

What's It Gonna Take?

2009-08-23T17:26:00.009+10:00

I acknowledge that I've been pretty obsessed over the last year or so with ranting about the dismal state of our plutocratic, American political scene, particularly the plundering of the national treasury. I realize that I'm just one of millions of Americans with an opinion and that my view, armed with the internet and a 19" TV, coming from a small island lifestyle half-way around the world from the U.S. mainland is about as welcome as a stink-bomb in a stairwell.

But there are things happening right now that are unprecedented in our lifetimes, if not in our nation's history. I still can't comprehend fellow citizens' validation of these events and I'm blown away that there aren't mass demonstrations in the streets. Folks just kind of seem OK with it all. In fact, those that are getting rebellious are not demanding change but are lashing out against it.

The Federal Reserve, which is really a cartel of the largest banks with a free pass to print money, has handed out via the U.S. Treasury over $13 trillion dollars in cash and guarantees, no strings attached, to its members on crap debt from what should-be fraudulent business practices. They don't have to answer to Congress or the President, they made their large campaign contributions, and feel no obligation to disclose what banks have gotten how much or if there is even a required pay back. These banks promoted should-be fraudulent products, kept layering the investments on top of the same assets in classic Ponzi-scheme fashion, then were the largest hedgers against the products that they were selling, made billions in profits and bonuses for their execs then demanded unnecessary "bailouts" at tax payer expense after the floor fell out from their casino, all the while no past or present executives are even being held responsible, let alone prosecuted for fraud. So how does the banking sector thank the tax payers who get to fit the bill for this recussitation? Oh you know, continued foreclosures, credit card rate and late-penalty hikes and of course continued multi-million dollar executive bonuses.

Where is the mass, public anger over this?

Where is the anger over the fact that the U.S. spends more money on military expenditures then the entire rest of the world combined? A large majority of U.S. citizens seem to be against the current "wars" yet our leaders keep piling it on. Despite the country being broke and completely in hawk to China and the rest of the modern world, why do most Americans just grin and accept that America is spending trillions of dollars while putting our young men at risk by chasing tribesmen around some of the world's most desolate areas? Will this prevent a small group of foreign "exchange students" from successfully staging another terrorist act within our borders? I don't agree that it will, do you? Why are so many Americans showing far more uproar over domestic spending programs than they are over our ridiculously expensive, foreign soil-based military complex and imperialistic ways?

Why aren't the jobless protesting by the hundreds of thousands after blue-collar manufacturers have watched their jobs systemically shipped overseas? Why aren't the hundreds of thousands of homeowners who are being foreclosed on fighting for a bailout like the bankers received? $13 trillion to the banks. That could have paid every homeowner's delinquent payments due and kept the banks' books straight but evidently that was never the goal of the Great Wall Street Ripoff. Doesn't this just sort of, kind of bum anybody out?

Why aren't the "Gobama" people going f...ing crazy right now after the democrats and new president have shamelessly backed out of just about every campaign promise that they made to voters who helped put them in office with a mandate while blasting the repugs out of power in the last two elections? Remember "change you can believe in?" How does the old "money speaks louder than words" phrase suit you instead?

The following are excerpts from "Stop Complaining About Right-Wing Protests! The Left Should be (Re)Learning How It's Done," by online writer Dave Lindorff. He reminds us about our not-so-distant ancestors;

"Back in the late 1950s and the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement wasn't polite and domesticated. It brought activists to events in the Deep South all the way from New York and Boston. Its members rallied in the thousands to shut down segregated public and even private institutions. Its activists occupied buildings on university campuses, boldly confronting police and police dogs and armed men in white robes."

"In the late 1960s and early 1970s, anti-war protesters in turn shut down recruiting and induction centers, destroyed draft board records, tried to close down Washington, DC, got arrested in the hundreds, incited soldiers to desert and then helped hide them from the law, exposed the 1968 Democratic Convention as a farce, and faced down armed police and soldiers repeatedly, at one point in 1970 closing down the nation's campuses in a national student strike when soldiers shot and killed four unarmed students at Kent State University."

"Years earlier, when workers were being abused, they occupied factories, forcibly shutting them down with sit-down strikes, battled Pinkerton detectives and armed National Guard forces, and set up tent cities in Washington to make themselves heard."

"And they won great victories."

"Where is that passion today? For the most part....environmentalists, labor unions, civil rights advocates, health care reform advocates, anti-war activists--have become neutered office-chair potatoes, sending canned emails to their elected representatives or to the White House."

"We all need to take a lesson from the Right, from those lusty, cantankerous folks who are raising hell at those pathetic town meetings."

"How can it be that 10 percent of American workers don't have a job, and that the government is expecting that number to keep rising for another year or more, or that another 7 percent have either given up even trying to find a job, or have taken part-time work in desperation, and yet we have not had one mass protest in Washington demanding public jobs for the jobless!"

"How can it be that the country has been mired in two wars now for eight years, and we haven't had a million people storming the Pentagon to shut it down (or at least levitate it)!"

"How can it be that we have 49 million Americans who can't even afford to see a doctor when they're sick, and we're talking about a health care "reform" plan that not only won't fix the problem, but will actually end up costing us all $600 billion over 10 years without solving it! And we just write letters to Congress! Why aren't we liberating hospitals and opening them up to the uninsured?"

"Where is the passion and commitment we once had?"

I'm with you Dave. What's it gonna take for Americans to get angry enough to say "enough is enough?"

Kicking Goldman in the Sachs

2009-07-19T13:46:00.008+10:00

This video is awesome, Max Keiser at his best on Euro-TV station France 24, slamming Goldman Sachs. “Goldman Sachs are scum.....they are literally stealing a hundred million dollars a day. Goldman Sachs is stealing every day on the floor of the exchange. They should be in the Hague, they should be taken on financial terrorism charges. They should all be thrown in jail”

I'll be shocked if an excerpt of this clip is ever shown on a Stateside network.

You can see the second part of this interview here.

I credit Rolling Stone magazine and gangbuster political critic Matt Taibbi for finally bringing Goldman's fraud and market manipulations to the mainstream media, through Matt's article in the current issue of RS, titled "The Great American Bubble Machine." It's sub-title reads "From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression--and they're about to do it again."

This article in Rolling Stone has apparently created an uproar on Wall Street. Time Magazine put out a kind of half-assed, neutral comment on the article titled "Goldman Sachs vs. Rolling Stone: A Wall Street Smackdown." And in a recent television interview, Eliot Spitzer was asked to comment on the article.

Goldman Sachs operates with impunity to both the rules of Wall Street and the laws of Washington. If you aren't yet completely pissed off over the staggering amount of your tax dollars that have been funneled to Wall Street's "too big to fail" companies, all while they're still passing out billions of dollars in bonuses to themselves, then you need to a) check your pulse for a heartbeat, then b) take one hour of your time to read Matt's article and online follow-ups, linked below, responding to Goldman's non-answers to his questions, as well as their recent cooked-books, earnings release.

July 8, "On The 'Everyone Was Doing It' Excuse"
"..even if it is true that "everyone else was doing it": so what? Who cares? To me this response is highly telling. We published a piece accusing Goldman Sachs of systematically ripping off pensioners and other retail investors by sticking them with rafts of toxic mortgages it knew were losers, of looting taxpayer reserves to cover its bad bets made with AIG, of manipulating gas prices to massive detrimental effect, of helping to explode an internet bubble that caused over $5 trillion in wealth to disappear, and numerous other crimes -- and the response isn't "You're wrong," or "We didn't do that shit, not us," but "Well, Morgan did the same stuff," and "Why aren't you writing about Morgan?"

July 16, "The real price of Goldman's giganto-profits"
"Taken altogether, what all of this means is that Goldman’s profit announcement is a giant 'f..k you' to the rest of the country. It is a statement of supreme privilege, an announcement that it feels no shame in taking subsidies and funneling them directly into their pockets, and moreover feels no fear of any public response. It knows that it’s untouchable and it’s not going to change its behavior for anyone. And it doesn’t matter who knows it."

One giant and very well-connected company bribing their way for the privilege to rig and manipulate supposedly free markets while regulators turn the other way, all at the enormous expense of tax payers is not supposed to be happening in America. Why is there not a major, public uproar over this yet?

Socialism Or Out-of-Control Plutocracy?

2009-05-31T21:38:00.052+10:00

"Do it, but be prepped for culture shock. Job market sucks, economy is going down, but housing is cheap if you can get a loan. I think it will be the wild wild west in about 9 more months because your boy Obama is on a mission to destroy the US and bring us to a third world primitive communism state."

This was the e-mail reply that I got from my Saipan roommate from the '90's who now lives in Orange County, CA, when I asked him what he thinks of me moving back to the States sometime in the next year or two. For the record, Obama's not "my boy" nor did I vote in the last Presidential election due to my living overseas.

At happy hour a few weeks back, a discussion that turned political ended similarly when the guy I was talking to snarled that Obama is a socialist and is ruining the country.

This is scary stuff. Why? Because this is just two guys that I know, speaking in the last few weeks. And yet I alone have other friends who tend to have these Fox News views, allowing themselves to be sold on conservative propaganda and forgetting or perhaps ignoring the destruction that bi-partisan, unregulated capitalism over the last few decades had left behind.

I'm afraid that there are millions of clueless sheep that don't understand or accept that both political parties fail to represent us the people, nor do they care about us at all really. Probably 90% of the elected officials are bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists and other special interest groups and we are the laughing stock of the world because we are a nation of ignorant, unenlightened halfwits when it comes to our country's politics and economy. Like I said, I live overseas and when I travel, I have no difficulty meeting people from other countries who are all too eager to strike up conversation and eventually get to something along the lines of "....so what's wrong with Americans anyway?" One common comment that I've gotten a few times is "how could your country elect Bush twice?"

For the majority of Americans who voted for "change" last November, their pick has been a huge disappointment thus far. But if enough Americans truly believe that all of our problems started last November with the election of Barack Obama, then we are really on the road to ruin as the year 2012 could very well bring the likes of Jeb Bush or Newt Gingrich to the Presidency.

Even worse, this misplacement of blame and anger facilitates the kleptocracy among the corporate elite and their elected and appointed enablers that keeps occurring to this day.To believe that "Obama is on a mission to destroy the U.S." is implying that he is actually in charge. Obama is not in charge, he is just a puppet on a string, dancing to the beat as dictated by the corporate donors who got him elected and who really run the country. How else could you explain the fact that financial and insurance industry giants like Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG and Goldman Sachs, despite being directly responsible for flushing the world's financial systems down the toilet, have taken in a combined $13 trillion in hard cash and federal loan guarantees while no one, and that really means nobody, from those firms have been held accountable, let alone charged with crimes, for their highly fraudulent transactions.

How else could you explain away the state of California being allowed to sink into insolvency, their total deficit at about $21 billion, yet Citigroup alone grubbed double that amount in TARP money and another multi-hundred billion more in loan guarantees. The bankers who gambled the economy into a black hole are being lavished with billions while teachers will be fired and social programs exterminated in California. That's plutocracy completely out of control, not socialism or even liberal policy gone wild. We spend more on military expenditures than all countries in the world combined, health care is run by the industry, farmers are beholden to corporate agriculture, the list goes on and on. Obama, like Bush is a corporate puppet carrying water for the same masters.

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The United States is a plutocracy as there most definitely exists a fusion between money and government. I believe that this is a big-picture, bi-product of our two-party political system, more prone to special interest policy influence than a multi-party legislative body, and further aided by the Electoral College system, which doesn't at all allow for a freely-elected President. Critics argue the Electoral College is inherently undemocratic and I agree. Numerous constitutional amendments have been introduced in the Congress seeking a replacement of the Electoral College with a direct popular vote however no proposal has ever passed the Congress. That's not surprising since elected officials shouldn't be counted on to change a policy that would be to their or the ruling class' detriment.

From the "Plutocracy" Wikipedia page: "Plutocracy is a government controlled by a minuscule proportion of extremely wealthy individuals found in most societies. In many forms of government, those in power benefit financially, sometimes enough to belong to the aforementioned wealthy class."
"Classically, a plutocracy was an oligarchy, which is to say a government controlled by the wealthy few. Usually this meant that these ‘plutocrats’ controlled the executive, legislative and judicial aspects of government, the armed forces, and most of the natural resources."
"If there are no forms of control within the society, the plutocracy can easily collapse into a kleptocracy, 'reign of thieves', where the power-holders attempt to confiscate as much public funds as possible as their own private property. A kleptocratic state is usually thoroughly corrupt, has very little production and its economy is unstable. Many failed states represent kleptocracies."

That all sure sounds depressingly familiar doesn't it?

In just the last twenty years we've had a father and son, the Bushes, as well as a husband and nearly a wife tandem, the Clintons, hold the top position, President of the United States! With a current US population of 300+ million citizens, the odds of becoming the President is 10 million to 1 at best. Now just imagine the real odds of a father/son and husband/wife both holding the U.S. Presidency occuring in a true democracy.

Socialism on the other hand, is defined as "a system of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy and a society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals with a more egalitarian (equal) method of compensation based on the full product of the laborer."

Socialists believe that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small, elite segment of society that controls capital, creates an unequal society and does not provide equal opportunities for everyone in society. That's pretty much happening now so socialist-thinking folks have reason to be upset.

However, socialists advocate the creation of a society in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly and also promotes tax-funded welfare programs and regulation of markets.

So for all of you Fox News-enlightened Obama-bashers, does that really sound like what's going on? Are we moving toward a more equitable distribution of wealth while promoting social welfare and increased regulation of markets? Of course not. In fact, we are going in the complete opposite direction with a continued polarization of wealth, decreased social welfare and a complete lack of Congressional will towards increasing corporate and market regulation.

Don't mistake this current rampage of federal corporate welfare and quasi-ownership as socialism. The government may be taking majority interest in a lot of large, failed companies but they are leaving the same bums in charge who gambled with the economy and lost. They are pushing the risk onto the tax payers while allowing the companies to reap the profits. It's called socializing the risk while privatizing the profits.....or further transferring the country's wealth from the tax payers to the elite and well-connected few.

To my old roomie who believes that we're headed toward a "third-world, primitive communism state", Communism promotes the establishment of a classless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property...."From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The U.S. is hardly moving toward a classless society with common ownership.

Dear family and friends, you've got to get off of the Fox News and other, corporate-censored sources and mouthpieces. They don't offer unbiased reporting and in many cases, they don't offer reality. There are so many websites that offer critical, non-biased accounts of what's really going on in Congress and corporate boardrooms where greed, conflict of interest and total lack of accountability rule. I read Smirkingchimp.com daily while another good site is Truthdig.com. Right-wing, fear mongering, manipulated media have too many Americans blaming the wrong forces that have driven the U.S. economy to the brink of implosion.

Here are some good, recent articles to kick-start your political re-programming;

For my Mom and my Stateside friends still residing in California, read "Stuff the Bankers, Starve the Kids" by Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig.

"What is $21 billion in federal loan guarantees for California to skirt bankruptcy compared with the $45 billion given to Citigroup, along with $300 billion more in guarantees for that company’s toxic paper? Or how about the $185 billion doled out to AIG? If Citigroup is too big to fail, isn’t the state of California?"

From propping up brutal dictatorships to the illegal occupation of Iraq, foreign policy for nearly a century has been built to benefit global oil companies and indirect control of key oil fields. Read "Chevron, Shell and the True Cost of Oil" by Amy Goodman, the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily, international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America.

Also, you've got to read "The Great Iraq Swindle: How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury" by Matt Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone.

Are you aware that in the "mortgage meltdown" that's being blamed for last year's loss of your wealth, actual mortgages only make up 2% of the so-called "toxic assets" that the Treasury secretary, through the Federal Reserve, keeps throwing money at, all to the benefit of Citigroup, Sachs, AIG, et al? The same guys who caused this problem. So what are these mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps and other derivatives that these hucksters made billions of dollars in fees on, and that make up the other 98% of our global financial problem? Read Mike Whitney's great article from a few weeks back "Credit Default Swaps: The poisen in the system."

To see how conflict of interest is status-quo in the now-incestual relationship between the financial system and the federal government, read "Our Loss Is BlackRock's Gain", another great article from Robert Scheer at Truthdig.

Though a lot of politicians, corporate directors and lobbyists, a morally-distorted financial system and even millions of Americans who took out mortgages that they couldn't afford, can all be blamed for causing the current financial crisis, one kind of "king dirtball" who should be singled out is former Senator Phil Gramm. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from 1995 through 2000, Gramm was Congress' most outspoken champion of financial deregulation. He played a leading role in writing and pushing through the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street investment banks. He also inserted a key provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He was an enabler and protector of Enron and it's executives before that company's collapse and currently is vice-chairman of Swiss bank UBS, which recently under a "deferred prosecution agreement" with the Justice Department, agreed to turn over names of account holders to avoid a criminal indictment for bank-assisted tax fraud.

To read more about this detriment to society, read "Endgame for Phil Gramm?", another good Robert Scheer article, and then check out Time magazine's "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis."

Are you wondering what all this talk is about single payer, universal health care? Read "Rx and the Single Payer" by Bill Moyers, managing editor of "Bill Moyers Journal", which airs Friday nights on PBS. Then read this article that describes how the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who just so happens to have received over $2 million from the health care corporate lobby over the last few years, more money from this lobby than any other Democrat in Congress, won't even put the single-payer option on the table for discussion.

"In the U.S. over 85% of soybeans and 45% of corn are genetically modified and since animal feed comes mainly from these crops, the entire meat production of the nation has been fed on genetically modified animal feed. The arrogance with which multinational biotech corporations such as Monsanto are disrupting and modifying life's genetic order--from seeds to food to animals to the environment--is creepy." This article, "Seeds of Truth" by freelancer Sheila Samples is a must-read and will freak you out if you're unaware of how pervasive genetically modified food is in our food chain....and how it's being forcibly imposed not only on American farmers but globally as well.

It's your duty to yourself to trust not what you're told by the mainstream media but to expand your knowledge of what's really going on by increasing your personal research into and knowledge of our country's economy and politics via broader reading.

2009 Corporate Challenge

2009-05-27T22:54:00.019+10:00

On Sunday, May 17 the Saipan Chamber of Commerce hosted their annual Corporate Challenge at Kilili beach park in Susupe. Our company supplied three of the seventeen teams entered, the only company with multiple entries. Events included tug-of-war, a gross-food eating contest, team egg toss and an obstacle course. One of our teams made it to the final of the tug-of-war, which was exciting viewing while Marpac, the Bud distrubutor, was the overall Challenge winner. We didn't crack a top four coconut "trophy" but our staff had a great time and all for a good cause with proceeds benefitting the Chamber scholarship fund.

Teabaggers or Just Douchebags?

