Open Thread #259

by Robert Koehler on September 8, 2012

in Open Thread

Nice autumnal rain last night.

Beginning to feel a bit like fall.

{ 233 comments… read them below or add one }

1 jefferyhodges September 8, 2012 at 11:35 am: On what date does the beginning of fall fall? In the West, it falls on September 21st, or thereabouts. Do Koreans have a fixed date for the onset of autumn? Or does the lunar calendar rule, with a shifting date?

I ought to know this, having lived in Korea so many years . . .

Jeffery Hodges

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2 jefferyhodges September 8, 2012 at 11:35 am: Oh, First Bro, and all that.

Jeffery Hodges

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3 CactusMcHarris September 8, 2012 at 11:45 am: #1,

Your privileges will be revoked if you don’t utter the correct words in the correct order.

It depends on which side of the calendar you use, but it’s shifting on a lunar calendar – there’s a word for it, too.
4 jefferyhodges September 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm: Too many “its” in that hint, but since my privileges are in danger of revocation, I’ll guess you mean Chuseok, but my wife says that autumn began two weeks ago, much to my astonishment.

Jeffery Hodges

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5 RolyPoly September 8, 2012 at 12:23 pm: Ben has spoken – there will be stimulus.

The Reps are dead wrong about Ben Bernanke; Ben is not someone they can mess with. Ben has money – unlimited amount.

He can run that money press 24/7. Or, just type the amount into his computer. He is the most important person in America.

O-bomb and Romnoodle are just poor bastards with no real power.

Ben has spoken! And, Obama will win.
6 RolyPoly September 8, 2012 at 12:29 pm: Republicans have no solution about nothing. No clear energy police, no way to solve unemployment problem, no goals about future, no ideas…

They should be marginalized into oblivion.

Get rid of IRS, back to gold standard, end the Fed Reserve system? Where do they come up with these nonsense and unworkable ideas? These should be brought up by the Dems known to be amateurs.

Instead, the Reps are wasting people’s time. Talking stupidities.

Another party needs to come up. The Reps are too dumb to do any good.
7 WangKon936 September 8, 2012 at 12:43 pm: Japanese man goes to Korea and does good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXqWJNOAX8M&feature=player_embedded
8 Brendon Carr September 8, 2012 at 1:00 pm: The “quantitative easing” loosed by Ben Bernanke has produced significant price inflation in the United States and around the world. Inflation is a phenomenon not typically associated with increasing quality of life, as it amounts to a stealth confiscation of wealth.
9 WangKon936 September 8, 2012 at 1:12 pm: Brendon,

What choice do we have when FISCAL policy is gridlocked in Washington? Ideally, issues of economic growth should be handled by a combination of fiscal AND monetary policy. Monetary policy is the only weapon we have right now because the nation’s legislature can’t figure out what to do.

I guess the freeze will thaw at least a little bit at the end of November when one or the other party controls the White House. Then I hope the legislature will stop playing chicken with the economy.
10 jkitchstk September 8, 2012 at 1:18 pm: Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s Fiery Speech Energizes Crowd At Democratic National Convention (Video).
She starts getting into it at 01:30 and the fire continues for 5 more minutes, thus Mitt Romney won’t be spending much advertising dollars in his home state of Michigan where he was raised in Bloomfield Hills.
http://www.carbonated.tv/blogs/jennifer-granholm-fiery-speech-energizes-crowd-at-democratic-national-convention-video
But Mitt Romney does like cars. His cars even get elevators, but the workers get the shaft. Nobody wanted to save the U.S. auto industry, not rich investors or Bain Capital, then in 2009 the calvary came. It’s not only Michigan where 211,000 good-paying car manufacturing jobs were saved by President Obama but also…
Colorado – 9,000 jobs
Virginia – 19,000 jobs
N. Carolina – 25,000 jobs
Wisconsin – 28,000 jobs
Pennsylvania – 34,000 jobs
Florida – 35,000 jobs
Ohio – 150,000 jobs
11 WangKon936 September 8, 2012 at 1:23 pm: jkitchstk,

If I had $100 billion lying around I wouldn’t put it into Detroit or the auto industry. I would put it into Silicon Valley, CA and/or the Tech Triangle in North Carolina. You’ll get more bang for the buck. Higher paying jobs per dollar spent.

What Obama did for the auto industry was pure populist politics IMHO.
12 RolyPoly September 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm: Brendon Carr,
Do you want to go through another man-made disaster called Great Depression?

Inflation is nothing compared to Deflation and then to Economic Depression,where men cannot escape once fall into it.
13 RolyPoly September 8, 2012 at 1:32 pm: Want to sell some apples and pencils at the subway station?

Ben has been studying the Great Depression in detail and he received his doctorate on the subject. So, unless you show me something solid, just close your mouth.

The Republican has no answer.
14 WangKon936 September 8, 2012 at 1:33 pm: Sigh. How do I filter out all of RolyPoly’s comments?
15 RolyPoly September 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm: WangKon936,

America will be the first country where Driveless cars will be made. So, Detroit is needed, just like IBM was needed for Microsoft to come along and be successful.

Google will build the first successful Driverless car in history. It will be as big as the Model-T or the first flight by Wright brothers.

America is on the roll. The best country in the world.
16 r.rac September 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm: one question for you repugnicans especially after this weeks democratic triumph.

how do you propose to get to 270? I want to see viable route (not using Rasmussen polls to get there) because I cant see it and I’ll give you NC and Fla as a bonus

no rhetoric, prove it with numbers
17 WangKon936 September 8, 2012 at 1:44 pm: The election will be won in OH, VA and PA. The DNP has PA. OH and VA are toss-ups, but are slightly leaning blue.
18 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm: #1

On what date does the beginning of fall fall? In the West, it falls on September 21st, or thereabouts. Do Koreans have a fixed date for the onset of autumn? Or does the lunar calendar rule, with a shifting date?

Up until very recently whenever you asked a Korean to name a distinctive characteristic of their country, one of the answers would invariably be that Korea has four distinct seasons.

This is not very significant if you come from the northern parts of North America or Australia or NZ – as they also have four distinctive seasons – but significant if you look at the weather in other Asian countries such as Singapore/Phillipines.

*There is no set date for the beginning and end of any season – and weather, in Korea as elsewhere in the world, has not been adhering to expected patterns of late. That said, Korea has 4 season, more or less divided into about 3 months each.

Fall – September~end of November.

However, if you want to go by the Lunar year –

AUTUMN EQUINOX: The first day of the Season of Autumn.

In the northern hemisphere: SEPTEMBER 22 (the Sun crosses the Equator moving southward).

In the southern hemisphere: MARCH 20 (the Sun crosses the Equator moving northward).
19 WangKon936 September 8, 2012 at 2:46 pm: RolyPoly,

I said that money would have been better spent in Silicon Valley. Where is Google headquartered? I would rather have five Googles than one GM.
20 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 2:47 pm: p.s. I actually think Korea has 6 distinct seasons…

Winter
HwangSa (황사)
Spring
Summer
Monsoon
Fall
21 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 2:49 pm: Want to sell some apples and pencils at the subway station? ….. just close your mouth.

That would be new. I have never seen apples or pencils sold at any subway station in Korea.
22 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 2:51 pm: Teacher: Hey student! Why are you late?

Student: Sorry teacher. I had to go to the subway station first before coming to school to buy a pencil. Whilst I was there I grabbed an apple for you.

Teacher: Oh, thats sweet. I wish a shop would open up next to the school that sold pencils.
23 jefferyhodges September 8, 2012 at 3:10 pm: Jakgani, thanks, but I already know the solar calendar (what you inadvertently called the lunar calendar), so I realize the significance of the equinoxes.

What I was asking was about the date that Koreans assign for the onset of autumn. I presume that it’s a shifting date, on account of the lunar calendar, but I’d still like to know how it’s determined.

Jeffery Hodges

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24 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 4:18 pm: I purchased a great electric steamer from (Ebay UK) and it finally arrived.

http://dok.do/oY29oC

It is great for 40,000won (included shipping).

I find it cooks chicken, steak, mandoo, dokboki, vegetables, etc – much tastier more moist and probably healthier than my stove top – oven cooking.

there were heaps on Ebay for sale from the USA – which I didn’t want – because they’re 120volts – but the one from the UK is 220volts (same as Korea) and plugs straight in and works excellently with just a 3,000 won universal adaptor for the power socket.

I just wish I could get a Yonanas icecream maker – http://dok.do/HnFXFF
http://dok.do/skZBpE
from the UK (220volt) but it seems only the USA are selling them at 120volts.