2009-04-20T15:55:00.037+10:00

The recent Tea Party protests across the nation, though acknowledged that there were last-minute efforts to direct, organize or claim credit for, were in fact organic and spontaneous and fueled not by political leaders but by outraged citizens, and were a genuine grassroots reaction to the recent stimulus package. This is what the conservative fringe, or what's left of them anyway, would wish reality to portray.

Meanwhile, the left has given all but complete dismissal to the movement as described by one DailyKos poster who doesn't think that Tea Party organizers even care about the issues they are promoting; "Looking at all of this, we have fake outrage regarding fake issues sponsored by non-people (corporations) with a fake symbol (tea)." That's a pretty funny description really.

Propaganda aside, reality shows that the entire effort was in fact promoted, organized and funded by several large, corporate-funded conservative outfits including Freedom Works, which is run by former House majority leader Dick Armey, and Americans For Prosperity, a group that in their own words "promotes regulatory restraint by government." Not that severe regulatory restraint isn't what brought the financial sector down to begin with, right 'baggers?

The event was patterned after the original Boston Tea Party because naturally, it really had nothing to do with it but twisting history a tad and calling themselves "tea baggers" gave the Conservatives who have been all but written off of the National agenda a chance to protest against, well whatever isn't Conservative on the National agenda. The event was publicized by Fox 24/7 in a way that would have made Cal Worthington and his dog Spot proud.

It's certainly long overdue that Americans are taking to the streets in protest of the Treasury heists being committed by the bankers themselves but that wasn't really what this event was against. Whether intended or not for many who attended, what ended up being shown and represented was pure Conservative propaganda. I mean really, with all of the blatantly crazy tax payer rip-offs that have occurred just in the last year alone, you guys are pissed off about the stimulus package most of all? Sure, it has too much pork but at least some of this is going to benefit the populace right? No anger that the U.S. spends more than all the other 200+ countries on the planet combined in military spending while trailing half the developed world in education and health care? You're mad at your overextended neighbor who's about to lose his house but the Congressional sellout to Wall Street doesn't seem to phase you?

The reality 'baggers is that the Stimulus that you are so angry about will cost about $800 billion, no small chump change unless of course if compared to the $13 trillion of taxpayer money that has been funneled to Wall Street in the last year, money that has not trickled down to you as has been promised. The government spends more on military hardware sold or given to other countries than they do on public education or health care in our own country. Where's the anger about that taboo subject? And let's not even get started on shipping all of our manufacturing jobs overseas and becoming a "service" economy with "service" meaning "would you like fries with that?" Sorry to bag, pun intended, but I'm just not feeling the sincerity of your anger.

There were signs reading "Obama=Hitler" and "Take Back America, Throw Out The Liberals!" and "Cut Taxes, Not Defense" and "We Need A Christian President." A favorite was "Stand by while some Kenyan tries to destroy America? Wap!! I don't think so!! Homey don't play dat!!" Here here, serve up more of that dumb-down juice to the intellect of the ultra-right fringe!

I'm all with you in Obama-bashing but thinking that he and so-called liberal domestic and foreign policy are the crux of your problems is being igorantly blind to reality.

I'm ticked and as sickened as anyone I know about the D.C-New York rip-off schemes and the new lows being reached in American morality, as all dozen or so people who may read this site will know from my ranting. I've been told by friends that I'm a conspiracy theorist, paranoid, glass-is-half-empty type and that "oh, it's just another cycle" and "well something has to be done." Really? Well I hope that you all are right and I'm wrong but I don't think it'll play out that way. I say everybody needs to wake up and get angry, for the country has been taken over by Wall Street and the Pentagon and they are on a serious tax-payer-funded joyride.

If I were living in the States and subjected to the increased taxation that will inevitably be required to pay off the illegal wars and raids on the national treasury, yeah I'd be hitting the streets too. I'd probably move my family into my Mom's house, get a night job and find a "pissed-off American" group to join and help strive for real change through protest. So my hat's off to the "teabaggers" for waking up mad in the morning and taking it to the streets rather than to the sofa with a bag of chips and TV, but the admiration just about ends there. I get the feeling that a good number of these sign-wavers get their news from The Bozo Trio of Rush, Hannity and Beck rather than real reading or any form of non-sensationalized media. The message and impression that this gathering of Republican die-hards left with me was summed up perfectly by Matt Taibbi in his article "Teabagging Michelle Malkin";

"In other words teabaggers don’t mind paying taxes to fund the salaries of Bolivian miners, Lou Gerstner’s stock options, deliveries of “sailboat fuel,” the Hermes scarves on Sandy Weill’s jet pillows, or even the export of their own goddamn jobs. But they do hate it when someone tries to re-asphalt their roads, or help bail their slob neighbor out of foreclosure. And God forbid someone propose a health care program, or increased financial aid for college. Hell, that’s like offering to share your turkey with the other Pilgrims! That’s not what America is all about! America is every Pilgrim for himself, dammit! Raise your own motherf...ing turkey!"

The Quiet Coup

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Prelude to "A Quiet Coup" by Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

Goldman Sachs 666

Here's a website that's less than a month old, http://www.goldmansachs666.com/ a site critical enough of it's namesake that a Wall Street law firm has sent a cease-and-desist order to its author on behalf of the Sachs. You can read an interview with its author regarding the legal warning here. You can even buy your own "Financial Crisis Most Wanted" playing cards, how cool is that? I may get a set as a collector's item to place next to my 1969 O.J. Simpson rookie card on The Table of Shame. Gee Juice, how do these bankers get away with murder...??

Check this site out for a one-stop info shop on how deeply involved Goldman is in financial policy-making and the pilfering of the Federal Reserve.

That 70's Photo

A good friend from my youth sent this doozy to me a few days ago, a digitalized print photo from 30-years ago, circa 1979 or '80. That's me on the left, dude. My wife has never believed me that I didn't really have girlfriends in high school......that is until she saw this photo.

The cast of "That's 70's Show" has nothing on us.

Fast Times At Glendale High, Mr. Hand!

Eliot Spitzer's Downfall Was Devastating For America

2009-04-10T21:04:00.011+10:00

Though it didn't sink in at the time, then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's abrupt resignation due to his "Hookergate" scandal was devastating toward achieving accountability for the financial fraud that has brought the world's economies to a halt and "brings up some unsettling questions about Bush's surveillance programs; mainly whether they are really being used to investigate potential terrorists or simply a means of destroying political enemies" as proposed by writer Mike Whitney in his excellent article "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...No...It's Spitzer to the Rescue."

The first 100 days of the Obama administration have left little doubt that the financial industry giants dictate legislation and oversight for their sector, regardless of what party is in control. Democrats and Republicans alike have grown far too fond of the perks and contributions they receive from the industry. This is nothing new but what is new has been their complete abandonment of the "other" Americans that they're supposed to represent. Obama himself has wasted little time in deviating from his campaign promises. He's increasing military spending over the Bush-era military budgets, has gone missing on pro-labor issues that he expounded so often during the campaign and has loaded his financial advisory team with Wall Street insiders that are supposed to fix the problems that they created through mega-billion-dollar actions of insurance and securities fraud.

Whitney makes a very compelling argument that Spitzer was Public Enemy #1 to the shadow banking industry that controls our economy, manipulates what should be free markets and is now robbing public funds in unprecedented fashion. The premise of his article is that Obama's SEC chief Mary Shapiro is "another Wall Street toady who believes that the markets can regulate themselves" and "if Obama is serious about restoring confidence in the markets, he should replace Schapiro with Spitzer. That would send a message to the world that the president is through messing around."

Whitney writes that "just days before the Spitzer scandal broke, the Washington Post published an article by Spitzer (titled Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime) which linked the Bush administration to the mortgage fiasco. He showed how Bush had blocked all efforts to save loan applicants from being fleeced by mortgage lenders. Spitzer was joined by many other state attorneys general who noticed early on that predatory lending was on the rise and that there was a concerted effort to keep the mortgage swindle going whether applicants had the ability to make their payments or not."

Journalist Greg Palast in his article "Eliot's Mess" claims that ruining Spitzer was a decision made at the discretion of Bush's Justice Department because he "not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its founder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers.....But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over.....the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden."

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to smell something rotten in this story. Now that the lone Wall Street enforcer is gone, it's a foregone conclusion that the Democratic Congress will be of absolutely no use in representing the interests of Americans in this taxpayer plunder. So far the only place Americans know their money has gone is into the pockets of the same people who brought down the house of cards that they built. The fact that a complicit government is aiding and abetting the crime is an irony of magnificent proportion. The Sheriff of Wall Street may have been our best hope at fighting for a public accounting of the financial fraud that still occurs with every new bailout of the banking sector.

Mike Whitney: "The public is not in the mood for any more lame excuses or windy oratory from President Inspiration. Just get on with it. Governing is more than just gliding from one teleprompter to the next pointing at rainbows and promising Utopia. There has to be action, accountability, and justice. But since the real objective appears to be keeping the same basic power-structure in place at all costs; the present course will do just fine. One unmistakable sign of imperial decline is the inability to make critical changes when the country's future depends on it."

Look At All Those White People!

2009-03-01T21:07:00.012+10:00

That was our reaction when my family and I left our house this morning and when traveling south down CMG past the port, we saw the dozens, if not hundred-plus mostly senior-citizen cruise passengers trekking down the road to Garapan, maps and cameras in hand.

This morning my son and I had watched a giant ocean liner with my new Bushnells for an hour or more, while it was still far outside the reef, to entry into the lagoon and docking at the port. This ship is a physical monster and a significant visitor to our island, not only for the number of tourists that it brought for one day but because it is one of the world's newest, leading cruise ships operated by the longest running and "most famous" company in the ocean-liner business.

The MS Queen Victoria, operated by The Cunard Line is a brand new ship christened just over a year ago in December 2007. It's the second largest ship that Cunard has ever built and the QV's facilities include seven restaurants, thirteen bars, three swimming pools, a ballroom, casino, library and a theatre. It's 965 feet long or roughly the length of three football fields. It has sixteen decks total, twelve of which are guest decks, can accomodate 2014 passengers with 990 staterooms and has 900 officers and crew.

The Cunard Line is legendary, a British company whose first ships set sail over 160 years ago in 1840 as a year-round, trans-Atlantic steamship service. Per the "Cunard Firsts" page on its website, Cunard was the first company to take passengers on regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic departures (1840), introduced the first passenger ship to be lit by electricity (1881) and introduced the first steam turbine engines in a passenger liner (1905). Cunard operated one of the most famous cruise ships known to Americans, The Queen Mary, which sailed from 1936 to 1967 and has been docked as a hotel and museum in Long Beach, CA since. In 1998, Cunard was sold to the cruise line conglomerate, the Carnival Corporation.

Right now this ship is in the middle of a 105-day cruise around the world that began in New York City on January 10 and ends there on April 26. Check out the itinerary here. Round-trip fares started at $22,000 and change though of course guests can book travel for portions of the trip, as did a couple from New Zealand that I chatted with at Micro Beach. They jumped on in Australia on February 23 and disembark in Shanghai next Sunday, March 8 after a two-week cruise. They said they love it, that the ship is amazing. I'll bet.

So back to all those poor folks lumbering down the main highway to Garapan. Though full tour buses were shuttling passengers back-and-forth, I was concerned that there just weren't enough tour buses to go around for a ship of this size and that those walking perhaps didn't want to wait for the next round of buses to come back. The couple from New Zealand that I chatted with however said that there were plenty of buses, transportation was very organized and that those walking had chosen to do so. It's unfortunate that the pathway running from the north of American Memorial Park doesn't connect all the way to the port though, forcing tourists up to CMG to trek an unsightly and longer distance into town.

But what a ship though. Someday....

Marianas Cup 2009

13th place and lucky to get that. This photo and our entry on to main court immediately after was probably the highlight of our tournament.

Happy Anniversary Baby!

2009-01-25T11:35:00.002+10:00

January 22 marked our five-year anniversary.

With two little ones running circles around us, time has really gone fast.

Thanks for a super first five years hon. Here's to another forty-five more!

Fox Rules with Jack Bauer and Bikini Girl

2009-01-20T15:16:00.021+10:00

My wife, son and myself have been wrapped around the TV for four hours over the last two nights in full enjoyment over hours 8:00am to 12:00 noon, the four-hour kick-off of this year's 24 series, which is season #7. This show freakin' rules, one of the best ever created. For those not familiar, the story line revolves around a day, 24 hours, in the life of counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland. Every one hour episode is one hour "real time" in his day of capturing terrorists bent on attacking America. I love this show, I could ramble on forever. Just watch the show, every Monday night on Fox.

Though I'm not a fan of American Idol, it is interesting to watch the performance train wrecks that get air-time in the first few weeks of auditions. That Asian guy from a few years back that attempted Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" in his best in-front-of-the-bathroom-mirror attempt was worthy of every minute of attention that it got.

I will likely tune in tonight to get a load of Bikini Girl, the American Idol phenomenom from week one's auditions in Phoenix. I assume that she was privy that she wouldn't make Hollywood on singing talent so better to get attention with what you've got, which for her was showing skin rather than octaves. As it turns out, she's no stranger to dressing down for attention as shown on her website.

It really is amazing at how everyday guys and gals can be "discovered" nowadays through reality TV shows such as American Idol and even more so, via the internet. Just last week, I learned of the Arnel Pineda story. This guy's "journey" has gone from the lows of living on the streets, to a rising Manila club singer and now the pinnacle as lead singer for the legendary '80's American rock band Journey. How did this happen? He was discovered on YouTube singing Journey cover songs by the band's founder/guitarist Neal Schon.

But back to Bikini Girl. OK, so I put that photo there because the gal is hot and it'll make a good experiment for driving traffic. It's all for science honey, really!

Akamai At Work

One of the few stock holdings that I'm accumulating all that I can at today's deflated prices was in the national news today;

AP Inauguration Video Draws Record Crowds Online

Tuesday January 20, 7:32 pm ET By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer
Video streams of inauguration draw record number of viewers online

NEW YORK (AP) -- The inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama made for a busy day at the two leading companies that deliver Internet video.

Akamai Technologies Inc. said 7.7 million people watched video streams carried by Akamai at the same time on Tuesday, a record for the company, which is hired by many news sites to handle video delivery. On ordinary days, the number of simultaneous viewers rarely goes over 2 million. All told, tens of millions watched video streams from Akamai at some point during the day, said Jeff Young, a spokesman for the Cambridge, Mass.-based company.

Akamai competitor Limelight Networks Inc. of Tempe, Ariz., said 2.5 million people watched the inauguration on sites that use Limelight for delivery, with most of the viewers staying for Obama's entire speech.

Not all Web sites were able to keep up with the flood of traffic: CNN.com had to place some viewers on a "wait list" for a while before they could view the live stream. The Associated Press had issues as well -- from a bit after noon until shortly before 1 p.m., new viewers could not access its video streams on various Web sites. Akamai streams video for both companies.

The huge number of video viewers appears to have slowed the Internet as a whole. Keynote Systems Inc., which tracks Web site performance, said the Internet's top 40 sites slowed by as much as 60 percent when the ceremony started at 11 a.m., and many news sites saw even sharper declines in performance. NPR.org was almost completely unavailable around noon. People also kept accessing WhiteHouse.gov to see when it would be updated with the new president's portrait, at one time making the site take 15 times longer than normal to load, according to Shawn White, director of external operations at Keynote. Obama's picture was posted at 12:07 p.m.

In terms of the number of news Web site pages perused, Tuesday was not a record day. Akamai's global index of news consumption put the top usage at 5.4 million visitors per minute, below the 8.6 million registered on Election Day. That's because surfers went straight to the Web videos on Tuesday, rather than repeatedly refreshing news pages to get the latest updates, according to Young. (end of article)

Me, Randy again. This is a great company. If you're an investor in today's stock market, a time when many or most companies will experience decreased sales and earnings in 2009, the depressed stock prices allow great entry points for leaders in growing technology sectors. Let's face it, no matter how depressed the economy and consumer buying power gets, live video streaming via internet is going to keep growing big time. I'm betting that as people have less money to spend and they stay home more, they'll look online more for their entertainment.

Making bets on the recovery of struggling, indebted giants like Citigroup or Ford is gambling against history and economics, although I'll admit that history nor economics have ever previously allowed for government-slash-tax payer bailouts of dying companies. Instead, look to the future as the growth of worldwide internet usage surges and forms of alternative and renewable energy, such as solar and clean coal technologies, reach further adoption.

Playing Catch-Up: Holiday Season in Photos

2009-01-17T21:19:00.044+10:00

Sorry Mom, here you go!

Richard is into his United States puzzle, which I'm happy about because a U.S. puzzle was my favorite as a kid and is the reason why to this day I can still completely fill in a blank U.S. map.

Our little girl, Lyssa Rae. Below, Grace Christian Academy's Activity Day at American Memorial Park, the last day of school before Thanksgiving break.

Richard giving the board a shot at Rob Epley's Thanksgiving beach house party and our little bikini babe poolside at home.

Grace Christian's holiday production "Lost Christmas." The 4-year old kindergarden class opened the show with a Christian-themed song and dance bit. That's Richard in the red shirt.

The GCA 4-year old kinder Fun Bunch.

Class field trip day to the Garapan fire station. Thanks to the firemen for hosting our kids!

Some early Xmas gifts, a bike for Lyssa and Mommy and a Dora sofa from Grandma. Oh boy!

Larissa's pre-Christmas photo shoot with the kids.

Christmas Day!

It's Revolution Time

2008-12-18T16:18:00.024+10:00

"As if the economic bailout by U.S. taxpayers isn't enough to make you sick to your stomach, new information has come to light that several banks are planning to pay billions of dollars in year-end bonuses from the bailout funds they received. Investigations are beginning into the nine banks that took in the first $125 billion -- the same $125 billion that was supposed to be used to unclog the credit system which was preventing banks from providing much needed funds for individuals and businesses."

Now is this really any surprise? Did anyone with two functioning eyes, a pulse and no GOP tattoo on their forehead not see this coming?

What the hell has happened to honest leadership by persons with integrity? How can the abuses of power be as large as they are today without mobs of people uprising? Have we all become so lazy and uncaring in comparison to our brethren from the '60's, who took to the streets over an unpopular war only? Right now we have two of those and a government that blatantly allows Big Business to steal from its taxpayers. Does a corporate-run and manipulated mass media contribute to our largesse?

I documented my opinions on this thievery on September 27 before the $700 billion ruling-class screw-job called a bailout was shockingly passed. The sickest move that I've ever seen the federal government pull in my adulthood stole from the taxpayers to reimburse the wealthy for their questionably legal gambling losses. That's really it when put simply. The billions of dollars in losses suffered by Wall Street and European banks who got in on the fun had nothing to do with investments that you, I or anyone else from Main Street could be in on. Do you know anyone who lost a ton of money on mortgage derivatives? No, this was financial fun and games for the rich and connected only. The fear-mongering that the world's financial systems would come crashing down and everybody would lose everything, fear that the corporate media enthusiastically helped facilitate, was nothing more than politics of misinformation that the Bush administration has been leaning on ever since the great election rig.