It turns frozen fruit into delicious non-dairy icecream with hardly any calories and heaps of fiber.
25 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 6:08 pm: Don’t leave your smartphone is a taxi – http://dok.do/jfAK5t
26 hamel September 8, 2012 at 9:14 pm: On what date does the beginning of fall fall? In the West, it falls on September 21st, or thereabouts.

HJH, my friend, you are misinformed, or else you do presume to speak for all of “the West.”

See here now.
27 brier September 8, 2012 at 9:39 pm: Dr Hodges, the 24 seasonal divisions of year calls the start of fall Ipchu which fell on 7 August this year. Its based on the solar calendar as far as I can tell.
28 Arghaeri September 8, 2012 at 9:57 pm: Australia is in the east…
29 Jakgani September 8, 2012 at 10:44 pm: My Buddhist calendar last year said September 14th.

This year it says September 23rd.
30 mickster September 8, 2012 at 11:55 pm: a
31 mickster September 8, 2012 at 11:57 pm: Sorry about that.
32 RolyPoly September 9, 2012 at 12:20 am: I said this before and I say it again “Moon JaeIn is the next president of Korea”.

I am not making a guess or a subjective wish. By looking at various facts and former election comparison, Moon by far is the most strong candidate.

PGH will only gain by 20% of votes. Her 49% number is just lies propagated by Jolla Commies, so as to bring their side to come to vote. Before Rho MuHyen became president, Lee HoiChang had tremendous lead, which was again propagated by Jolla Commes.

Moon is the next president of Korea.
33 Railwaycharm September 9, 2012 at 2:06 am: @6 The plan is to take natural resources out of ground. The slave masters A.K.A the Dems want to “keep you in chains” and take money from “the rich”. The problem with this caper is you Dems don’t see socialism for what it is, slavery.
GM should have gone through bankruptcy. Obie was pandering to his base. GM produces shit cars and thanks to Obie, they will continue to do so. You fuckers who hate people who have worked hard to have money are evil. You English teachers should understand this concept:
Johnny gets an A on his paper. Suzy doesn’t give a fuck and doesn’t even try. Suzy get’s an F. To make things “fair” we will drop Johnny’s grade to a B so Suzy can get a D.
There was a time when Dems were slightly palatable, now they are just fucking evil.
34 pawikirogii 石鵝 September 9, 2012 at 3:39 am: wow! psy has gone over a 120 million hits at youtube. kim ki duk just won the top prize at venice and the japanese are starting to go nuts about korean slights.

korea has arrived.
35 RolyPoly September 9, 2012 at 4:12 am: Instead of listening to Teaparty fockers, let me introduce Paul Krugman, MIT professor on economics and a Nobel prize winner.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/natural-born-recovery-killers/

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

He explains, just like me, Obeme is not doing enough and Reps are idiots.
36 RolyPoly September 9, 2012 at 4:22 am: Railwaycharm,
GM has gone through a bankruptcy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Chapter_11_reorganization

If GM goes down, suppliers will go down as well. Detroit will become a gigantic slum, a sort of like “Escape from New York” and those hoodlums will ride to nearby states to rob, steal and kill.

Is this America you want?

Even Romney would keep the company alive.
37 redwhitedude September 9, 2012 at 4:38 am: RolyPoly,
Detroit IS a giant slum. They’ve been like that since the Japanese imports decimated the auto industry back in the 70s and 80s. All the new car plants are being set up in other parts of the country like the south. Detroit is supposedly the poorest city in the USA.
38 redwhitedude September 9, 2012 at 4:39 am: Obama, and Romney. What’s the point both of them are buffoons. It’s going to be business as usual.
39 pawikirogii 石鵝 September 9, 2012 at 6:03 am: it takes an indian reporter to get it right. japan is the reason japan has problems w its neighbors.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/rajan-menon/rocks-with-roles_b_1867265.html
40 iMe September 9, 2012 at 6:48 am: RolyPoly @36

“If GM goes down, suppliers will go down as well. Detroit will become a gigantic slum, a sort of like “Escape from New York” and those hoodlums will ride to nearby states to rob, steal and kill.”