Community banks have access to plenty of funds for loans and other forms of daily business. The problem isn't money supply for Joe Main Street. The problem is confidence, or a major lack thereof. People have been scared out of spending money and scared they should be. Our future and our children's future are being mortgaged so greedy, uber-rich thieves in snobby socialite's clothing can save their asses from the poor house or Heaven forbid, having to "live like us." That is really what it comes down to. There is no problem getting money from a bank if you are truly qualified too. People haven't lost their FDIC-insured savings. The problem is the billions being stolen from us by the autocratic elite that is in charge of the Administration and the Treasury.

There is a lot of hope, the hope of an entire world really, that Barack Obama will be a source of major change for the United States. I hope that they are right but I'm not holding my breath. On my scorecard, the guy already has one very large strike against him and that is because he voted Yes on the robbery called the bailout. There were a lot of brave legislators who stood their ground against the administration, the huge and influential Wall Street lobby industry and pro-bailout colleagues, legislators who said that not only was the bailout not right but that it would be economically and politically disastrous. But Obama wasn't one of them. Obama was the largest fundraiser ever in a Presidential election and since the vast majority of election donations come from corporations, well you can guess who our new President owes millions of dollars in favors to.

Honor, so sorely missing now in our country's leadership. In Japan, if a corporate executive pilfers his company and/or investors and gets caught, he does the honorable thing and kills himself. These Wall Street pigs run their companies into the ground then reward each other with bonuses. Unbelievable. Sickening. Some more vulgar adjectives easily come to mind.

The result? Dysfunctional government and a broken economy in which just about every problem being experienced by the people, if dissected will lead back to legislative bungling at best and manipulation to benefit a few or outright thievery at worst. Basic shredding of the Constitution has been pretty popular for the last few decades as well.

Yes, the planet is being poisened to death and deregulated capitalism is turning into a bad dream. Leaders at all levels, locally and throughout the world have not only failed us but are blatantly and shamelessly stealing from us as well. There is nothing else to do and only one course of action to follow. Revolt. I'm not preaching violence however everybody can wage their own consumer revolt. I no longer allocate 401k contributions to American or European mutual funds that hold any bailout recipients such as Citigroup or AIG. I chop-chopped my Citibank credit card and I'll continue looking for and eliminating ways in which I'm unwittingly contributing to corporate thievery.

Since two, heavily corporate-subsidized parties have ruled the roost for more than a century, any small change in shifting special interest-dominated governance back to the people will be hard to muster. The Libertarians and Ron Paul in particular showed that the internet will be a powerful campaign tool for the common man who doesn't have GOP or Democratic sponsorship. The electoral college however leaves access to the Presidency far out of reach to outsiders of the two-party system.

As our kin from the '60's yelled long ago;

"Look what's happening out in the streets. Got a revolution. Got to revolution."

Also read "Are Bernanke and Paulson Bankrupting America?"

Hiroshima

2008-11-08T21:15:00.020+10:00

Last week I spent three days and nights in Hiroshima, Japan, my first time there. I was sent to attend the Mazda 4A Distributor's Conference. In Mazda's geographical world, their 4A export region covers a pretty wide range of areas and I met many of the distributors or their reps from those regions, which covers all of South and Latin America, the Carribean, the Middle East, some Southeast Asian countries and us in the Marianas. I travelled with a colleague from Guam.

The main meeting, which lasted a full, nine-hour day, was at the Mazda Design Center and featured design presentations for face-lifts on a few of Mazda's key models, presented by the actual design team leaders or program managers. Not quite as cool as meeting Brian May or beating Phil Dalhausser but pretty far out for a car biz guy. Unfortunately but standard for the business, we weren't allowed to take cameras or camera phones into the design center. I will say though that the 2010 Mazda 3i sedan is going to be a big winner for Mazda. Well, at least comparatively in a very tough market. The photo to the left was at the dinner banquet that night. The smaller guy in the middle is the lead designer for the 2010 CX-7 facelift program. 2nd from right is the director of Mazda's 4A export region and on the far right is the program manager for the 2010 Mazda 3i facelift.

The highlight for me though was our half-day trip, two hours by bus, outside of the city to the Miyoshi Proving Ground, "the main test track for Mazda’s new product performance testing and development." This is where Mazda usually stages it's media preview drives as well. The track covers over four kilometers with different driving conditions. We donned helmets and they had flag men on the track as we drove a 2010 Mazda 3i sedan and 3s hatchback vs. a 2009 Toyota Corolla and three other vehicles. We were advised to stay within control but had the green light to be aggressive. With six cars going at one time, sent off in intervals, the male ego thing didn't take long to kick in and I was determined to arrive back at the staging point with more cars in driver transition than there were when I left. That was really fun. Afterwards, we were well fed in a canopied facility and asked to give our reviews to the program manager and other staff of the 2010 model design team. Once again, and much to my major chagrin, no cameras were allowed at the facility.

Our base for sleep, breakfast buffets and banquets, was the Grand Prince Hotel Hiroshima , a harbor-front, 23-story high-rise that's not only geared for business travellers as well as domestic but is also one of Hiroshima's biggest wedding venues. As is Japanese hotel fashion, despite having a 16th floor executive suite, it was one of the smallest hotel rooms that I've ever stayed in. But the view was pretty sweet, as shown in the sunrise photo shot from my room window. The top floor is a wrap-around bar and lounge with a dramatic city view, photo below, while the three floors immediately below are all dedicated to restaurant and group facilities. The second floor has a number of banquet rooms.

I hadn't previously spent much time in Japan, in fact this was my first non-layover stay of more than one night. I marveled at how orderly the city was, outside of traffic perhaps. The majority of commuters ride a train and walk, while many more ride bikes. How ironic for the world's largest automaker nation! Gray-haired men in suits riding bikes to work were a frequent morning sight and I'd never seen as many bicycle parking lots as I did in three days in Hiroshima. Rarely was a bike locked to anything though most had rear wheel locking devices. We had some long taxi rides and always the driver was clean-cut, older than me, extremely well-mannered, in uniform and couldn't speak a lick of English. Service in any way came professionally, despite any language barriers. Every business that I entered, the staff was uniformed and waiting to serve. It was such a downer to fly a short, four hours back to Guam and not even be in the Guam airport for thirty minutes before a food counter lady shouts at me that I can't hear. Terminal trash cans overflowing, dirty bathrooms, TSA and other security personnel joking unprofessionally, I had definitely crossed through one of those international travel warps.

After numerous trips to the Philippines including a half-dozen to my wife's hometown, I've told a number of friends that every American should take a trip to the Philippines and watch hundreds, thousands of persons wake up everyday and try to etch out a living for their families any way they can, often only enough to last until the next day. It makes one have far greater appreciation for our lifestyles that we often take for granted. Now, despite a short yet pampered three days, I'll add that every American should go to Japan and see how a society can function as one, cohesive, all-serving yet Capitalist unit, where crime, rudeness and dereliction, if it exists, isn't to be seen by a visitor's eye. I really thank my company and Mazda for the opportunity to attend this event. The product knowledge that I brought back was a bonus, for my personal growth the trip was worth every penny.

Finally, I couldn't make a trip to Hiroshima without visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Pa rk. From its Wikipedia page, "It is dedicated to the legacy of Hiroshima as the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear attack (August 6, 1945), which led to the death of as many as 140,000 people by the end of 1945. There are a variety of monuments and buildings in the park, each dedicated to a different aspect of the bombing. The purpose of the Peace Memorial Park is to not only memorialize the victims, but also to establish the memory of nuclear horrors and advocate world peace." Though the museum and grounds are not as spectucular as many I've visited over the years, particularly in my youth, it's more of an intense feeling of sorrow and solemn just being where the center of devastation was. Many artifacts of everday life for a city resident of that day are on display, the most chilling being the charred, twisted tricycle of a young girl who was killed. No flash photos were allowed inside and I certainly wasn't going to be an ugly American in there so I just took one without flash, of a wall mural showing a section of devastated city.

Again from Wikipedia, "The A-Bomb Dome is the skeletal ruins of the former Industrial Promotion Hall. It is the building closest to the hypocenter of the nuclear bomb that remained at least partially standing. It was left how it was after the bombing in memory of the casualties. The A-Bomb Dome, to which a sense of sacredness and transcendence has been attributed, is situated in a distant ceremonial view that is visible from the Peace Memorial Park’s central cenotaph. It is an officially designated site of memory for the nation’s and humanity’s collectively shared heritage of catastrophe. The A-Bomb Dome is on the UNESCO World Heritage List."

HALLOWEEN

While I was away my family celebrated Halloween. Lyssa was dressed up as a bunny rabbit, or so I say. My better half suggests that she was another member of the animal kingdom but I'll leave it at that. Richard was dressed as one of his heroes, Bumblebee the Autobot from the Transformers.

Richard Nails His First Cover Shot

2008-10-04T21:33:00.007+10:00

The week of Sept. 22-26 was Grace Christian Academy's Spirit Week. Each day featured a theme that the kids needed to dress up for. The photo on the left was the front page shot in the Marianas Variety on Wed. 9/24 for Twin Day. That's him in glowing orange, left side, paired up with Eric Lister's kid, Koa.

Wednesday was Career Day and I went cheap by sticking a few business cards in his shirt pocket and giving him a name badge from a conference that I attended, along with a cheap sales line. When dropping him at school that morning, before I even left the room he was passing out cards to classmates and their parents saying "Hi I'm Richard. Do you want to buy a car?" He didn't hit his three-car quota but that's my Chip.

Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail

2008-10-01T17:28:00.009+10:00

Demonstrator's protest the U.S. Congress's proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry in New York City's Times Square, Sept. 27. Photo by Keith Bedford / Reuters

Here is yet another compelling and convincing argument by two more highly qualified scholars against the financial bailout of Wall Street that will likely be rammed through by Congress anyday now, against the will of the majority of Americans. This is a very good article, the stuff that Wall Street and Capitol Hill don't want the public to know and why there has not been a clear explanation on this bailout plan from political leaders.

By Ari J. Officer and Lawrence H. Officer, Monday, Sep. 29, 2008

The Administration and Congress have felt compelled to do something about the "financial meltdown," so an inefficient and inequitable "bailout plan" has been rushed through the legislature despite harsh criticism from the right and left. That's unfortunate. Both presidential candidates were stalling by qualifying the plan. Whichever candidate had had the courage to reject outright this proposal would have had the better claim to be President.

Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have "gone bad."

At this point, such claims have no bearing on the mortgage or housing crisis; they have bearing only on the holders of these securities themselves. These are ridiculously risky claims with little value for society. It is as if many financial institutions sold "earthquake insurance" on the same house: when the quake hits, all these claims become close to worthless — but the claims are simply bets disconnected from reality.

Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history.

Rescuing financial institutions is not the best solution. Yes, banks are needed to provide capital to businesses. But it is not necessary to spend $1 trillion to maintain liquidity. If the government is to intervene, it should pick and choose which claims to purchase; claims that are directly tied to mortgages would be a good start.

Let financial institutions fail, merge or be bought out. The faltering institutions will see their shares devalued and will be likely to be taken over by stronger institutions — as has already started happening. This consolidation of the financial sector is both efficient and inevitable; government action can only delay the adjustment.

The government should not intervene. It should leave overleveraged financial institutions to default on their derivatives obligations and, if necessary, file for bankruptcy. Much of the crisis has arisen from miscalculating the risks involved in a large book of positions in these derivatives. It is only logical that these institutions pay for their poor management.

Rather than bailing out Wall Street, we propose that the government should buy up the actual mortgages in question and do nothing else. The government should not touch any derivatives; that is, claims that do not directly tie into the actual mortgages. If money becomes too tight, then the Fed can certainly increase its loans to financial institutions.

Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing.

— Ari J. Officer has completed his master of science degree in financial mathematics at Stanford University. Lawrence H. Officer is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Say It Ain't So Fool

2008-09-27T11:04:00.016+10:00

Dear Fools:

We need your help.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has put together a plan that is actively under debate and allows the Treasury to invest in assets that are crushing bank balance sheets. We view this plan as being an important step in allowing the global financial system to recapitalize itself. We agree with financial intellectual titans Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, as well as both presidential candidates, that the Paulson Plan needs to be passed and will benefit Main Street.

We believe that if the Paulson Plan is done correctly, American taxpayers will profit not only from the return of lending capacity to our banks, but also from these troubled investments. However, the plan should embrace the tenets of free-market capitalism. The government should demand equity stakes in the banks.

We think taxpayers deserve to benefit from a deal soundly rooted in free-market principles. We, the undersigned, encourage you to call the people who represent you in the House and Senate and demand that the approved deal include provisions for equity ownership. Go to http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=3064775&u=116332952 and http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=3064776&u=116332952 to find the phone numbers for your elected representatives.

Finally, even though these are extraordinary times, we stand by our belief that the best way to build long-term wealth is through equity ownership. Just look at who is doing a lot of buying of late -- Warren Buffett.

We encourage you to take a few minutes -- now! -- to call your elected officials and let them know that there needs to be an equity component for taxpayers.

Onward,

Tom Gardner, CEO and Co-Founder, The Motley Fool

Scott Schedler, President, The Motley Fool

Bill Mann, Senior Advisor, Motley Fool Hidden Gems, Pay Dirt, and Global Gains

Wow.

Gentlemen, I'm disappointed at the recommendation you have made to your readers in support of yet another heist committed against the American people during this adminstration. Let's call it what it is, the $700 billion last dip in the cookie jar. Where is your faith that the free market will self correct, as it always has?

Throughout history financial firms have made their own deals, found their own solutions and solved their own liquidity problems. Those that have been reckless and can't stand on their own deserve to fail. Those are the rules of the game; for companies, market players and individual investors who bet on stocks, funds, real estate or other vehicles of investment for the purpose of wealth building.

I recently read a comment stating that the "never use your own money" model of business is the exact problem. It's true, our whole country is ridiculously undercapitalized and overextended and this sad state of affairs is new in our history. Our parents used to buy things when they could pay for them, not before. It's no coincidence that Wall Street greed and America's debt mentality hyper-surged in the generation since the financial deregulation of the Reagan years.

From another recent reading, "Before Reagan, corporate CEOs earned less than 50 times the salary of an average worker. By the end of the Reagan-Bush #1 administrations in 1993, the average CEO salary was more than 100 times that of a typical worker. That CEO-salary figure is now more than 250 times that of an average worker."

Where's the accountability and consequences for those who blatantly violated the public trust? The current administration doesn't acknowledge fault or accept that this debacle occurred on their watch and under their stewardship. President Bush has undeniably proven that he can't be trusted and his interest lies only in wealth accumulation and protection for he and his constituents, regardless of the social cost to Main Street Americans.

Who outside of Wall Street and certain D.C. circles can possibly agree to reward disastrous greed with a hand out and a free pass on accountability? The fox has been guarding the hen house for eight years now. Where are the consequences for all of these years of greed and abuse of power? Who's looking out for us, the shareholders and taxpayers under this bailout plan?

These guys are saying if Congress doesn't vote to hand over $700 billion or more of taxpayer money to the Treasury to dole out to fat-cat bankers (i.e. very large financial contributors), the resulting economic collapse will be disastrous for all Americans. Someone, please tell me in layman's terms how that will be, for I have yet to hear or read a clear or convincing justification for this.

I don't have a mortgage. My Mom's mortgage is paid down far less than any worse-case scenario could lay on Southern California housing. I realigned my 401k more than a year ago to nearly half in money market rather than equity funds in anticipation of this and implored my family, friends and co-workers to do the same. I conservatively invest in stocks and I have a life insurance policy. I've not only taken little to no financial risk but have prepared my finances in advance for this financial undoing and now the plan is to tax me to bail out the greedy bastards who screwed our country and financial system?

Well F you!! How about a $700 billion cut in military spending, base building and foreign occupation instead? I don't live in the States and am somewhat sheltered from having to pay into this but this sure kills the buzz of contemplation of moving back someday.

What ever happened to competent, moral leadership in American government?

"Let's be honest: this is an artificial panic, or worse, an effort to create one. It's not a real panic. When you have the President and the treasury secretary and the Fed chairman going around warning of a steep recession or a depression, you have to ask yourself why these guys are yelling 'Fire!' in the theater. In a real crisis, President Franklin Roosevelt preached calm ("We have nothing to fear but fear itself."). This President says, 'Be afraid. Real afraid!'"

This is not the end of the world, gloom and doom crisis that the President is selling to a weak Congress and the American people via fear tactics. It's just the end of the party that Capitol Hill, Wall Street and overzealous consumers have been enjoying and as the wise, old saying goes, "all parties must come to an end." With the exception of blind faith conservatives, the public knows it's being had here. We've seen enough of the deceitful nature of this administration and we know that most that is says is a lie.

This is not a normal economic downturn, the exception being that a lot of banks are holding an unusual amount of really rotten debt, the result of their own greed and fraud. But I've heard no convincing evidence to believe anything else other than the answer is not to bail these rotten institutions out. It's to let them fail and let world markets play out.

Some really good writings from the last week that I recommend reading are;

America's Elephant In The Room by David Michael Green, published on The Smirking Chimp

Wall Street's Just Deserts by Harold Meyerson, published by the Washington Post and syndicated in our own Saipan Tribune on Sunday, Sept. 21.

America Pays The Piper, Big Time by Robert Parry and published on The Smirking Chimp.

Now I Can Say "I Beat A Gold Medalist"

2008-08-24T14:44:00.011+10:00

Defending world champions of beach volleyball Phil "The Thin Beast" Dalhausser, a 3-time visitor to Saipan for our annual Marianas Cup, and Todd "The Pride of Solvang" Rogers, who now resides in the small town that my Mom has called home for over 25 years, beat Brazil to win the men's Olympic beach volleyball gold medal this past Friday in Beijing.

The best two-out-of-three game match went the distance with Phil completely taking over the deciding third game. He blocked at least six balls, three in a row in a stretch that put the match away and then fittingly, clamped the same Brazil player that he had all game, for match point 15-4.

So now I can stand on Saipan's highest peak and shout "I beat a gold medalist!"

We've been very fortunate to have a player of Phil's caliber, and now international athletic fame, come to Saipan for our annual tournament. Even better, in a day where professional athletes sport multi-million dollar contracts, big attitudes and large appearance fee requirements, Phil comes out here for airfare and hotel only because he digs Saipan, and he is just a real nice, down-to-earth guy.

A big congratulations to Phil and Todd from your friends on Saipan! Be sure to bring your gold medal next year!

Here's a good shot of Phil bombing one straight down on Paul and I in our semifinal match this past February at Pacific Islands Club Saipan.

February 24, 2008 : Baxter, Steele Top Marianas Cup.

A Crumbling Paradise

2008-08-16T12:25:00.005+10:00

For anyone living outside of the Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands who may wonder what politics are like on a small island or what is it that's causing the economic problems that plague our islands, Rep. Tina Sablan's letter below candidly and thoroughly will help one understand. This letter is another courageously written, must-read from Ms. Sablan. We will see positive change when more persons like her make up the majority of the Commonwealth's political representation and likely not before then.

Dear people of the Commonwealth,

These are dark and troubled times for all of us, to say the least. Power and water outages are actually worsening. The Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of Commerce, former CUC Executive Director, and the Lieutenant Governor's sister have just been indicted in a CUC public corruption scandal that has shaken the Commonwealth, but perhaps surprised few. The Governor has just declared yet another state of "emergency" on the Commonwealth Ports Authority. The Governor also declared a state of "emergency" on CUC on August 1, suspending CUC's procurement regulations, suspending the Public Utilities Commission, and paving the way for a sole-sourced privatization contract. Strangely, it took two whole weeks for news of the CUC "emergency" declaration to break, not just in the papers, but even in the Legislature.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have been trying to figure out how to react. "Close relative of ours that he is, should Timothy Villagomez resign or be removed from his post as Lieutenant Governor?" (Do we seriously have to ask? Family relations are immaterial. It is fine to presume that he is innocent until proven guilty, but we should not allow Villagomez to remain in public office. He simply cannot maintain his position with any degree of credibility. He should resign or be removed.) "Should James Santos resign or be removed from his post as Secretary of Commerce?" (Yes, for the same reasons that apply to Villagomez.) "Should these damning indictments make us question even more the overall integrity and stability of the Administration?" (How could they not?) "Suppose more public officials fall as a result of these CUC investigations?" (Then let justice be served. It is about time. We suffer everywhere and on a daily basis the tangible effects of public corruption. For the sake of our families and our community, I encourage all citizens who have kept quiet about any knowledge they have had about public corruption to come forward with their knowledge to the appropriate authorities.)

And what should the Legislature do about these latest in a series of sweeping and highly questionable emergency declarations by the Governor? Should we throw our hands up helplessly like we have every time with every other emergency declaration, and complain to each other at the next session?

Or do we finally have the "numbers," as my colleagues like to call it -- and the political courage -- to mount a formidable challenge to the Governor's alarming and continuing abuses of power?

In lieu of coming up with any answers to these questions, on Wednesday, August 13 the Saipan delegation held a session to pass two bills that were not on even on the agenda and which were introduced as substitutes for completely different bills just that morning. The first took away $165,844 from the so-called "lapsed funds" (they were not "lapsed" and "dormant" as some of my colleagues claimed) of the nearly-completed Street Naming and Street Numbering Project in order to give to various pet projects, some worthier than others. We also passed a bill earmarking $4.7million in anticipated poker revenues for Fiscal Year 2009, and ultimately gave away:
$3million for the SHEFA scholarship program which has yet to respond in any meaningful way to improprieties uncovered by the Public Auditor;
$450,000 for the Rota Gaming Commission, without having any idea as to how the money would be spent, or how it would be paid back, or how we would explain ourselves to our Saipan constituents, who voted no to casino gaming in our senatorial district;
$100,000, more than doubled from the initial proposal, for the newly-born Marianas Trades Institute, without so much as a glance at their business license, or a plan as to how the money would be spent;
$50,000 for the Little League, doubling the funding we have given in previous years and ignoring the fact that our children play many other sports in the Commonwealth that do not receive a penny of public funds;
$30,000 for the A & E design of yet another baseball field in Navy Hill;
$25,000 for a Fishing Derby, more than doubled from previous years' funding -- a derby in which some of my colleagues personally participate every year;
$50,000 for the annual Liberation Day Carnival, despite allegations of wasteful expenditures of public funds and a pending request from one of our members for an audit; and
over $700,000 for the paving of various secondary roads that most of us had never even heard of.
I voted no to both bills. Five other legislators also voted no to the first bill, but I was the only one to vote no to the second. At the end of the vote, House Speaker Arnold Palacios advised me to "jump on the train" before I get left behind. The train analogy is a favorite in the Legislature; I have heard it countless times in House and Senate sessions. I said that jumping on the train is fine if it is going in the right direction, but if the train is headed towards a cliff, then perhaps it is time to change the drivers. Senate President Pete Reyes remarked that compromise is the nature of lawmaking, but what counts is being able to go home at the end of the day and say that one did something good for the people. And it became clearer than ever to me that that lawmakers who can go home and seriously feel like they did something good for the people after passing bills like the ones we passed on Wednesday, are part of what's wrong with the Commonwealth.

The particular culture of gamesmanship and gross irresponsibility that dominates in our Legislature and that places such a stranglehold on democracy in our Commonwealth was not inevitable, nor is it inherent in lawmaking as some of my colleagues would like to believe. It was created over time, and it was created by men -- and as such, it can be changed. Lawmakers who see nothing wrong with the way we do business in the Legislature have been there so long they probably cannot see it, and probably never will.

Which brings me to the popular initiative to apply the Open Government Act to the Legislature: some have asked me, why should citizens have to work so hard to compel their elected representatives to issue public notices for meetings and to open up their books upon request, like every other government agency and department? And the answer, of course, is that they shouldn't. But it begs the question, why do we continually elect and reelect lawmakers who don't believe the Open Government Act should apply to them?

Why, for that matter, do we elect and reelect public officials who believe that they should be above the law, that they are entitled to the office they hold, that they have been elected only to lead and not to listen, only to lead and not to serve -- public officials who have failed us time and time again? Why do so many of us remain silent about the government waste and abuse that we see, despite our growing anger, our mounting bills, our increasing anxieties, and our declining quality of life? How bad do things have to get before we will finally rise up and speak out against the misgovernance that is destroying our beloved community?

Is change possible in the Commonwealth? Yes. Of course it is. But change requires work. It requires honest, fresh, and visionary leaders to get organized, to make a conscientious decision to fight the good fight for our Commonwealth, and to step up to the plate and run for public office. And it requires the awakening of all our people, to realize that we always get the government we deserve, that government should serve the people not the other way around, that we have nothing to fear from the those whom we elect to represent us, and that we should finally, once and for all, change the way we vote so that we may also change the way we govern ourselves.

The question is, are we ready to change?

I welcome all questions, comments, and ideas. I can be reached at 664-8931 or 285-3935, or by email at http://us.mc326.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=tinasablan@gmail.com.

Dollhouse + Dalhausser = Double Traffic

2008-08-13T15:58:00.008+10:00

It's interesting how website traffic referral works. I know I have no clue how it works but I can only surmise while watching increased traffic phenomena happen on my site.

This is usually a low-traffic, family site. Recently though, my average daily visits have been double and today will be triple and perhaps my first 100-hit day.

Usually about 80% or more of my Google search-driven traffic comes from image searchers looking for an image of the Dollhouse club in Thailand that I added to a post in September of last year. Maybe there was a fire at the club or they are starting a fresh marketing campaign for the number of hits on my site looking for this image have increased from about 15-20 per day up to perhaps 40 or more today. Now how does this work, I pulled the image off of another site and uploaded to mine, now I become the default home site of this image?

But what's really funny is that I know exactly when Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers, the world's #1 ranked beach volleyball team, are playing on live, Olympic TV coverage in the States. This morning from around 11:30am to 12:30pm Saipan time I had about twenty visits from persons pulling up the image of one of two photos that Phil is in from this post celebrating my Marianas Cup victory this past March. Another dozen or so visits throughout today have come via Google searches looking for these images.

The latter images with Phil are personal photos that I uploaded to the post, as opposed to the Dollhouse image, which was pulled off of the net. How my personal photos can end up being in the first few pages of a Google search for images of the world's top v-ball player is pretty bizarre and cool all at once.

So what's the chance that 90+% of traffic hitting this site coming from image searches for Dollhouse and Dalhausser, two similar sounds, are really, subliminal messages being relayed to me? Perhaps I should shave my head and move to Thailand?

Kids

2008-08-09T14:54:00.028+10:00

10 Things That Made Our Guam Trip a Winner

2008-07-05T16:46:00.040+10:00

Since my family travel responsibility has swelled to airfare for three now, today's fuel prices-slash-airline-woes and the related effects on travel expenses gave me a wonderful excuse to keep our summer trip simple and spend five nights on Guam. As the title states, here's ten things that made our Guam trip a winner;

10. So we get out of the Guam airport at nearly 11pm on a Thursday night and my bro Mike T. has a loaded Mazda CX-9 waiting for us. We didn't drive much but when we did it was in style. Thanks T, you're the man!

9. We spent the first two nights on the back-side of the island in Yona with our friends, the Lackey family. Larissa experienced lunch at the renowned Jeff's Pirates Cove for the first time and we joined our hosts for happy hour at Jimmy D's. Also joining us were Rob's partners in a biz venture created to land some of the military construction sub-contract money that is and will continue to flow into Guam. Some interesting stuff, large companies that are the big players in the business of military build-up, look for smaller partners for sub-contracts but the key is that the smaller partners must have minority owners who provide "points" that are a basis of selection for the awarding of multi-million dollar contracts. This particular group not only has Pacific islanders as partners but is led by a native Hawaiian, wounded veteran. I was told of another group bidding on transportation contracts whose officers are three females, two of whom are minorites, one handicapped. Being a white male with clinically sound body and mind doesn't pay in this game. A fun happy hour with a great group of guys who are motivated. I wish them lots of luck and a big thanks to the Lackeys for your hospitality!

8. Denny's for breakfast four of the mornings that we were there. The menu isn't as big as it used to be but we didn't even have to discuss where to go. The choice was near instinct.

7. In California, shopping at KMart is about as in vogue as being a Schlitz drinker or chain smoker. The Guam K-Mart however is the highest grossing store in the chain and for us islanders, clothing aside it is where you can find anything and just about everything all under one roof, which is a convenience that we don't take for granted out here. The weather was rainy most of this trip, this was kind of a shopping trip anyway so........two trips to the store and too many dollars later, we had way more than we could fit in our allowed luggage so a big thanks to Angel and Andy at KarBiz on Marine Drive for packing and shipping our overflow back home for us.

6. Day 2, leading up to night 3 we checked into our hotel, home for the next four days and three-and-a-half nights. For convenient location right in the middle of Tumon, and a budget rate of about $60/night after room tax, the Pacific Bay Hotel was a great find. Mac & Marti's bar and Subway are downstairs, the VIP Chinese restaurant is also in the building, laundry room on our floor, only a ten-minute walk north to Pleasure Island's restaurants and entertainment with the beach just a short walk away. Nothing fancy whatsoever but for a place to sleep and shower in, it filled the purpose nicely.

5. Tumon Bay is a great place, on the beach as well as a hundred yards above the tideline on Pale San Vitores Road. Unfortunately, the weather didn't allow enough beach time but we did spend a good amount of time in the meat of Tumon, promoted in Japan as Pleasure Island. Great eating there as we enjoyed TJI Friday's and Outback Steakhouse. It's a fun trek, walking along the road with nicely designed buildings, well-kept sidewalks with much to watch or enjoy such as the Slingshot ride and Underwater World. Noticeably missing were prostitutes running about while their handlers lounge on plastic chairs on the sidewalk, yet amazingly tourism still works there. That's a joke for Saipanese readers to relate with.

4. The Micronesian Mall on Guam may not have it all as far as shopping goes but they have enough and the amusement center upstairs next to the food park is huge for being able to keep the kids moving and not whining in the mall. We probably spent a combined eight hours there over two days. My four-year old son wants to move to Guam just for the rides and arcade at the mall. I was able to re-supply my work wardrobe for a reasonable price, Larissa picked out more stuff for our daughter than herself as usual, then just as Richard would begin fading into meltdown, we'd revive him with a trip to the amusement center. A great set-up.

3. The whole concept alone of walking through a three-hundred foot tunnel running ten feet under water in an 800,000 gallon saltwater aquarium alone makes Underwater World a must see when visiting Guam. I filmed a ten-minute-or-so video in there and once we work out our interface issues between our video camera and computer, then I will download and embed it here.

2. Saipan's loss is Guam's gain and when our beloved Jon Cramer left Pacific Island's Club Saipan a few months ago to take on the same roll as activities director at the Guam resort, we lost our prime tournament organizer on the Saipan volleyball scene but we gained someone to call on Guam for waterpark passes. The Guam PIC is sweet, a must see and play when there. We were supposed to go to the Polynesian dinner show as well but had to cancel after my daughter boinked her head pretty good in the kiddy pool when Daddy took his attention away for a moment. It was a fun half-day, thanks JC and Bart, much obliged!

1. This was my first extended stay on Guam since I moved back to Saipan from Guam four years ago so it was fun to catch up with some old friends and introduce them to my family. When I lived on Guam, many of my Saturday nights were spent watching live music at Marty's with my good buds, Mike T., the sales manager for Triple J Motors, Guam and Jeff Rios, car racer and owner of AutoWorks, a leading auto services company on Marine Drive. That's Mike on the left, his company web photo that's surprisingly not a precinct mug shot. He thinks smiling is nerdy and once nicknamed me Shrek for my toothy smile. Anyway, since Marty's is now closed and Kore is no longer a band, we couldn't relive the past so Jeff threw together a bbq at his house. Thanks to Jeff, Sonia and kids, as well as Mike, Maribel and kids for dinner and a real fun evening.

I also spent a late one at Mac & Marti's until past 2am with my old friend and roommate from Palau, Suguru Ishiguro or Ishi, perhaps one of the nicest, most proper men on the planet. You know, one of those guys that will never hang up the phone until you do first or won't turn and walk away until you do first. Ishi runs Tony Roma's and Capriciossa on Guam for W.D.I. Inc. Ishi, it was great to get to catch up on things again and don't forget to forward this to Mimi, I promised her!

So that was our simple but fun trip to Guam. You had better go there now before the 25,000+person population explosion hits once the Marine base is relocated from Okinawa.

Staggering Corruption & Waste

2008-05-24T10:50:00.013+10:00

The current Bush presidency is proving to be the most shameful in our lifetime as our nation caters to the accumulation of ill-gotten wealth. Whether it's board members of bankrupt lenders raking in millions while shareholders lose everything and taxpayers provide the potential bailouts, to corrupted equity and commodity markets, to the on-going war-for-profit in the oil fields, this administration is perpetuating crony capitalism at its worst.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a "shocking" accountability failure.
Of 8.2 billion dollars in US taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the defense department's inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars.
The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report.
"We estimated that the army made 1.4 billion dollars in commercial payments that lacked the minimum documentation for a valid payment, such as properly prepared receiving reports, invoices, and certified vouchers," deputy inspector general Mary Ugone told a Congressional committee Thursday.
"We also estimated that the army made an additional 6.3 billion dollars of commercial payments that met the 27 criteria for payments but did not comply with other statutory and regulatory requirements."
The Pentagon also was found to have given away another 1.8 billion in Iraqi assets "with absolutely no accountability," said Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"Investigators examined 53 payment vouchers and couldn't find even one that adequately explained where the money went."
Another five billion dollars spent on supporting the Iraqi security forces could not be properly traced, according to a November 2007 inspector general report.
"Taken together, the inspector general found that the defense department did not properly account for almost 15 billion dollars," Waxman said.
The disclosures sparked outrage among legislators and concern that US taxpayers are deeply vulnerable to massive waste and fraud in the Pentagon's contracting system.
"The report has new shocking details of billions of dollars of American taxpayer money unaccounted for and likely wasted, which should be a wake-up call to Congress and the (President George W.) Bush administration that the status quo is unacceptable," Democratic senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
"American taxpayers are picking up the tab for Iraqi ministries, coalition governments, US and foreign contractors, Iraqi security forces, and Blackwater and other US security companies," Waxman said.
"In one remarkable instance, a 320-million-dollar payment in cash was handed over with little more than a signature in exchange."
The Pentagon to date has been appropriated 492 billion dollars to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to Ugone.

Also read: What Every American Should Know About Iraq

My Junket to Phuket

2008-04-07T20:59:00.056+10:00

I was off island all of last week attending the Hyundai Motors Asia & Pacific Dealer's Convention, held at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa in Phuket, Thailand. We arrived in Phuket on Monday night and I left early Friday morning.

The Hilton is a really nice, sprawling, family-friendly resort in Karon Beach, a small town about twenty minutes south of Patong, the much larger, hard-partying singles town that Phuket is known for. The photo above is shot from the beach's edge in front of the hotel while the photo to the right is the beach-front road, about a quarter mile south of the hotel. Most of the hotel's guests were European from different countries. Notice that they drive on the "wrong side" in Thailand.

To the left is a photo of the beach at Karon Beach, which stretches for what looks like more than a mile. The ocean is as warm as our Saipan lagoon and on Tuesday, there were some nice little one-to-two foot shorebreaks in which I had a real fun half-hour body-surf session.

Left and right are some more photos of the resort.

Aside from the Tuesday night welcome dinner, the convention kicked off on Wednesday with the conference and awards presentation during the first half of the day and a fairly fun and entertaining team building competition in the afternoon.

My team finished 2nd out of ten after the three hours of team competition in the steaming afternoon tropical heat. Everyone looked a few pounds lighter at dinner.

That evening the entire group, nearly two-hundred of us, were bused to the Palace of the Elephants for the renowned Phuket Fantasea cultural theme show. This is a must-see if you go to Phuket, an enchanting production held in a 3000-seat, opera-style theatre, with a "Lord of the Rings" type setting, designed to make you feel as though you are watching the story outdoors in ancient Thailand. There must have been two-hundred cast members, a herd of perhaps two dozen elephants, eight amazing trapeze artists who performed bungee-harnessed seventy-to-eight feet above the crowd and every Thai costume and illumination lamp imaginable. Unfortunately yet understandably, cameras weren't allowed inside.

Thursday was a free day where we could go golfing or take a day-trip to another island. I chose my own free-day schedule so for me it was a late breakfast, some time in the business center and then off to finish up some shopping, more time in the ocean and even an obligatory 200 baht, beach massage. That was all before lunch, which was served by the pool, followed by another swim. It was a rough work day.

Thursday night was the farewell dinner gala as it was called. It was nice, with great food and some traditional Thai musicians and dancers providing the entertainment. I really enjoy auto conventions, as I get to meet people from all over the region who work in the same industry and encounter the same issues as I do. Finding commonality for conversation is not difficult. I spent a good deal of the last two days with the four representatives from New Zealand, two from the distributor and two dealer principals (owners) from the top performing stores. They were an impressive, fairly young group. There were over twenty persons each from the Philippines and Malaysia and I met dealers or distributors from Vietnam, Singapore, Jakarta and New Caledonia as well as Nepal and Bangladesh, among many others. There were even a few dealers from Japan, which we got a chuckle out of. Talk about a hard sell right in the lion's den.