It’s obvious you haven’t been to America in awhile. If you do decide to visit, stay the hell away from St. Louis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Memphis, Atlanta, Oakland, Stockton, Michael Moore’s Flint and the most dangerous slum of them all: Detroit.
41 iMe September 9, 2012 at 6:51 am: Railwaycharm@33

Great, GREAT analogy! Bravo!
42 iMe September 9, 2012 at 7:03 am: Sorry for posting 3 in a row but I just wanted to add:

The problem with these socialist liberals is that they don’t want to drop Johnny’s grade to a B and raise Suzy’s to a D. They want everyone to get a C because they honestly believe it’s “fair”. And if Johnny works his ass off because he has goals in life? Too bad. They’ll punish and sacrifice his ass just so Suzy can keep getting her C’s. Because to them Johnny didn’t earn his A’s. They all had something to do with Johnny’s grades and so they can all just take it away. Johnny should shut up and be happy with his C’s.

Goddamn liberals, man…
43 jefferyhodges September 9, 2012 at 7:27 am: Thanks, Hamel, I had forgotten about Australia’s seasons despite living there for 2.5 years. Perhaps the reversal of the seasons kept me confused, but maybe it’s just my poor attention skills or my bad memory.

I’ve long thought that the equinoxes and solstices should signal the middle of the seasons, so Australia’s system makes a bit more sense to me than that of the US.

Jeffery Hodges

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44 jefferyhodges September 9, 2012 at 7:31 am: Brier (#27), thanks for the information. Interesting that autumn can start on August 7.

Jeffery Hodges

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45 jefferyhodges September 9, 2012 at 7:34 am: Jakgani, thanks for that — is the Buddhist calendar lunar?

(I suppose I could look this up for myself, so why am I bothering everyone else about these question . . . other than laziness.)

Jeffery Hodges

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46 Railwaycharm September 9, 2012 at 8:12 am: @36 The issue is the unions are out of control. The company should been allowed to fail and restructure without the union stranglehold. Why are the auto makers in the southeast so successful? NO FUCKING UNION THUGS.
47 Sonagi September 9, 2012 at 9:56 am: I’ve long thought that the equinoxes and solstices should signal the middle of the seasons, so Australia’s system makes a bit more sense to me than that of the US.

March 22 as the middle of spring/fall? June 22 as the middle of summer/winter? Average land temperatures peak and trough about a month after the solstices and water temps even later. Meteorological seasons are determined by temperatures.
48 thekorean September 9, 2012 at 10:11 am: I finally put in enough $$ in my Korean bank account such that I can actually buy some Korean music online. The first purchase? 물 좀 주소, a tribute album to the great Han Dae-soo. It is an album featuring 12 indie bands remaking Han’s iconic song, 물 좀 주소. One song, twelve styles. It is absolutely fantastic.
49 αβγδε September 9, 2012 at 12:12 pm: Thanks for the post about Kim Kideok winning top honors at Venice.

I’ve been out of the loop in terms of interest for Kdramas and K films that I have lost all track.

My top 3 fave films by Kim Kideok:

1) Samaria. Somehow, a very cozy film. Perfect for Autumn, as the weather turns to cold. I like how Kim is able to make a moving car (the very end scene) seem like a duckling struggling without its parent.

2) The Ilse. Dripping wet with symbolism. All the intellectual proclivities of a painter (that Kim was) on display here — the hooks, the water, the feminity…the pubic hair.

3) 3-Iron. No dialogue here. Beautiful, slow to mid-tempo film. Slick and clean without being gaudy.
50 Jakgani September 9, 2012 at 12:16 pm: made a short vid of my cat (Jakgani) this morning with a mouse.

My cat can never make friends with other animals -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjPX0YnSPRQ&feature=g-upl

she just wants it to stay away from her.
51 Brendon Carr September 9, 2012 at 12:47 pm: Detroit will become a gigantic slum…

Someone hasn’t been reading detroitblog.org.
52 hamel September 9, 2012 at 1:02 pm: Brendon, a friend of mine swears that he heard you on Eagle FM radio the other day. Is this true?
53 αβγδε September 9, 2012 at 1:12 pm: I’m occupied a lot lately with playing music. I’ve been toying with my electric guitar and digital amp. Been tinkering and saving a lot of particular tones that emulate the sounds of various classic metal and rock songs here and there, and saving a lot of tabs, and will make at least one tablature for a song that isn’t tabbed out well at ultimate-guitar.com.