Most importantly, despite being as small a part of the Hyundai global scheme as Saipan is a dot on the world stage, we go to show our commitment to the business, which includes participating with enthusiasm in exercises such as the team-building competition. We also had some key face-to-face time with our Hyundai reps in sales and parts that can't be duplicated via e-mail and I came back with blueprints for new or updated corporate excellence and quality programs.

It was a great trip and I've returned to Saipan refreshed and motivated. Except for the cross-island drive to the airport, I really saw very little of the island so I fully plan to return to Phuket within five years and bring my family. I also vow to take my new Kiwi friends up on their invitations to visit and see their country.

To put Phuket into perspective as far as size (map here), it is only two square kilometers (less than 1%) larger than Guam. Following are some facts that I copied and edited from Phuket's Wikipedia page, which will be within quotations. "Phuket is the biggest island in Thailand, located in the Andaman Sea off southern Thailand and it is mostly mountainous with a mountain range in the west of the island from the north to the south." The beaches are coves within this coastal mountain range and therefore drives between beach towns require going up then down the edges of these ranges from each cove.

"70% of the island is covered by forest. The western coast (where the resorts are) has several sandy beaches, while on the east coast beaches are more often muddy. Most of Phuket's nightlife and its cheap shopping is located in Patong, and the area has become increasingly developed. The other resort beaches are located south of Patong. In a counterclockwise direction these include Karon Beach, Kata Beach and Kata Noi Beach. These areas are generally much less developed than Patong, and sought out by individuals, families and other groups with a preference for more relaxed and less crowded environs than Patong." Regarding the cheap shopping mentioned above, thanks to the deflated dollar, the shopping was not as cheap as I remember from my last trip to Thailand. At 30 baht per dollar, that 200 baht beach massage was no longer less than $4 but instead nearly $7 and the $2 silk shirts that I bought nearly five years ago were nowhere to be found. Even a domestic beer at 80 baht is no longer the "dollar a beer" deal that it once was.

"On December 26, 2004, Phuket and other nearby areas on Thailand's western coast suffered extensive damage when they were struck by a tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The waves destroyed several highly populated areas in the region, killing as many as 5,300 people nationwide while as many as 250 people were reported dead in Phuket, including foreign tourists. Almost all the major beaches on the west coast, especially Kamala, Patong, Karon and Kata, sustained major damage."

Many businesses have tsunami photos posted at the entrance to their shop or stand. I took up conversation with a handful of shop owners and workers along the main, beachside road and there were some interesting stories to be heard. One jewelry store employee told me that the wave surge washed two cars right into the showroom and swept the product cases right out. By the time it was safe to re-enter the area, looters were already filling bags with jewelry that they could find in the sand and rubble. However, little evidence of that day's tragedy could be seen in Phuket today.

Baxter, Steele top Marianas Cup

2008-03-03T20:55:00.026+10:00

Sunday, February 24, 2008, ESPN SportsCenter transcript:

"U.S. professional beach volleyball player Paul Baxter and self-proclaimed, Saipan volleyball legend Randy Steele earned another year's worth of bragging rights by topping the men's division of the 16th Annual Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival held over the weekend at the Pacific Islands Club sand courts. Baxter and Steele completed their title bid with a dominating 21-13 win over deposed, defending champs Daisuke Matsumoto and Shigekazu Fujimatsu of Japan in the championship match. The Baxter and Steele tandem, champions in the 2004 edition, breezed through this year's tournament without a loss."

The Saipan Tribune article here.

The photo to the left is a personal classic and I did manage to get the ball around 6'9" Phil Dalhausser on this play. Paul and I beat Phil and my would-have-been partner, Chris Nelson 25-24 in this game early Sunday. Phil will most likely be half of the duo representing the U.S. in this Summer's Olympic Games in Beijing. This win was critical since afterward we had to win just two more games to make it to the championship. Phil and Chris however had to win five games through the loser's bracket to make it to the final. They fell two short and finished fourth and had it been us, I would have likely gassed out before five games. Saipan players also won the raffle to play with the two pro players from Japan, finishing in 5th and 7th.

I'm sure that my practice partners are shocked, and even a bit disgusted that I've now pulled out two Marianas Cup wins in the last five years. No other Saipanese has won it in the five years since the raffle-for-the-visiting-pros format began. Before you start throwing roses, I'll admit that just maybe I rode the back of my pro partner all the way both times around. But I do take pride that in the five years of this format, there have been at least twelve pro player/Saipan player partnerships and I have the only two wins. Ok, enough of that before someone regurgitates.

I was supposed to play the tourney with my buddy Kevin Carey of PIC fame. Actually, I guess that he's more famous for being married to Mieko Carey, Saipan's top triathletebabe. We finished ninth together last year, good enough for the highest finish among Saipan duos in a rather dismal Saipan showing, but we now know our limits and were planning on just playing for fun, not even bidding for a pro and maybe even.......drink beer in between games. Yeah, we're crazy like that. Well he got hurt in a bike accident and withdrew a week before the tourney. That was my first stroke of luck.

Luckily Chris Nelson was available however he doesn't play anything just for fun so now I had one week to get a serious face and a tad of conditioning in. I also knew that he would want to bid big for the pros and we did........and we got the Americanos! It was only fair that since it was one of his tickets pulled in the drawing that he get to play with Phil Dalhausser, the reigning MVP on the U.S. pro tour. I would be matched up with Paul Baxter, my partner in our victorious tourney run in 2004, the first year that he came out to Saipan. He's been here every year since. That was my second stroke of luck for Paul doesn't just come here every year for a tropical vacation. He comes here to win and he was very hungry for not winning the last three trips.

My relaxing volleyball weekend now became one of pressure and high anxiety. I didn't sleep well that night.

I also played lousy all day Saturday. Luckily we won our pool despite a few excrutiatingly close calls.

On Sunday I started to get my groove, especially with the all-important ball control and setting on two off of the serve, very important when playing with a big-hitting pro partner and when every serve is aimed at me. After beating Phil and Chris, we came-from-behind to beat a Japanese team here for the first time, practice partners of the defending champion Japanese team. Now I'm in way over my head, all three guys on the court are playing at a level way beyond mine but we pulled it out. This team later eliminated Phil and Chris then lost to their buddies to finish third.

So the championship match was a rematch of the winner's bracket final played a few hours earlier where we dismantled these guys before getting to take a rest while everyone else slugged it out in the loser's bracket. They were tired and it didn't take long before it showed that they were also intimidated by Paul's big block. They had a few hitting errors and Paul blocked a few balls to give us an early, comfortable lead. I even picked up a shot around Paul's block into my forecourt and converted my patented along-the-net cutty that got me KSPN's play of the week. Sweet! Our opponents lobbed serves to me knowing that they couldn't serve Paul but I was putting balls right on top of the net for him, he was cranking them and there was no stopping it. By the time it was done, the guy needed a massage because he carried my a.. again, just like in '04.

So my relaxing weekend of volleyball turned into sleepless Friday and Saturday nights followed by a stressful Sunday ending in a euphoric victory that I'll always remember. It was also nice that we split a $3800 first-place prize! Yet here's the kicker. I also won the grand prize in the always well-endowed tournament raffle, a three-night stay at PIC with gold card, meaning three meals daily included. That's another $700-plus value. Add the brunch-for-two at the Hyatt won in the raffle as well and it was a very memorable and gratifying weekend.

On the flip-side, a few months earlier I had lost a bet to the Devil himself, Russ Quinn and had to play my first game of the tournament in Speedos, which I didn't have so old underwear had to substitute. Many cameras and video cameras went into action during that game. I can only hope that I don't find portions of that game on YouTube someday. My apologies to our young, teenage opponents for that game who surely were traumatized by the experience.

At the tourney banquet (l-r), current U.S. #1 Phil Dalhausser, Marianas Cup champs steeleonsaipan and AVP pro Paul Baxter, Japan's newest courtroom hero, Bruce (The Chest) Berline and KSPN's Chris Nelson, the Stone Phillips of the Pacific and 4th place finisher with Phil.

2004 Marianas Cup: where the Baxter, Steele legend began.

6/23/08, Dalhausser closes in on Olympics as Americans dominate event in Paris.

Hi, I'm Reality. Have We Met?

2008-01-10T14:56:00.000+10:00

Our favorite island comedians, otherwise known as the legislators in our House of Representatives, were the stars of the local news telecast last night. It was their last session as the 15th CNMI Legislature and each member was asked by the news correspondent how he/she would grade their own performance. Most were semi-gracious enough to give themselves a B+. That seemed to be a popular choice. Afterall, our island's economies are still on life-support and not completely dead yet. Absalon Waki, by far the most professional and sensible of the group, was ironically the only one to grade himself lower than that. The rest may remain anonymous however the guy with the gray beard and distaste for freedom of speech gave himself a triple-A. Which leads to me say "Hi, I'm reality. Have we met?"

The first and foremost, basic function of a legislative body is to pen a budget for the government to operate on and abide by. This was just accomplished earlier this week, after two years as a legislative body, in their next-to-last session as a group. They were running on something called continuing resolution or some slang term along that line that allows them to function on a past budget written at a time when revenues were quite a bit higher. It's been suggested that this is illegal. That aside, the budget that they did write at the last minute slashed or left completely unfunded many to most public services yet they gave their own "discretionary spending" accounts a hefty raise. Crony politics at its best. Waki and Cinta Kaipat were the only two of eighteen who voted no to this budget. Grade for the budget process: F.

Earlier this year, the legislature passed an across the board, 10% pay cut for all government personnel in the form of an 8-hour reduction in the 80-hour, two-week work period. Savings were necessary, layoffs are a last-ditch scenario so this was not an unsound move. The big screw was that most lawmakers decided that they didn't need to take the same cut that they subjected their constituents to. They also signed waivers for their office staff and other well-connected persons to continue getting paid, then would take the day off on that tenth day. Grade for leading by example: F.

Just two weeks before the mid-term election this past November, with many of their jobs on the line, this legislature passed a law that set the public power rate at a level that was likely less than what the power company pays for the fuel itself that is needed to feed the generators. It was an obvious move to attract "hero" votes from the disconnected and lower-income families and it was equally obvious that the rate would have to go right back up to cost-plus-operations levels after the election. Unfortunately, many people bought into the ploy and not only voted back in the men who have led these islands to the brink of collapse but also voted out the only guy (Absalon Waki, the enemy of evil) who stood up and said that this was wrong. Sure enough, not even a week after the election the rates went back up higher than they were before the legislative tampering. The legislators feigned surprise and disgust but they all knew it was coming. They had even pleaded with the governor to just hold on until after the election. This was despicable. Grade for honesty and integrity: F.

This past election also had a referendum to legalize casino gambling on Saipan which was overwhelmingly rejected by the voters. In the few months since, this House has tried unsuccessfully not once but twice, to backdoor a gaming bill showing that they pay no heed to the public's desires and that they believe they know what's best for you more than you do yourselves. Grade for respect to constituency: F.

The local government is on the verge of collapse and that is no exaggeration, yet these guys feel that they've done above average work. Unbelievable. Maybe I'm a bit of a harsh grader but it appears to me that the 15th Legislature was a complete failure.

Friday 1/11/08: This morning Rep. Waki took his parting shots on the Harry Blalock show with David Sablan. Waki told it as things are up there, that the reps hold sessions with nothing on the calendar, then introduce bills, vote on them and write into laws these ideas without any discussion or public input. "You've got to scratch people's backs if you want yours to be scratched."

Rep. Waki is already working hard with intelligent, disenchanted young citizens to become more proactive and consider running for office in two years in order to offer the electorate more choices than the worn down and outdated ideas that are available now.

Sablan for his part was irate, ranting in anger while stating that he has never seen a local legislative body behave this way in all of his years, which is a lot of years and not a complimentary statement at all. He implored the people, presumably all citizens and voters, to take action against this behavior.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas....

2007-12-25T10:25:00.002+10:00

....and everything is set. This is my first, live Christmas tree in nearly twenty years, my wife's first and of course our kid's first. We were really happy with how it came out though we've had it since late November so it's soon to be on life support.

The little Santa under the tree sings a dozen or more songs. My wife bought it for a buck or two last year in my Mom's town in California at an antique-type store. One of her pride Christmas decoration buys.

My Mom arrived about ten days ago for a one-month stay. Though her fifth trip to Saipan, this is the first Xmas that we've spent together since 1993 and her first with her grandkids. Reference for anyone who will be picking up friends or family who are flying over on the prop-plane from Guam: you don't have that 20-30 minute cushion anymore for clearing baggage and customs. Continental's scheduled arrival time: 8:50pm. Richard and I arrived at the airport at 8:50pm. Look at the photo, there is nobody else around. She had only been waiting for about ten minutes but there was nobody there with her except a taxi guy keeping her company while praying that I don't show up. Great welcome for someone who has been traveling for nearly 24 hours.

I stopped by Godfather's after work on Friday for a quick happy hour. It was still early so pretty much all that was going on at that time is shown here.

Sunday we went to the Hotel Nikko Saipan for brunch. Super resident deal for just $16 all-you-can and that includes use of the swimming pool after you eat.

As far as hotel grounds, the Nikko is still one of our island's best.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

From the SaipanSteele's

Jessica Alba photo shoot on Saipan

2007-12-24T15:32:00.000+10:00

Could it be that Jessica Alba, red-atsui star of numerous recent movies, including the X-Men series and Into The Blue, had a bikini photo shoot recently in the Saipan lagoon? That water sure looks familiar.

Yeah well, I won't get 5000 hits on my site tomorrow like Angelo Villagomez, the Saipan blog traffic ho but this should at least double my meager visitor count. Afterall, more than 50% of my current Google search hits comes from those searching for an image of the Dollhouse gogo bar in Thailand that I had added to this post.

Whatever happens, I just really like this photo. The lagoon water looks so refreshing......

Lee, Steele dominate PTI volleyball tourney

2007-12-12T15:52:00.001+10:00

I can't think up a less grandiose title than that chosen for the press release to head this post so I'll run with what's been said. Since the release sent out by NMIVA guru Russ Quinn was accurate with exception to some quote attributions, due to time constraints, we'll now move ahead to a paste from the Saipan Tribune article with some accompanying notes and tourney photos, courtesy of Bruce Berline and myself.

The May/December tandem of Randy Steele and E.J. Lee made history Sunday when they were crowned champions of the Inaugural PTI Reverse Co-ed Grass Volleyball Tournament held under the sunny skies of Navy Hill's baseball field. The unique tournament format, where the guys could not jump in front of a chalked ten-foot line on each side of the court, provided some great volleyball action with 14 other teams joining Steele and Lee in the one-day competition sanctioned by the Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association.

The morning started with three pools of five teams each playing a round-robin format to determine the seeding for the double-elimination play later that day. Three teams emerged unscathed from pool play; frisbee/soccer guy Dale Roberts and big-hitting Heather Kennedy earned the first seed, Pacific Games player Mark McDonald and Queen of the Beach Champion, Linda Anastacio-Roberts, were the No. 2 seed, while Steele and Lee were seeded third. Once the double-elimination play started so did the competition, with the top two seeds losing their first games in elimination play. Only one team played with an unblemished record going through pool play and to the winner's bracket finals with a perfect 8-0 record, as Steele and Lee showed great ball control and court coverage to advance to the championship round. “I have to hand it to my partner E.J., she was on fire! I just tried to stay out of her way and let her do her thing,” Steele supposedly said.

Meanwhile, the rest of the field battled it out for the right to play Lee and Steele in the finals. The top seed of Roberts and Kennedy fought their way back to the semifinals to face the powerhouse team of Pacific Games veteran Nina Mosley and Marino Pungiulug. Mosley and Marino proved to be fresher, having played fewer games than Roberts and Kennedy. The semifinal went to a score of 11-9 with Mosley and Pungiulug earning the right to face Lee and Steele in the finals.

As the sun began to set on the perfect day of volleyball, the crowd cheered with anticipation of an exciting finals encounter between the two teams. Randy and E.J. were well rested, but Nina and Marino were firing on all cylinders and eager to knock out the undefeated team into the losers' bracket to force a final game. And that is just want they did. Mosley enjoyed the solid surface of the grass that allowed her to crush the volleyball on several spikes. “Wow! That was great. I can jump so much higher off of grass! My partner was setting me great and I got into a hitting zone,” said Mosley after she and Pungiulug won 15-11 to force a final game.

Steele, a longtime player on the beaches of Saipan, however turned back the hands of time once more. Despite stepping on a rusted, metal stake that would later send him to the ER for cleaning and a shot, he and Lee raised their game to a new level and defeated Mosley and Pungiulug in the final game, 15-13.

The final results were; Steele and Lee in first place, Mosley and Pungiulug in second and Roberts and Kennedy in third. Rob Eply and Morgan Rose won the most inspirational team award, as they knocked Pacific Games veteran Tyce Mister and partner Kelly Butcher into the loser's bracket and then beat the eventual third-place team of Kennedy and Roberts. The organizers would like to thank the generous sponsors that helped make the event a success; Pacific Telecom, Inc., Pacific Trading Co., Pacific Islands Club, and Triple J. Special thanks also go to Beautify CNMI and Whispering Palms School as well as Russ, tournament director E.J. and those who arrived early to mow the grass and set up the courts.

Bush's Bailout Bait-and-Switch

2007-12-08T10:26:00.000+10:00

The following is a copy-and-paste from the Motley Fool regarding the bailout plan from the Administration and Federal Reserve that will try to save the U.S. economy from a meltdown caused by greedy sub-prime lending, particularly on mortgages. I'm with the majority of Americans who didn't make any speculative real estate decisions over the last decade and who say let the chips fall as they may and those who screwed up should have to face the music. Open markets cannot be manipulated forever and these guys know that. They're just hoping to prolong the inevitable major correction until another administration is in place and the walls don't crumble on Bush's watch.

By Seth Jayson
December 7, 2007

Anyone who's read my comments on the various Bush/Paulson/Bernanke mortgage bailout plans knows I consider them to be of two kinds: dumb and dumber.

Interfering in free markets is always a tricky business, especially when you intervene only during the needed correction, after ignoring the orgy of greed and ignorance that got the mortgage and real estate markets to the position they're in today. However, when the details finally came out on the Bush/Paulson subprime "freeze" plan, I was simultaneously pleased, amused, and horrified.

The good:
First of all, though I'm no fan of this administration, I was glad to see that the plan hadn't gone too far in abandoning the principles of a free market. The bailout it offered was fairly limited. It sets price controls on only a couple of million mortgages, tops -- although in practice, it will probably be far fewer.

Furthermore, it was, to a degree, brokered with the private sector -- though let's admit that this was a shotgun wedding. Banks such as Citigroup (NYSE: C), Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) don't just offer up rate freezes unless there's something in it for them. In this case, it was probably the belief that, if they played nice on this one, Congress would leave them alone and not hatch nuttier plans. I broached this topic yesterday, and I have more on it below.

The nitty-gritty:
Who qualifies? That's the billion-dollar question, and it was very tough to get answers yesterday.

Even after President Bush's handlers corrected the erroneous toll-free number he gave out, it was impossible to reach the "HOPE" folks at the other end. The lines were jammed, the voice mail boxes overflowing.

According to The Wall Street Journal, you qualify for a rate freeze if:

-You took out a subprime adjustable-rate mortgage between Jan. 1, 2005, and July 1, 2007.
-Your first rate reset occurs between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 1, 2010.
-Your loan has been packed into a security and resold. You do not qualify if the bank holds your loan.

There are more limitations, but let's stop for a moment with that last one: You qualify only if your loan has been passed along to some other bagholder. If the bank holds it, and if the bank stands to lose money on the deal ... sorry, Charlie, but you don't qualify for this program.

This is why I say the banks came to the table out of sheer self-interest. Clearly, they are looking to pass the costs onto others. Once they sold their junky loans off to Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) -- Treasury Secretary Paulson's old haunt -- or Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) to be packaged into securities and sold to other investors, they considered themselves free of responsibility. Apparently, they're making sure that any bailout guarantees them that status.

Some more restrictions:

If you have good credit, you do not qualify.
If your rate has already reset, you do not qualify.
If you are behind in payments, you do not qualify.

Then, there are the unknowns:

-What's the definition of "subprime"? Hey, call your loan servicer, and it'll decide.
-I have read (but was unable to confirm) that the loan had to be worth less than the home -- something that would be highly unlikely given the no-down-payment craze, and the drop in home prices. (Of course, a crooked, inflated appraisal, such as those alleged to have been pervasive in New York, might help with that situation.)

There isn't enough cyber-ink on this page to fully explain the idiocy in this plan, so I'll hit the high points.

Bad:
First of all, as is plainly clear from the restrictions, this plan punishes the more responsible people who took out loans they can't afford. Credit too good? Sorry, no reward for you. At the same time, it excludes the worst of the irresponsible borrowers. Already behind in payments? Too bad. Took out your loan early, and it's already reset? Tough luck. That means very few borrowers are actually going to get this government-imposed price control -- as few as a couple of hundred thousand, according to some estimates from the media.

Really bad:
But I think that's a plus. The less tampering with the needed real estate correction, the better. But it will spark a major backlash (indeed, it already has) among those who think that more people should get a free pass on their bad borrowing. Especially rankled are vote-hungry Democrats trying to out-bailout the administration by claiming that supporting the real estate bubble (that they never tried to restrain) is vital and necessary for our economy.

Totally bad:
There are already bondholders out there grousing about being left holding the bag. A friend of mine who works in fixed income for a firm that does business overseas figures this move will destroy credibility in the U.S. markets. How is this any different, he points out, from when some tin-pot dictator in a banana republic unilaterally decides to stop paying on his nation's debt, or cut payments drastically, to suit the regime's socialist handouts? Who's going to buy mortgage bonds with that risk? At what price?

Superbad:
As I noted yesterday, much bigger waves of loans are coming up, from Alt-A "liars'" loans up to prime, that are going to reset, continuing into 2011. Many of these people will be in danger of losing their homes that they paid too much for, with little equity, and little fear of what would happen if the price didn't appreciate and they couldn't refinance.

In other words, even if this program were expanded, it wouldn't be enough to hold back the tsunami that's on the way.

Some commentators out there think the current Bush/Paulson bailout plan will only delay the inevitable by stringing along subpar credit risks for a few years until they can finally no longer afford their homes, and then just give up and sell or walk away. I no longer agree with that. I don't believe this program will salvage enough homes to avoid a massive housing correction.

Let the home prices correct, let the market clean up the distressed assets, and let us all move on, back to the future, where lending is sane, people save and put down payments on homes, and they don't spend 50% of their income just to rent an inflated asset from the bank.

Getting there would be, I think, a good thing. There's a groundswell among the silent majority of Americans who didn't borrow irresponsibly -- they also think this is a good thing. The question is, "Will pandering politicians listen?" And, "If they don't, how much will it cost the rest of us?"

Foolish final thought:
Put it all together, and it's laughably ugly. With this subprime bailout plan, Paulson and the Bush administration have managed to simultaneously:

-Infuriate the majority of Americans who didn't gamble on expensive homes.
-Propose a bailout plan that will help only a handful of housing gamblers, and not those who are most deserving.
-Severely damage the credibility of the financial system that provides the capital used for making home loans.
-Set a terrible precedent for a bailout regime that can't possibly cope with what's coming down the line.

Heck of a job.

Today's Local News: A Historic Day

2007-12-07T11:50:00.000+10:00

Did anyone else find Senator Jeff Bingaman's reply to Governor Fitial's recent letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources so amusing that you had to read it a second time? My a.. hurts for the governor just from reading it. Though I'm still not convinced that federalization of the CNMI's immigration is going to be without some painful transitions, kudos to Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio for being a class-act and seeing a lot more light on this issue than the governor does.

Many years from now, long after young Tina Sablan has come-and-gone as the first female governor in the CNMI, along with among many other accomplishments that she will achieve for the good of the people, her "Dear people of the commonwealth" letter in today's papers will be posted in the Commonwealth archives along with her "Commonwealth Manifesto" as two of the great pieces of humanitarian literature in the CNMI's history. Thank you Tina for being you and to your family for instilling the virtues in you that you so passionately carry forward for the good of all people in the Commonwealth.

Finally, history will be made today when The Unity March begins around 4:30pm this afternoon. Nothing like this has happened in the thirteen years since I first came to the Marianas so the score is unity marches 1, new hotels built 0. This should be a very interesting event.

Another Knock on Globalization

2007-12-07T10:59:00.000+10:00

Anyone who knows me well enough to have had political conversations with me, knows that I 'm not an American who is or who has ever been in favor of or agreement with corporate globalization, NAFTA and other free trade agreements that benefit corporate America but screw the average, American worker and citizenry. U.S. corporations can take over the world all they want, just produce the domestically used product at home. That notion began its demise decades ago unfortunately. Really, how can allowing American corporations to shutter their factories and hand those manufacturing jobs over to China and other countries benefit the average American that doesn't run a corporate boardroom? It doesn't and it has also changed our country from one that once manufactured all of it's own products for use to one that now hardly manufactures anything at all. The last five-plus years and the GWB presidency have really shown us how ruthless the big corporations along with our elected politicians can be when the choice comes down to what's right for all Americans versus what's good for corporate profits.

A news story hit the web today entitled "Security concerns raised as China fills U.S. medicine chest." It states that "China's booming pharmaceutical industry has doubled exports to the United States in the past five years, undercutting competitors and making American consumers reliant on the safety of Chinese factories..." The story states that many key ingredients for generics and antibiotics are no longer made in the West and we'd have to rely on China or India for these if American stockpiles were to be exhausted.

Some other interesting excerpts;

"Competitors say China's drug companies not only have low-cost advantages but also get a nearly free pass from U.S. drug regulators, who hold the screws to American companies— raising their costs significantly— but rarely inspect in China."

"The spectacular growth of China's pharmaceutical industry coincides with some equally huge problems. A kickback scandal ensnared China's State Food and Drug Administration and its chief in charges that they gave approval for bogus drugs, including a counterfeit antibiotic that left 13 people dead. Wary of rising public anger, the state issued a Draconian sanction: It executed the agency chief in July."

Bayer, the German health-care giant, held patent protection until 2004 over the antibiotic known as ciprofloxacin, which it marketed as Cipro. That antibiotic now is mass-produced by generic firms, which get a key ingredient, dichloro fluorobenzene, from one of four Chinese companies or two Indian firms. The Chinese and Indian companies are all but exempt from oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration .
"Only 13 inspections were conducted in China in 2007," Rep. John Dingell , a Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said at a hearing Nov. 1 . "At this rate, it would take the FDA 55 years just to clear this backlog."
By giving China a virtual pass on FDA inspections, Acker said, Chinese firms get a cost savings of about 25 percent above American companies, which face unannounced on-site inspections at any time.
Since European pharmaceutical companies also face tougher standards, they too have stopped producing some basic drug ingredients, ceding production to Chinese and Indian companies that face less scrutiny and have lower costs.
On both sides of the Atlantic, manufacturers say they fret over the national-security implications of the massive off-shoring of production to Asia."

Holy crap. Anybody else out there feeling a little bit sold down the river?

NCAA Football: Who Wants #1?

2007-12-03T22:11:00.000+10:00

I'm old enough now to remember thirty-six season's worth of college football. The 1972 Nebreaska Cornhuskers featuring Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers and 1973's Penn State squad with John Cappelletti is as far back as I can visually go.

Back then when the pre-season AP and UPI polls would come out, the top ten would almost always include Nebraska and Oklahoma from the then-Big 8 conference, Michigan and Ohio State from the Big 10, USC from the then-Pac 8, independents Notre Dame and Penn State and Alabama from the Southeast conference. By the time the regular season ended, five of those squads would often make up the top five with either a perfect record or one loss. There just wasn't a lot of parody within conferences then. The powerhouses successfully recruited most of the top talent and most seemed to dominate for a decade or more.

There were always occasional, star student-athletes who could lift a team to the pinnacle level, if even just for a season or two. Tony Dorsett led Pittsburgh to prominence in 1976 and Herschel Walker did the same for a few seasons at Georgia in the early '80's. The Pony Express backfield of Southern Methodist University, featuring tailbacks Eric Dickerson and Craig James, are legendary but SMU had just a handful of winning seasons before their arrival and even fewer since their departure.

What has happened this college football season is unprecedented in my memory of the game. This past weekend, newly installed Nos. 1 & 2, Missouri and West Virginia both lost, marking the third week in a row that the #1 team has lost. Though I can't complete a search of how many #1 teams have lost this year, I did find that seven #2-ranked teams have lost and thirteen top-5 teams lost to unranked opponents. Here is the final BCS rankings. One of the biggest slides came from the Oregon Ducks, ranked #2 just three weeks ago, now riding a three-game losing streak all the way down to #28. Remember the upstart South Florida Bulls, undefeated and #2 in the first BCS poll seven weeks ago? They're now 9-3 and down to #21. Boston College was #2 six weeks ago but have fallen to #14 after three losses. South Carolina, #6 in the first BCS ranking, are unranked now. The Kentucky Wildcats, nearly in the top five after upsetting then-#1 LSU two months ago, are now just 7-5 and at #38. Perhaps the season's biggest disappointment was the star-laden Michigan Wolverines, a pre-season top-10 who lost their first two games then fought back to challenge for the Big 10 title before slumping again to finish at #32.

Now we're back to the two teams that held the #1 position longer than anyone else, Ohio State and LSU, earning trips to the championship game on January 7th at the Superdome in New Orleans. How bizarre is that? They were ranked #'s 3 & 7 respectively just last Friday. Though many schools, Oklahoma, USC and Kansas in particular, could claim that it's BS instead of BCS, I think that considering the circumstances that this wacky season has brought, the selection committee got it about as close to right as they could. Ohio State is 11-1 and impressively beat the stronger teams in their division while the 9-2 Tigers suffered both of their losses in triple-overtime. Oklahoma and USC are both playing great ball right now but each lost two games that they shouldn't have.

Personally, I think that too much is put into the hype of who's #1 and the tradition of college football and the great post-season rivalries have been lost to the current generation of fans except for us seniors and seniors-to-be. At the risk of sounding like Dana Carvey's grumpy old man character from Saturday Night Live who claimed that "in the old days, we would eat tree bark when we were hungry, and we liked it," I can't get into the post-season like I used to when the Rose Bowl featured the Big 10 champ vs. the Pac 10 champ, the Southeast champ would play the top Florida school in the Orange Bowl and if there were two undefeated teams at the end of it all who had to share the national championship, then so be it. That's the way it was and we liked it.

Here are the match-ups for the big bowl games.

Evel Knievel, What a Maniac

2007-12-01T22:51:00.000+10:00

This past Friday, November 30, motorcycle daredevil Robert "Evel" Knievel passed away at age 69. Unless you are my age or older, you are probably too young to have seen any of of his stunts on live TV but in the late 1960's and 1970's, long before the birth of X-Games and their backflipping crazies, Evel Knievel was the definition of out-of-mind, whacko daredevil with a motorcycle. Though too young to really remember his mega-crash landing after jumping the Caesar's Palace fountain in Las Vegas, I do remember at age eleven watching his 1974 attempted job of the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a rocket-powered "skycycle."

Knievel's nationally televised motorcycle jumps represent four of the top 20 most-watched ABC's Wide World of Sports events of all time.

Though the linked article above and other related post-death stories give a brief summary of his life, this guy really was amazing in a crazy sense of the word and the following excerpt from his Wikipedia page is just flat-out fun reading whether you are familiar with Evel Knievel or not.

"While in Las Vegas, Nevada to watch Dick Tiger fight a middleweight title fight, Knievel first saw the fountains at Caesars Palace and decided to jump them. To get an audience with the casino's CEO Jay Sarno, Knievel created a fictitious corporation called Evel Knievel Enterprises and three fictitious lawyers to make phone calls to Sarno. Knievel also placed phone calls to Sarno claiming to be from ABC-TV and Sports Illustrated inquiring about the jump. Sarno finally agreed to meet Knievel and the deal was set for Knievel to jump the fountains on December 31, 1967. After the deal was set, Knievel tried to get ABC to air the event live on Wide World of Sports. ABC declined, but said that if Knievel had the jump filmed and it was as spectacular as he said it would be, they would consider using it later.
Knievel used his own money to have actor/director John Derek produce a film of the Caesars' jump. To keep costs low, Derek used his then-wife, Linda Evans, as one of the camera operators. It was Evans who filmed Knievel's famous landing. On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed a single $100 dollar bet on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and got a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars staff, as well as two scantily clad showgirls. After doing his normal pre-jump show and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began his real approach. When he hit the takeoff ramp, he felt the motorcycle unexpectedly decelerate. The sudden loss of power on the takeoff caused Knievel to come up short and land on the safety ramp which was supported by a van. This caused the handlebars to be ripped out of his hands as he tumbled over them onto the pavement where he skidded into the Dunes parking lot. As a result of the crash, Knievel suffered a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist and both ankles and a concussion that kept him in a coma for 29 days.
After his crash and recovery, Knievel was more famous than ever. ABC-TV bought the rights to the film of the jump, paying far more than they originally would have, had they televised the original jump live. Ironically, when Knievel finally achieved the fame and possible fortune that he always wanted, his doctors were telling him that he might never walk without the aid of crutches, let alone ride and jump motorcycles. To keep his name in the news, Knievel started describing his biggest stunt ever, a motorcycle jump across the Grand Canyon. Just five months after his near fatal crash, Knievel performed another jump. On May 25, 1968, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump fifteen Mustangs. Knievel ended up breaking his right leg and foot as a result of the crash.
On August 3, 1968, Knievel returned to jumping, making more money than ever before. He was earning approximately $25,000 per performance, and he was making successful jumps almost weekly until October 13, in Carson City, Nevada. While trying to stick the landing, he lost control of the bike and crashed again, breaking his hip once more. During his recovery, Knievel had the X-1 Skycycle built by NASA aeronautical engineer Doug Malewicki to promote his Grand Canyon jump. More showpiece than actual motorcycle, the X-1 had two rocket engines capable of producing thrust of more than 14,000 pounds force (62 kN) bolted to the side of a normal motorcycle. Knievel also had all the trucks he used to go from one jump to the next painted to promote the Grand Canyon jump.

By 1971, Knievel realized that the United States government would never allow him to jump the Grand Canyon. To keep his fans interested, Knievel considered several other stunts that might match the publicity that would have been generated by jumping the canyon. Ideas included jumping across the Mississippi River, jumping from one skyscraper to another in New York City and jumping over 13 cars inside the Houston Astrodome. While flying back to Butte from a performance tour, Knievel looked out the window and saw the Snake River Canyon. After finding a location near Twin Falls, Idaho, that was both wide enough, deep enough and on private property, Knievel leased 300 acres (1.2 km²) for $35,000 to stage his jump. He set the date for Labor Day (4 September), 1972.
On January 7 and January 8, 1971, Knievel set the record by selling over 100,000 tickets to back-to-back performances at the Houston Astrodome. On February 28, he set a new world record by jumping 19 cars in Ontario, California. On May 10, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump 13 Pepsi delivery trucks. His approach was complicated by the fact that he had to start on pavement, cut across grass, and then return to pavement. His lack of speed caused the motorcycle to come down front wheel first. He managed to hold on until the cycle hit the base of the ramp. After being thrown off he skidded for 50 feet (15 m). Knievel broke his collarbone, suffered a compound fracture of his right arm and broke both legs.
Knievel continued to jump and promote his Labor Day assault on the Snake River Canyon. On March 3, 1972 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, Knievel got into a scuffle with a couple of Hells Angels in the audience. After making a successful jump, he tried to come to a quick stop because of a short landing area. Knievel ended up getting thrown off and run over by his motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson. Knievel ended up with a broken back and a concussion.
ABC Sports was unwilling to pay the price Knievel wanted for the canyon jump, so he ended up hiring Bob Arum's company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on pay-per-view cable. Arum partnered with Invest West Sports, Sheldon Saltman's company, in order to secure from Invest West Sports two things: 1.) the necessary financing for the jump and 2.) the services of Sheldon Saltman, long recognized as one of America's premier public relations and promotion men, to do publicity so that Knievel could concentrate on his jumps. Knievel then hired former NASA engineer Robert Truax to design and build the X-2 Skycycle. During two test jumps, the first on April 15, 1972, and the second on June 24, 1973, the rocket failed to make it all the way across the canyon. Knievel said that there would be no more tests and that he would go ahead with the scheduled jump on September 8, 1974.
The launch at the Snake River Canyon was at 3:36 p.m. local time. The steam that powered the engine had to get up to a temperature of 700 °F (370 °C). Upon take-off, the drogue parachute accidentally deployed when the three 1/4 inch bolts holding the cover for the chute sheared off with the force of the blast. The deployed chute caused enough drag that even though the skycycle made it all the way across the canyon the wind began to cause it to drift back as the skycycle turned on its side and started to descend into the canyon. By the time it hit the bottom of the canyon, the wind had pushed it across the river enough so that it landed half in and half out of the water. Just a couple feet more in the water, and Knievel would have drowned. Knievel survived the jump with only minor injuries."