Before electric, my approach to guitar on the accoustic was that of chord and accompaniment, that includes a lot of arpeggios and finger picking. With electric and its many modes of reverb and distortion I’ve come to appreciate the pick and the single note a lot (or double note or power chord)–a new world of guitar has opened up for me. One of my favorite buys in the past month.
54 Jakgani September 9, 2012 at 6:14 pm: Damn NoIsY construction workers behind my apartment building away as NOISY as they can 6:00am ~ 7:00pm seven days a week!!
55 Brendon Carr September 9, 2012 at 7:21 pm: Brendon, a friend of mine swears that he heard you on Eagle FM radio the other day. Is this true?

Was I recognized by voice, name, or topic?
56 Nomad September 9, 2012 at 8:49 pm: RolyPoly,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw
57 hoju_saram September 9, 2012 at 9:09 pm: Nomad,

So Detroit is poor because it has had Democrat mayors? Bullshit. Dig a little deeper – the reason it’s so poor is because it is populated by low socio-economic folk. Same reason the top 10 poorest US states (all Republican bastions) are the way they are.
58 Sperwer September 9, 2012 at 9:32 pm: @57

Sigh. How do you suppose it got that way? Not saying that it’s all due to incompetent govt., but I lived there between 1957 and 1964, and it was then a very affluent city.
59 iMe September 9, 2012 at 11:51 pm: @58
We’ll be saying that about America in 10 years.
60 Railwaycharm September 10, 2012 at 2:52 am: @ 57 that same strata of people were extremely successful before the liberals and the unions got their hooks in them. Businesses fail when their costs overcome their revenues. You can not blame that on Bush or the Republicans you socialist douche bag.
61 EnricoPallazo September 10, 2012 at 4:35 am: Has anyone seen any mention in the Korean media of the fact that Kim Ki Deok’s film didn’t actually “win” the top prize at Venice, but was rather gifted the award because the arcane rules of the festival prevent one film (The Master) from winning too many awards, like some kind of socialist Little League.

Just curious if that bit of context will be conveniently ignored in favor of the Korea Is Best narrative.
62 RolyPoly September 10, 2012 at 7:19 am: Nomad,
Long time no see.
Thank you for the video.

However, I do think differently. I lived in New York and you can say the same thing about Harlem area that were said in this video.

What this video left out is the decline of the US auto industry. If the auto industry were alive, Detroit would have been still the wealthiest city in America.

Then, why did the US auto industry has gone down? Japanese cars. And, politicians secretly supporting Japanese cars. Yes, they took money. Starting from Reagan on down. Hugh bribes.

If they had supported the US auto industry, GM would not have gone through what it is going through. Strong union and all that. Politicians rig the game.

Japan paid these crooks.
63 RolyPoly September 10, 2012 at 7:24 am: Free competition? There is no such thing.

Every country on the face of this earth fixes the game. Each wants their people to do well. The governments should be doing it.

However, in America, the auto industry has been left to be raped by other countries, especially Japan’s, auto industry.

Why is that? Can you cite another industry that has been raped by other country?

I can’t.
64 Railwaycharm September 10, 2012 at 7:51 am: @63 Nissan has come out with a statement that they will no longer build cars in Japan. They are dealing with their labor issues correctly. GM can not be competitive with their high union costs. Government is not the answer. It is simple business.
65 RolyPoly September 10, 2012 at 7:53 am: Maybe there is racist envy involved.

When you talk Detroit, I see the majority to be black. And, non-white whites, like Italian, the Polish and gypsies.

May be the real white got scared by these non-whites making big in America, getting paid 50K to 100K with high school education.

They may have been envious. So, they f***ed Detroit.
66 jefferyhodges September 10, 2012 at 9:20 am: There’s an article by Chris Lee on Newsweek‘s blog, The Daily Beast, reporting about the Wachowski broth . . . uh, siblings’ new move, Cloud Atlas, and here’s a passage relevant to a scruple that MH Blogmeister Bob had about Caucasian actors playing Asian characters:

“The film is a visual feast, a work of colossal ambition and massive scope that explodes boundaries even if it can, at times, try audience members’ patience with sensory overload. Chalk that up, in part, to Cloud Atlas’s whiplash crosscuttings between six intermingled plotlines and the deployment of nearly a dozen lead actors (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Keith David, Hugo Weaving, and South Korean newcomer Doona Bae among them) playing a bunch of different roles in a variety of outlandish prosthetic get-ups. Black people go white; Caucasians go Korean; Hanks wears a series of incredibly bad wigs. Adapted from David Mitchell’s bestselling 2004 novel, it all combines for a viscerally overwhelming experience, a grand meditation on human interconnectivity, that — love it or hate it — is quite unlike anything else in cinema.”