Evel Knievel truly was a 1970's American sports icon and is lodged in my childhood memory by his Wide World of Sports stunt performances. It sounds like he ran hard off of the motorcycle too so what a life to make it to 69. Rest in peace Evel.

Opera Man

2007-11-29T12:39:00.001+10:00

One of Adam Sandler's classic characters from his days on Saturday Night Live about fifteen to twenty years ago.

Our Mellow Weekend in Photos

2007-11-18T20:28:00.001+10:00

TGIF baby!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 8th Annual Saipan Island Import car show happened on Saturday night on the rooftop above the DFS Galleria, right outside the door of Hard Rock Cafe.

The island's coolest auto dealer was there.

Above is Kazu Ikeda's Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and one of the Cabrera family's jacked up trucks. Below are two photos of Kenji Yoshida's nuts Humvee H2 that's well known on Saipan's roads. I was told that it had won the overall best in show in the last two Guam car shows. It won best of show and the SUV category last night. Though there were not many entries in the show, the crowd was huge as usual. Unfortunately, my $99 WalMart Kodak didn't shoot any good crowd shots after dark on the dimly lit roof top.

Early this morning we took Richard swimming at PauPau Beach. I didn't bring my kayak or snorkel gear, just a relaxing morning at the beach with the family.

Our neighbors, the Buenaventura tennis-playing family, are real good at orchids as well and this grouping provides a great foreground for a patio ocean view.

Now my island weekend has reached it's sunset with me on babysit watch as my wife has joined the rest of the island's Filipino community at American Memorial Park for the big Martin Nievera concert. She's earned a break....

Front Row For The Invasion

2007-11-11T19:49:00.000+10:00

Last night I went to "Trench Warz 7: The Invasion" at the Saipan World Resort. This was my first ultimate fighting/mixed martial arts experience and I came away very impressed with how organized and well-run the event was.

The fights were entertaining and full of action.

As you can see, we had the best seats in the house. Photos were not supposed to be taken by anyone except press but with these seats and since I had my camera, I couldn't help but sneak a few.

The guy being interviewed in the photo on the right is from Guam, he's called The Dentist and has some serious grappling skills. His Saipan-based opponent put up a real good fight but this guy closed it like a spider, the only submission defeat of the night I think. I couldn't get photos of that fight as most of it happened right in the fence in front of us and being a good spectator, I couldn't blind anyone with a flash photo..:-)

Disappointingly, Manny Chong of Guam didn't fight as scheduled due to his Saipan-based opponent no-showing.

The main event was Luka Iakopo vs. Kelvin Fitial and these guys are both lions. They also did not appear to like each other very much. This was a rematch, Fitial won the first go-around and won this one as well.

A big thank you to Randy Taylor and Cuki Alvarez of Trench Tech for the excellent set-up and congratulations for putting on a very entertaining event.

Update 11/19/07, Frank "The Crank" Camacho among Saipan's victorious fighters in last Friday night's Pacific Xtreme Combat 13: Back From The Dead on Guam.

Cuki and ‘The Crank’ save day for Saipan fighters

Do You Recognize These Guys?

2007-11-03T22:23:00.000+10:00

If you answered 53-year old David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen, then you scored on both fronts. Have you ever wondered why multi-millionaire musicians tour well into their 50's and 60's nowadays rather than just relax, vacation in paradise or produce porno movies? Read this article. It states that on Van Halen's 40-city, now extended U.S. tour, the band is pulling in $1.5 million per night. Wow, might as well jump!

Pilot of plane that dropped A-bomb dies

2007-11-02T10:02:00.000+10:00

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted for six decades after the war that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.
The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others. See the full story here.

In the undated handout picture above, the ground crew of the Enola Gay stands with Tibbets, center, in the Marianas Islands, most likely on Tinian.

The national news article does not mention that the Enola Gay, as well as the Bockscar, the B-29 that carried and dropped the atomic bomb codenamed "Fatman" on Nagasaki just three days later, both took off on those missions from Tinian, our neighboring island here in the Marianas chain. After the completion of the invasion of the Marianas in the summer of 1944, the island of Tinian was quickly transformed into a series of airstrips to allow B-29's to begin daily bombing missions over Japan. History states that the small island of Tinian was the world's busiest airfield at that time.

The Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the battles of Saipan and Tinian was held on Saipan and Tinian from June 12th through June 17th, 2004. Many veterans of the campaign including General Tibbits, their families and friends, historians and others interested in the War in the Pacific returned for the event.

For more on the Battle of Saipan, click here.

More Kid Photos

2007-11-01T22:58:00.000+10:00

Larissa had the best game of her career with this photo of Lyssa Rae, now 5 months.

(5) Oregon 24, (9) USC 17

2007-11-01T22:31:00.000+10:00

I'm nearly a week late with this but last weekend the Oregon Ducks knocked off the defending NCAA champs and former #1 USC Trojans 24-17. Though I grew up in L.A. bleeding Trojan scarlet during football season as a kid, a big congrats goes out to Steele Familia in Eugene / Duck fanatics Lynda, Sherry and Eric via photo from my favorite Duck fan. He loves his UofO toothbrush too.......

Food For Thought

2007-10-29T16:29:00.000+10:00

KZMI station manager Harry Blaylock's "Food For Thought" segments each Friday have been especially entertaining reading of late. Must reads include Oct. 19th's write-up on the five Precinct 3 incumbents and candidates who favor closed-door governance and don't feel that they owe explanations of their actions to their constituents, as well as Oct. 5's bit on the CUC override that lowered the utility's residential rates to below their operational expenses to provide that power. The latest edition from Oct. 26 is not online yet but I heard it this morning on the morning drive. He lambasts and names the legislators who voted for across the board government pay cuts but didn't impose those same cuts on themselves.

These commentaries of issues effecting our islands are also solid reading for those who don't call the Marianas home, so I suggest that family and friends back home check some out as they provide skillfully written and unbiased opinions on politics and other happenings around island. The complete archives of Food For Thought can be found here on Chamorro.com. Harry also has a great, scuba-dive-themed blogsite with lots of excellent photos so you can ease your aching eyes after all that reading with soothing underwater photos that are well worth checking out.

Can You Touch Your Toes?

2007-10-27T23:00:00.001+10:00

Do you remember when you were this limber?

Neither do I.

Poker Power? It Must Be Election Time

2007-10-25T10:53:00.001+10:00

Since a few weeks ago when a majority of the Commonwealth's politicians slashed power rates in order to win votes from those who are disconnected and easily manipulated, they are now scrambling to find ways to make up for the short-fall before the next fuel purchase will be needed in a few months. One has suggested raiding the poker parlor fees to pay for this shortfall. Not that there is any new poker money, this would only be a re-appropriation from elsewhere. Plus isn't there a certain casino bill that many are clamoring to have passed that would eliminate the poker industry? Why cut power rates less than the expense of providing that power an outsider might ask? Because elections are next month of course! Would people really vote for politicians who operate like this, an outsider might ask? Read this for your answer. My favorite part is "I don’t even remember when I first applied for power and water, I never signed anything that says when rates vary due to world trading I would agree to pay the extra charges. I don’t remember signing any type of contract or application pertaining to that." Unfortunately for the upward progress of the Commonwealth but luckily for do-nothing politicians up for re-election, there are a lot of misinformed, easy to please and manipulate, registered voters out there like the author of that letter.

So let's take a brief tour of this power mess. Residents, please add anything that I may leave out and likewise, correct any errors.

--Power situation is compounded by the use of aged diesel-burning units and lack of proper, long-term maintenance and parts replacement.

--Power rates stay the same as fuel rates nearly double and rolling blackouts become the norm.

--New governor proclaims the utility a mess and uses emergency powers to take control of said utility. Assigns lt. governor to oversee it, the same man who ran the utility for at least five of the last ten years as it became a bigger mess.......huh?

--Utility wants to do the right thing and cut off power to the legislature and governor's office due to non-payment of over $10 million in power billings.

--Government obtains a restraining order to not allow disconnection.

--Power rates are drastically raised due to continuously rising fuel expenses along with the above government non-payment.

--Residents march to the Legislature complaining of high power rates.

--Legislature overrides a veto to slash power rates to appease the disconnected residents despite having no idea where the money will come from for the next fuel purchase.

So now the disconnected residents think that these legislators are heroes and the utility is the devil despite the fact that the utility rate hike was necessary due in part by non-payment of the government, which coincidentally is run by the legislature. I'm lost on why the utility is the bad guy in this when they tried to disconnect the legislature. These shameless politicos are pandering votes from the people by placing blame elsewhere for something that they are as much to blame for as anyone. But then again, that's all status quo for election season, Marianas-style.

It's unfortunate that despite the likelihood that some young, promising candidates will get elected, there is still too much riff-raff that will get in as well due to lack of other options, and together with the closed-government incumbents that are still in place, will make for a slow and bumpy road for change over the next few years.

Southern California Burning

2007-10-23T10:59:00.000+10:00

Previous to moving to the Marianas, I lived my first eighteen years growing up in the foothills of Los Angeles, then the next twelve years in San Diego. I hate seeing these wildfires ravage neighborhoods every year now as more homes are built farther out into the chapparal and forests that are historic burn zones. The left photo shows a Poway firefighter moving past another lost home. Poway is on the I-15 corridor in North County from where over 300,000 people have been evacuated, including from towns like Rancho Bernardo and Scripps Ranch, where many of my clients lived and my office was located respectively, when I was in the mortgage business in the early-90's. This area is also the home of many current and former San Diego Chargers, Padres and other athletes. To the right is another Poway home in flames today. This morning I spoke with a college buddy who lives on a few acres about nine miles northeast of the evacuation zone and he said it is crazy, like the entire county is on fire. Everybody is gassing their vehicles and loading up their important possessions in case they to need to flee. He grew up in Poway and his parents, and nearly the entire community, were evacuated early Monday morning their time by a reverse-911 order.

According to Wikipedia, Santa Ana winds "is a Southern California reference to Föhn winds, a meteorological phenomenon occurring as a layer of wind is forced over a mountain range -- drying the air -- which then passes over the crest and begins to move downslope -- heating -- and becoming a strong, gusty, warm and dry wind which can raise temperatures as much as 30°C (54°F) in a few hours. The risk of fire danger increases by the winds' warm and dry conditions. As the Santa Ana winds are channeled through the mountain passes they can approach hurricane force. The combination of wind, heat, and dryness turns the chaparral into explosive fuel for the infamous wildfires the region is known for." I can add that the winds usually only last a day, though this Santa Ana condition was predicted to be two days. The winds leave your lips chapped, skin dry and flaky and hair wirey.

It's only been four years ago this month since Southern California wild fires killed 22 and destroyed 3,640 homes. I don't ever remember numbers like that in the three decades that I lived in Southern California. The frequency, size and amount of structural damage in the last fifteen years of fires suggest obvious overgrowth of housing developments into traditional burn zones.

As I get ready to post this, it is near sunrise Tuesday in Southern California. It's predicted that the winds will be even worse this morning up until early afternoon with gusts over 60 mph and temperatures over 90 degrees. There's really only enough firefighters to evacuate neighborhoods and fighting these fires is nearly fruitless. Scary stuff. I'll take typhoons over going back to that.

Update: Active fires as of 8pm Tuesday (PST).

SignonSanDiego.com, interactive fire map.

US Sinks North Korean Ship Bound for Iran

2007-10-20T10:31:00.000+10:00

Am I not paying enough attention? Has anyone else heard of this?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
US Sinks North Korean Ship Bound for Iran
"How close were we to seeing an armed nuclear conflict?"
July 23, 2007
by PJ Paulson, ACG-CIS
with additional reporting from The Lekarev Report; DebkaFile

(Vancouver, BC) -- "How close were we to seeing an armed nuclear conflict?" That is the question being asked as Syrian nationals temporarily vacated Beirut, Lebanon and the Jordan Valley during mid July according to sources close to ACG-CIS. Many security and intelligence officials believe that this behavior may have been related to the US sinking of a North Korean ship approximately 100 nautical miles from the coast of Iran.
It was not immediately clear why, around July 10, 2007, the Syrian nationals, primarily engaged in construction, trades and agricultural occupations, should have vacated Lebanon without notice. The nationals were noticed to have returned to Beirut and the Jordan Valley by July 21, 2007.
ACG-CIS is of the opinion that the approximate 10-day absence may have been in part due to a warning system alerting the nationals to the possibility of an impending military or terror strike against Israel and other western interests in the region.
According a number of news sources, officials and clerics from Syria and Iran met during this time period reportedly to draw plans and scenarios for proposed attacks and increased activity against western interests in both the Mid East region and elsewhere. Those talks ended last week with no official announcements from any of the participants.
ACG-CIS, based upon further analysis, believe that the nationals were warned of an apparent military style strike or strikes as Hezbollah was reported to be moving missiles in civilian populated areas throughout southern Lebanon. This movement along with the involvement of the Iranian president, an adamant believer in nuclear technology and development, lead to concerns about the possibility of a military style "dirty bomb" nuclear attack or a ballistic missile attack involving nuclear weapons purchased from North Korea.
It was reported earlier this month that while the North Korean 2006 test demonstrated the viability and reliability of North Korea's Scud- and Nodong-class systems, it left open the status of the three ballistic missile systems that the Korean People's Army (KPA) recently placed, or is placing, into service as testing on North Korea short-range missile systems has been quietly ongoing.
In reports first published by DEBKAfile, American naval and air forces intercepted two North Korean vessels clandestinely en route for Iran with cargoes of enriched uranium and nuclear equipment in the past month. The shutdown of Pongyong's nuclear facilities has made these items surplus to North Korea's requirements and the Islamic Republic was more than willing to pay a hefty price for the goods.
On July 12, the second intercepted North Korean freighter was sunk in the Arabian Sea by torpedoes fired from a US submarine 100 miles southeast of the Iranian naval base-port of Chah Bahar. Delivery of its freight of enriched weapons-grade uranium and equipment and engines for manufacturing more fissile material including plutonium in its hold could have jump-forwarded Iran's nuclear bomb and warhead project, lopping off at least a year of work. For this Iran's rulers were ready to reportedly pay out a cool $500 million.
A few hours earlier, President Bush received an intelligence briefing on the vessel, its freight and destination. Apparently the shipment was brought forward by several weeks to evade detection by UN nuclear inspectors scheduled to visit Pyongyang this week to verify the dismantling of its nuclear facilities.
US airplanes had been tracking the freighter and picked up signs of radioactivity, indicating the presence of nuclear materials aboard.
President Bush had the option of ordering US Marines to board the vessel or to sink it. He decided on the latter - both because the North Korean freighter was approaching an area patrolled by Iranian naval units and seizure of the vessel by American marines might have provoked a clash; secondly, it was the better choice in order to avoid exposing US troops to radioactive contamination. American naval and air units in the Persian Gulf, Middle East and seas opposite North Korea were ordered to go on a high state of readiness and the torpedo the North Korean vessel was accomplished without delay.
After the attack, US warships raced to the spot where the ship went down where they picked up three lifeboats. Most of the North Korean sailors aboard were either injured or dead. Twenty in all died in the attack. They all bore symptoms of contamination. After the episode, the area was cordoned off and underwater equipment dropped to salvage the cargo from the sunken ship.
All the parties to the incident, the United States, North Korea and Iran, have kept the incident under wraps as the situation in and around the Gulf is inflammable enough to explode into a full-blown Iranian-US clash at the slightest provocation.
There was also the danger that North Korea might decide at the last moment to abort the closure of its nuclear facilities.

January Photos In October

2007-10-08T19:03:00.000+10:00

Hey Family and friends, been late with the kid photos as requested and in lieu of many e-mails, how about this as an alternative?

The title? Well, let's just say that the deep-voiced guy didn't pay much attention to putting in the proper date after charging the batteries. Sub the January date on the photos with October.

"Look Gramma, I'm so fast that I'm a blur! I was born to rock."

"What a ham sandwich that guy is."

"Richard is my name and pool jumping decked with colorful accessories is my game."

"When you said don't jump toward you because the camera would get wet, did you mean like this...!?"

"Milk lady, hold me up straight, I'm flashing my new, pink hat."

"Look at this face. Do you think that I would spit my milk on to the window?"

"Oh come on! You're not going to buy that face thing again are you? Like I can spit half way across the back seat from where I am? Read the label next to me and apply it to that hyper guy!"

"Haahaa, Daddy's website is dumb. No Chipmunks. No Britney. Hey Mommy, what's his password again?"

Oooooohh, slobber alert!!

Crrrrrrrrrrrashed.

A Rocker's Lucky 13

2007-09-16T14:56:00.001+10:00

I have a fear. Being a music lover despite not being a musician, I worry that within the next decade, downloading music will be as mainstream for all of us, even oldsters like myself, as a morning login to check our e-mail is now. What that will mean is that in favor of downloading individual songs, humanity will have lost appreciation for an ordered collection of an artist's works released all at once, or on an album. OK, on a CD. By the time that I was sixteen, I could have told you the names of all Led Zeppelin, Rush, Jethro Tull, Kansas and numerous other band's albums, in order and what year they were released. Though my kids are still far from their teens, I'm guessing that today's sixteen year olds only know songs, not albums and their histories, their themes and the flow that a chronological production of music lends to the listening experience.

So because that fear greatly consumes me....no, that's over the top. So because I'm growing weary of writing about and commenting on crazy, sleezy government antics and I just want to have some fun darn it, following is the SteeleonSaipan Rocker's Lucky 13. This was supposed to be a Rocker's Dozen but I couldn't make that final cut and getting from twenty to thirteen was traumatic enough. Because this is a very short list of music released over four decades, I'm sure that everyone who reads this will think that I'm a fool for leaving off their favorite band or musician. I can already hear a certain skinheaded blogger scream as he sees no Jimi. I don't care, make your own list!!

So without further rambling.....drum roll please.....SteeleonSaipan presents the Rocker's Lucky 13!

1. A collection of rock's best releases can't begin or be complete without a large dose of Led Zeppelin. The 1993 box-set release, Complete Studio Recordings, is a 10-disc compilation of Led Zep's first nine albums (1975's Physical Graffiti was a double-album), spanning from their 1969 debut album to 1982's Coda. The band's 1976 live release, The Song Remains the Same, is not covered on this compilation but I have a better, 3-disc, live recording that covers twice the material as the commercial release. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham ushered in hard rock as we know it today and in my opinion as well as millions of others, made up the greatest and most influential rock and roll band of all-time. Led Zeppelin was the definitive heavy metal band with their crushingly loud interpretation of the blues. They incorporated mythology, mysticism, and a variety of other topics into their sound. Led Zeppelin had mystique. They rarely gave interviews and consequently, the only connection the audience had with the band was through their records and the concerts. More than any other band, Led Zeppelin established the concept of album-oriented rock, refusing to release popular songs from their albums as singles. In doing so, they established the dominant format for heavy metal, as well as the genre's actual sound. Their anthem, Stairway to Heaven, is perhaps the most played song in the history of radio. Ten of their albums were certified at multi-platinum levels. The band have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide, including 109.5 million sales in the U.S. Led Zeppelin are ranked No. 1 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest artists of hard rock.