As I suggested in reply to Robert’s scruple, the reason white actors play Koreans is that the novel has characters reincarnated as racially different people despite maintaining the same identity . . . if that makes sense. But not only Caucasians go on a bender; so do blacks.

Anyway, to read the entire article, go here.

Jeffery Hodges

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67 hoju_saram September 10, 2012 at 10:57 am: @ 57 that same strata of people were extremely successful before the liberals and the unions got their hooks in them. Businesses fail when their costs overcome their revenues. You can not blame that on Bush or the Republicans you socialist douche bag.

Who’s blaming it on Bush and Republicans?

Watch the video: it’s made by some blithe turd making light of other people’s misery and blaming it on liberals. Detroit is a shithole regardless of Dem and Republican policies, which you’d realize if you had a clue.
68 dogbertt September 10, 2012 at 12:54 pm: SoCal lifeguards fired due to love of K-pop!

http://laist.com/2012/09/07/lifeguards_oppa_gangnam_style.php
69 Railwaycharm September 10, 2012 at 1:10 pm: @67 Oh, I have a clue. You are a “mate” who has no clue. You are a socialist Australian who has no business telling Americans how they should run their country. America had the courage to tell England to fuck-off, your people are toady cocksuckers who will go to any port in a storm. By-the-way, your treatment of the aborigines is your worst kept secret.
70 Robert Koehler September 10, 2012 at 1:29 pm: Allow me to translate for my fellow Yank, hoju: He politely disagrees with your take on Detroit’s woes, and suggests that perhaps if presented sufficient facts, you may come to acquire a more comprehensive view of the situation.
71 Brendon Carr September 10, 2012 at 1:49 pm: When you talk Detroit, I see the majority to be black. And, non-white whites, like Italian, the Polish and gypsies.

Where do the Irish and the Jews fall into your classification system, RolyPoly? White or non-white? It seems your system only anticipates that the English, Germans and French are white. Are the Spanish white? Greeks? What about Russians?

I once saw a book entitled “Koreans Are White”. Presumably Yuna Kim and Smoothie King would approve. Are Koreans white? Or should they simply strive to Be White?

By your classification system, it appears ol’ Brendon is as white as Lieawatha herselff, Lizzie Warren, is Cherokee.
72 Jakgani September 10, 2012 at 1:54 pm: How do you suppose it got that way? Not saying that it’s all due to incompetent govt., but I lived there between 1957 and 1964, and it was then a very affluent city.

The Detroit MSA had a gross metropolitan product of $197.7 billion in 2010

Pretty good for a place with only 5.2 million people.

The city of Detroit has made efforts to lure the region’s growth companies downtown with advantages such as a wireless Internet zone, business tax incentives, entertainment, an International Riverfront, and residential high rises.
73 jefferyhodges September 10, 2012 at 2:17 pm: BC, White Russians are white; the other Russians are red. But that’s all history . . .

Jeffery Hodges

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74 Wedge September 10, 2012 at 2:41 pm: Detroit is slowly returning to a “12 Monkeys”-like state of nature due to successive corrupt Democratic administrations trying utopian social policies on the city since the 1960s. Those who could fled to the suburbs decades ago.

Still, I hear from buddies that Michiganders received a new chance by shitcanning their previous Canadian lawyer governor. States can always rebound if they return to free market principles.
75 Sperwer September 10, 2012 at 2:55 pm: @72 NB the inclusion of the metropolitan area, i.e. the suburbs (probably now going out as far as Ann Arbor and UofM) in those numbers. The city itself, except for governmentally-independent enclaves like Hamtramack and other small pcokets like Greektown and the area around Wayne State U is a desolate urban wilderness. Last time I went to look at it the rather grand house my first generation multimillionaire (when dollars were real money) (and by Roly Poly’s reckoning “non-white”) immigrant grandfather built in the Chandler Park area was a fortified crack den.
76 gbnhj September 10, 2012 at 5:24 pm: SoCal lifeguards fired due to love of K-pop!

I’ll go you one better: SoCal-inspired clothing company Hollister ends up with egg on its face while opening its first store in Korea, after its lifeguard-style models start mocking customers and give them the finger during photo ops!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/09/hollister-model-twitter-south-korea-racist_n_1868342.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

http://www.koreabang.com/2012/pictures/hollister-models-make-fun-of-asians-netizens-enraged.html
77 hoju_saram September 10, 2012 at 6:15 pm: Allow me to translate for my fellow Yank, hoju: He politely disagrees with your take on Detroit’s woes, and suggests that perhaps if presented sufficient facts, you may come to acquire a more comprehensive view of the situation.

That gave me a laugh, thanks Robert.

Railway, I’m not telling you how to run your country, merely making an observation on the woes of a city I’ve visited during my jaunts in your good country.

On your other point of cowardice, perhaps you’d like to elaborate?Australia has never hidden behind anyone, as far as I’m aware. My own grandfather was fighting the Japanese, for example, two years before your boys entered the war. We also fought in Vietnam, Iraq 1 and 2, Afganistan and Korea, not to mention WW1, where we lost 200,000 young men – all volunteers.

As for the remark on our treatment of Aborigines being “our worst-kept secret”, I’m pretty sure it’s well-documented, out in the open, and, unfortunately, still unresolved. It might even be as bad as your treatment of Africans, Mexicans and Native Americans. Maybe we could swap stories and cry together sometime?
78 hoju_saram September 10, 2012 at 6:47 pm: Detroit is slowly returning to a “12 Monkeys”-like state of nature due to successive corrupt Democratic administrations trying utopian social policies on the city since the 1960s. Those who could fled to the suburbs decades ago.

Still, I hear from buddies that Michiganders received a new chance by shitcanning their previous Canadian lawyer governor. States can always rebound if they return to free market principles.

I look forward to a good tough-love Republican Mr. Fix-it solving all of Detroit’s ills and returning it to a state of utopia, while doves fly out of your arse into a rainbow waterfall to an Enya soundtrack.
79 Robert Koehler September 10, 2012 at 7:28 pm: Not sure about that Enya soundtrack. Enya is for hippies and tree huggers. Ted Nugent, perhaps. Come to think of it, Ted Nugent is from Detroit. Make him mayor.
80 hoju_saram September 10, 2012 at 7:41 pm: Excellent choice.
81 Q September 10, 2012 at 11:48 pm: Foxconn won the 1st place in the world’s seven worst jobs, displacing emergency Fukushima power plant technicianin to the second place:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120904/worlds-seven-worst-jobs

Personal chef to Kim Jong-Il won the fourth and elephant sperm collector got the seventh!
82 hamel September 10, 2012 at 11:59 pm: Koehler: Enya is friggin Irish, man. How dare you impugn her!
83 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 1:00 am: Sad observation over the weekend. Found myself at McDonalds and Del Taco (both fast food joints) over the weekend in the lower middle class neighborhood of Anaheim. So many fat people. More so than I could ever recall. I live in an upper middle class neighborhood and fast food joints there have thinner people. People in this country are getting fatter and this does not bode well for the future of the nation.

Poorer people are getting fatter because cheaper food is fattening. Very fattening. With healthcare eventually and apparently being universal, does my tax dollars have to go to these people who can’t manage their weight? Being fat is worse than smoking when it comes to health complexities later in life. Why should my tax dollars support their inability to exercise and eat right?
84 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 1:09 am: IF… we are going to offer universal healthcare, then we need to lay down some ground rules first:

1) Manage a reasonable height to weight ratio, unless a doctor says you have unique genetic predisposition to weight gain.
2) No smoking.

If none of the two simple prerequisites are not met, then their cheaper government healthcare backed insurance should be revoked. It’s fine if you don’t observe these things, but you better be paying for your own insurance!

Seriously…. if healthy and health conscious people like me are going to use healthcare less than these people who engage in high risk activities, but pay more into the system, I just want to make sure my money is used efficiently.
85 Brendon Carr September 11, 2012 at 1:10 am: I don’t know. Enya is pretty good music. I used to hear her pretty consistently on South China Seas.
86 sojufan_5944 September 11, 2012 at 1:16 am: #84, great comment
87 jk6411 September 11, 2012 at 1:30 am: WangKon @#84,

Completely agree with you.
(and what about druggies?)
88 jk6411 September 11, 2012 at 1:32 am: (and homo’s?)
89 Railwaycharm September 11, 2012 at 1:33 am: “On your other point of cowardice, perhaps you’d like to elaborate?Australia has never hidden behind anyone, as far as I’m aware.”
You are correct, you have been excellent English vassals.
90 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 1:40 am: jk6411,

I dunno…. I’m just a public policy hack going by casual observations, albeit intelligent observations. I don’t have all the answers. I’m also sensitive to people’s privacy, so maybe in the beginning we don’t bud too much into people’s lives.