Yeah, this is supposed to be just thirteen of the greatest releases and I'm bending the rules beyond break right off the bat but any over-40 rocker will tell you that man cannot live on one Led Zeppelin CD alone.

2. By the time that I started high school in 1979, my buddies and I were burning major vinyl off of a number of Jethro Tull albums but the band's fourth album, 1971's Aqualung, was their masterpiece. Mixing hard rock and folk melodies, the album is loaded with riff-heavy classics such as the title track, Locomotive Breath and Cross-Eyed Mary. Side A lyrics on the original album featured singer, flutist and lyricist Ian Anderson's observations of humanity's sometimes wretched ways while most Side B tracks turned to his surly views on how man's faith in God has been tainted by organized religion. The three, one-minute acoustic tracks are excellent, serving as perfect bridges between longer tracks with similar themes. Even my wife who's from the provinces of the Philippines recognizes "Sitting on a park bench......!!"

Now let's walk that thick, gray line of parameters for this Lucky 13 once again by combining a live, Tull experience into this pick. In 1978, the band released Live: Bursting Out, an outstanding live recording stocked flush with Tull's best hits to date. I saw Tull live three times starting in 1978. Being close to the stage was a must as a Tull show was as much a theatrical production as it was rock concert. Ian Anderson's wild-eyed stage prancing and snarling flute-playing and theatrics was a blast to watch. The bandmembers would don outfits to fit the theme of the album that they were touring for and often start the show with nearly the entire album of that tour. Excellent, live versions of Minstrel in the Gallery, Hunting Girl and Thick as a Brick, along with the Aqualung classics mentioned above are all covered here. I recommend these two choices for a Jethro Tull starter-kit well before any of their greatest hits albums.

3. Before the surge of rock-and-roll live albums in the mid-to-late '70's, which will be generously covered soon, in 1973 the classical-influenced band, Yes released Yessongs, a live, triple-album highlighting not only their best songs and instrumentals but also the band members incredible musicianship. Jon Anderson's near-falsetto is one of rock's most recognized voices, Rick Wakeman and Chris Squire have long been recognized among rock's top keyboardists and bass players respectively and Steve Howe's fingers peeled the guitar frets as fast as any with a sound of beauty unlike anyone before or after. Playing most of their concert tours throughout the late '70's and '80's "in the round," with a revolving stage in the middle of the arena rather than at one end, providing twice the number of good seats, this is a classic collection of Yes' early work with excellent live renditions, better than the studio versions in most cases, particularly on classics such as Starship Trooper, Heart of the Sunrise and Yours is No Disgrace. By the 1980's, Yes' music was far more top-40ish (i.e. Owner of a Lonely Heart, blah!) with a completely different sound from the awesome, classical orchestra jams that early Yes served up. One of the great, live rock albums of all-time.

So this Rocker's Lucky 13 starts with three albums borne from the British Invasion.....but doesn't include the Beatles, Stones or The Who. A sign of more insanity to come, you have now entered.....the SteeleOnSaipan Zone.

4. ".....And the meek shall inherit the Earth......" The Canadian rock-trio Rush, comprised of bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer extraodinaire Neil Peart, released their first album in 1974 but their breakthrough came with their fourth release, 1976's epic 2112, which featured the twenty-plus minute, futuristic rock opera of the same name comprising all of Side A on the album. For me, this story of a young man, living in the totalitarian society of the Red Star of the Solar Federation, who finds an ancient guitar, teaches himself to play, presents it to the ruling priests of the temples and is told that there is no room for this "toy that will destroy" in their society, is simply the greatest rock song ever. The second half of this album is very good, maybe not great, but the first half alone makes this album a rock and roll classic. You give this album a listen if you haven't heard early Rush, when Geddyshriek falsetto was what all boy-rockers wanted to emulate. "We are the priests of the Temples of Syrinx. All the gifts of life are held within our walls!"

5. By the mid-70's, as a member of the Kiss Army, I was sworn by blind loyalty to know or recognize no other band but those men in black-and-white make-up. That all changed in 1976 when the midwestern band, Kansas released their classic Leftoverture, featuring the timeless hit Carry On Wayward Son. To this day I still know every lyric to every song. In 1978 I attended my first rock concert, Kansas' tour for Point of Know Return, the excellent follow-up album to which I also still have every word in my noggin. For a fifteen-year old kid, two words: blown away. I'm a Kansas fan for life and their 1978 live, double-album, Two For The Show, is the perfect keepsake of what would be the first of three Kansas concerts and possibly fifty or more live arena and stadium shows that I've attended. An excellent recording with great song selection from the band's first five albums, Kansas' sound of fusion between two guitars, a bass, drums, piano, synthesizers and a rockin' violin, was orchestral rock at it's best.

6. In 1979, the British opera-rock band, Queen went on tour in support of their seventh album, Jazz. A product of that tour was the magnificent double-album, Queen Live Killers. This album is scorching with hard and mellow, Queen rock-and-roll classics in which many songs sound far better than the studio versions. The set opens with a hopped-up, guitar-filled rendition of We Will Rock You, the foot-stomping, cheerleader classic and followed up by one of Queen's great rockers, Let Me Entertain You. Songs like Don't Stop Me Now, Spread Your Wings and even Bohemian Rhapsody come radically alive on this album in a way not possible in the studio. I was there in 1980 on the tour supporting this release, 12th row on the floor, dead-center. The late vocalist-supreme, Freddie Mercury was as great a frontman as I ever saw. Queen's backing vocals were just as good live as in the studio, which is very rare and Brian May was incredible on guitar. You don't have to be a Queen fan to dig this live album. In fact if Queen's older stuff got your attention but the later, quirkier music like Radio-Gaga rightfully turned you off, buy this album. Some Queen songs that I didn't really care for are now classics in my mind after hearing them juiced-up live nearly thirty years ago. This album was certified double-platinum.

The years of 1978-79 not only produced the two great, live rock albums listed above but Cheap Trick's classic Live at Budokan album and my favorite Rolling Stones album, Some Girls, were both products of those years. But 1978-79 were not only years for great classic rock and live albums. At a time when the older, traditional rockers like Led Zep, The Who and the Rolling Stones were either winding down or searching for a second-wind of creativity, synthesized rockers like Boston and Styx were enjoying viable success and disco was dying a quick death, two newer forms of rock music began to emerge and would change the face and direction of rock-and-roll music forever. I view 1978-79 as the two most important and influential years in modern, rock music history and following are a few examples why.

7. I can't word what should be said about Van Halen's 1978 debut album better than a reviewer on Amazon.com did; "It was the late 70's and unless you lived through it, it may be kind of hard to understand. Disco ruled the radio, you couldn't turn the dial without finding the latest and greatest by the Bee Gees or The Village People. The term "Rock" was now assigned to bands like Styx or Supertramp. The guitar driven rock of Led Zep, The Who and Kiss, were pushed to the back-burner of the American music scene. Then out of nowhere Van Halen burst onto the scene. With the opening chords of Runnin' With The Devil into Eruption and You Really Got Me, Van Halen cemented the new American rock sound. This was something new, something purely American, and opened the door to what we know as Hard Rock or Heavy Metal today. It's impossible to listen to any rock artist today and not hear the influence of Van Halen. The 80's hair-metal scene was basically made up of bands immitating this album. Is it coincidence that soon after Van Halen debuted, disco died and bands like Twisted Sister emerged? Unless you have lived under a rock for the last 25+ years you have heard each of the songs on this album at one point or another. These songs are classics, and have stood the test of time."

8. In the late '70's, the British punk and ska-music scene was in full-swing and about to export itself in bulk to the United States. In late 1978, a trio of bleached-blonde Brits with punk music ties who were accomplished, multi-influenced musicians, released their debut album in the U.S. From the opening tunes of Next to You, to So Lonely and then the mega-hit ode to a prostitute, Roxanne, The Police debut album, Outlandos d'Amour pushed the accelerator of New Wave music to the floor. Though The Police are viewed as an offspring of punk, I see them, along with bands soon to be mentioned, as the fathers of New Wave music. The Police were the band that set the standard for New Wave throughout the early-to-mid '80's until a turn to pop-ish tunes, then the beginning of vocalist Sting's solo career, contributed to the end of the decade of New Wave music. A lot of New Wave acts have The Police to thank for their music careers. They were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

The time when the New Wave movement burst onto the American music scene, or at least it did in Southern California where I grew up, was during my high school and early college years, a time of discovery of many things, music among them. It's a time of a person's life where music represents certain time periods. In other words, you hear a song that you like and it reminds you of fun times of your youth. That's how New Wave is for me. It's not odd then that in whittling my favorite thirteen albums/CDs, many from this era were in the running. Some that made my Top 20 but missed the final cut are briefly described below;

Just months prior to the release of The Police' first LP, Ric Ocasek and The Cars exploded on to the airwaves with Just What I Needed, the first single from their self-named debut album. Their 1979 follow-up, Candy-O is my favorite Cars album and nearly every song from these two albums became radio hits with half a dozen cracking the Billboard Top 40.

Two months after The Cars first release, the spudboys of devolution from Akron, Ohio climbed into our heads with their first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! The first track, Uncontrollable Urge, is still a surf/punk anthem to this day. Listen to this song if you have never heard any slammin' fast Devo songs from their beginning. Their 1979 second release, Duty Now For the Future, carried on the success with hits Secret Agent Man and Mr. DNA. Laugh now but listen to these two records if you've never heard the raw side of Devo before they laid down their guitars and went synth-heavy on their remaining albums.

9. By 1981, the New Wave movement was in full-swing. Major cities all over America had new or re-formatted radio stations dedicated exclusively to New Wave, punk and ska. New bands like The B-52's, Go-Go's and Madness were already getting more airplay than decades-old, big-name rockers. But a band that came of age in the clubs of L.A., competing with every Van Halen wanna-be and punk band imaginable, brought an even newer energy to the New Wave movement. In 1981 and 1982, Oingo Boingo released their first two albums, Only A Lad and Nothing To Fear and both became defining albums of the New Wave era. The band was founded in 1972 as a performing arts group called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and from 1976 it was led by songwriter/vocalist Danny Elfman, who later achieved renown as a composer for film and television, most notably, The Simpson's theme. In 1980, the group changed from a semi-theatrical music and comedy troupe into a new-wave band, and shortened its name to Oingo Boingo. I saw these guys six or seven times live in arenas and L.A. clubs and can somewhat proudly say that I once held Elfman in a headlock in the front pit and tore his shirt off his back when he dove into the crowd right on us. Relax, I was still a teenager. Like most New Wave acts, the best music came with their first few albums. If you aren't familiar with their music, or want to hear more from the New Wave era, these two albums are essential.

10. The breakthrough to big time by Van Halen in the late '70's brought the studios' attention back to the homegrown, L.A. rock club scene. Soon Motley Crue and the Red Hot Chili Peppers would get their break and move from the smokey Whiskey and other Sunset Strip dives into the big arenas. In 1987, Guns N' Roses, discovered at Hollywood's famed Troubadour club, released their debut album and burst onto the airwaves like a typhoon with Appetite For Destruction. The hard partying and atmosphere of turmoil that went everywhere with the band helped create some of the most aggressive and angry music to ever commercially succeed. From the opening tunes of first track, Welcome to the Jungle, this release was something special and trend setting. Top hit Sweet Child O' Mine brought hard rock to dance clubs where new wave and techno held the floor. Paradise City is still one of my favorite songs ever. Whether you loved them or loathed them, and many women rightly felt the latter, it can't be denied that GnR had a profound influence on the next decade's worth of rock creativity and ushered in a new era of hard rock and heavy metal. How big was Guns N' Roses? This album reached #1 on the Billboard charts, their follow-up, Lies reached #2 and 1991's simultaneous release of Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II was so anticipated, the albums debuted at #2 and #1 respectively. No other artist or group to date have held the #1-2 spots at once.

11. Though famous in their native Australia for years, it wasn't until their sixth album, released in the U.S. in early 1988, that I discovered Midnight Oil. From the first time that I played Diesel and Dust, it has been one of my favorite musical productions. I've never heard an Oil's tune that sings about love or relationships but rather, their songs plea for world peace, environmental awareness and on Diesel and Dust, primarily the struggles of the Australian Aborigines. But singer Peter Garrett hasn't just spoken of these subjects in song, he's currently a member of the Australian House of Representatives and is a past member of the International Board for Greenpeace. This is a beautifully blended album of pop rock, acoustics, excellent supporting vocals and aboriginal beats that drills right to your soul with its themes of exploitation of the land that the aborigines hold dear. Many songs would be recognized by a first-time listener such as The Dead Heart, Sometimes and their first mainstream hit, Beds are Burning and in 1989, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 13 on their list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s.

12. A copy/paste from Amazon.com: "Any Parrothead worth his or her salt-rimmed margarita glass knows that the central experience of being a Jimmy Buffett fan is attending his concerts. As Buffett mentions in the liner notes to this live set, it's like the circus coming to town each summer, except that in the case of his shows, it's the audience, not the cast, that wears the costumes. 1990's Feeding Frenzy contains the essential elements of a classic Buffett concert: his two best early songs, Come Monday and A Pirate Looks at Forty; crowd pleasers such as Margaritaville, Cheeseburger in Paradise, Fins, and Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw) (retitled A Love Song [From a Different Point of View] to placate his Puritan censors); and some island-leaning fare such as Jolly Mon and a version of Harry Belafonte's Jamaica Farewell. A Buffett concert is like taking a Gulf Coast vacation without leaving your hometown. With Feeding Frenzy, you can don your bird, lizard, or shark regalia and enjoy the comfort of your favorite easy chair." I saw Buffett live twice and both were an all-day-and-evening-long partyfest. This is obviously not a pick for outstanding musicianship but rather a sentimental pick that brings back great memories of my roaring 20's. My all-time favorite acoustic song is here with the previously mentioned A Pirate Looks at Forty.

13. Not long after Van Halen re-shaped American rock music with their debut album, demand for the sound of metal meant rock bands with an even harder edge began getting published. In fact, Metallica's first album was released way back in 1983. Classifications such as thrash and metal rose to describe these heavy, new sounds. My favorite thrash-metal album ever is Megadeth's fourth release, 1990's Rust In Peace. The album was certified platinum in 1994 and received Grammy nominations in 1991 and 1992 for best heavy metal performance. I don't like all metal, particularly speed-noise with limited musicianship and simplistic lyrics. Megadeth and frontman Dave Mustaine have the best quality of lyrics in the metal category and this album stands out with its themes of nuclear war, magic and ETs. Written just before the end of the Cold War era and fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the title track's theme of ballistic missiles (When will this cease, when the warheads will all rust in peace!) is excellent lyrically and fed by pounding guitar rhythms, while most songs display insane guitar solos. The chilling Dawn Patrol describes the misery awaiting survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Hangar 18 is another excellent jam spoken by someone who may know too much about the secret location of where the government hides what was found at the supposed crash site of a UFO. There is not a throw-away song on this album, the best lyrics and guitar-work that metal has to offer, hands down.

Since classic-hard rock and metal have been my sounds of choice for nearly twenty years, about the time that original New Wave releases ceased, I'm a bit surprised that I ended up with only two metal albums in my Lucky 13. I'll call it a lack of total, complete-package album releases as well as lack of staying power. Metal and grunge albums from the last twenty years that made my Top 20 but regretfully, not the final thirteen;

Metallica's fourth release, 1988's ...And Justice For All .

Alice in Chains' first two releases, 1990's Facelift and 1992's Dirt.

Pearl Jam's excellent debut album from 1991, Ten.

So what about rock music released in the last fifteen years? There just isn't much out there. Look at what's on the airwaves now, songs like "I just don't know what to do with myself....da da." Boring!! Or how about this past year's big awards winner in the rock category, Lips Of An Angel. Gag me with a freakin' steak knife.

Smashing Pumpkins had some great work in the '90's. Limp Bizkit had some really good stuff. The only albums released this century that I'd give 4+ stars to are Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory from 2000 and System of a Down's Toxicity, released in 2001. I didn't consider any releases from the 2000's for this list as staying power cannot be determined in that short of time, however both of these discs still spend a lot of time in my CD player and could be in an edited version of the Lucky 13 ten years from now.

So that completes the SteeleOnSaipan Rocker's Lucky 13. If you didn't fade out somewhere in the middle and you're still here, thanks for reading! The comments section is for criticism, ridicule and even to lay down your own choices. Bring 'em on!

Seeking Noni Investors

2007-09-05T17:51:00.000+10:00

A recent letter-to-the-editor writer from Tinian expressed discontent with certain "Tinian elected officials and their legal counsel" for taking "a weeklong junket to Bangkok and Manila, supposedly looking for Noni investors." The writer goes on to classify their investment trip as a "total disregard for priorities and wasteful spending of public funds."

So what's the big deal here? Folks from these parts go to Manila and Bangkok all the time looking for noni investors. Though most end up only partaking of the noni while there and some make return trips to see the same investors, a few do bring back noni investors with them. In fact, many business establishments exist in these cities for the purpose of bringing together dozens of noni investors under one roof.

Below are a few photo ads of such abodes where noni investors congregate......

Do you like noni??

AND IN THE WORLD OF SPORTS!!

In a stunning upset, landslide favorites "Two Lawyers, A Car Guy and Two Honest Folks" stumbled their way to a bitter and disappointing loss in the championship of the annual, Hyatt Regency 4-person beach volleyball tournament on Saturday, August 25. This was a mixed tourney, where at least one person of each gender had to be on the court at all times. Lone female E.J. Lee stated "we lost because the guys held me down, they didn't turn me loose and feed me the rock like they should have." Team captain Bruce Berline had no comment. "I'm too upset right now." Veteran beach-baller Randy Steele was disheartened but content to use his 2nd place prize, dinner for two at Kili Cafe, that night. "Hey man, I only splurge at the hotel buffets when it's free, prizes from these tourneys, you know? I'm 44 now, it's been awhile."

Below, the team poses for a loser's photo with a few dedicated Hyatt staffers who ran a smooth, fun tournament.

Notice how the guy on the right deftly wears his towel over both shoulders and heaves in his gut to appear as though he's buffed and in far better shape than reality portrays, while at the same time holding a can of beer? Impressive, now that obviously took some practice!

Armenian Rap: Cell Phone & Cologne

2007-09-01T23:05:00.000+10:00

This YouTube video comes straight from my hometown of Glendale, California, a city that also spawned PTI's wacky pitchman, Hans Mickelson, metalheads System of A Down and also boasts the largest Armenian population in the world outside of Armenia.