However, being overweight and smoking are the big ones.
91 CactusMcHarris September 11, 2012 at 1:50 am: #85,

What, am I seeing the tree-hugging, New-Age side of Uncle B? Good lord, next he’ll be advocating for free love.
92 CactusMcHarris September 11, 2012 at 1:52 am: #88,

If you’re going to use slurs, at least punctuate them properly, i.e. ‘homos’, not ‘homo’s’.

Bringing it up in that context makes you look like an asshole – please prove me wrong.
93 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 1:56 am: CactusMcHarris,

On the flip side, unprotected anal sex is a risky health behavior.
94 DLBarch September 11, 2012 at 2:19 am: My own view is that ALL Americans are entitled to health care BECAUSE they’re Americans.

Fuckin’-A!

But since this is a Korea-centered blog, let me ask whether those same folks willing to throw some of their fellow Americans under the bus think that Korea should do this same with its own “fatties, fiends, and fags.”

Not that they’re bigots or anything.

DLB
95 jk6411 September 11, 2012 at 2:21 am: Sorry for upsetting gays.
I’m not saying we should ban gay sex.
Just unprotected gay sex.
Should’ve been more specific.
96 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 2:28 am: DLB,

I’m an amateur economist. I’m just calling it how we can afford it. I don’t care if people are fat. I do care if fat people are wasting my tax dollars. If they are wasting MY money, then they make it MY business.

If fat Koreans are wasting the money of healthy Koreans, then I’d call bull sh*t on that too.
97 CactusMcHarris September 11, 2012 at 2:29 am: #92,

I’ll leave the specifics to you, but I would imagine so.

#94,

You’re ignorant, too? How about unprotected sex, regardless of gender?
98 jk6411 September 11, 2012 at 2:35 am: CMH,

Okay, you win.

Just fat people, smokers, and druggies then.
99 Q September 11, 2012 at 2:39 am: Be nice to people of high BMI…

http://youtu.be/K8uRfuyUER4
100 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 2:48 am: CactusMcHarris,

Anal sex is significantly more riskier than vaginal sex. Gay men engage in anal sex far more frequently than hetrosexual couples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_sex#Health_risks

The net-net is that the anus wall is only one cell thick and using it for it’s non-intended purposes ruptures a lot of small capillaries, thus exposing the body’s blood supply to all kinds of crazy pathogens, including the HIV virus. This is the main reason why the gay community got hit with the HIV virus first in the early 80′s before a lot of hetrosexuals started to get it.

Now, for the record, gay people are tax payers, generally fit individuals and high income earners. I don’t think they should be restricted in any way from healthcare. Plus, they don’t make up enough of the nationwide population where their specific health practices (or lack of thereof) should meaningfully affect healthcare policy and budget.
101 dokdoforever September 11, 2012 at 3:20 am: I hope Hollister goes under
Hollister Models engaged in racist mockery of Koreans:
http://www.koreabang.com/2012/pictures/hollister-models-make-fun-of-asians-netizens-enraged.html
102 pawikirogii 石鵝 September 11, 2012 at 3:29 am: ‘Poorer people are getting fatter because cheaper food is fattening…Why should my tax dollars support their inability to exercise and eat right? ‘ wang

maybe a wealthy person like yourself could help create a better economic environment in which the poor could afford to buy healthier food.
103 dokdoforever September 11, 2012 at 3:42 am: As for fat people and health care – give people insurance discounts for improving their health.
104 dokdoforever September 11, 2012 at 3:48 am: In regards to Pawi’s comment – I’ve got to wonder if American food manufacturers aren’t responding to an incentive to persuade individuals to overconsume their products. It’s probably easier to persuade someone to eat too much of something, than to persuade someone to switch foods or brands to your product. Hence, the larger portion and container sizes. Or maybe they’re trying to save money on container materials. In any case the outcome is far from ideal. We need to change the incentives structure in some way.
105 Sonagi September 11, 2012 at 6:13 am: Poorer people are getting fatter because cheaper food is fattening.

Not quite. It is cheaper processed food that is fattening. Bone-in chicken parts, eggs, cabbage, onions, and many other common produce items are affordable. The problem is that you have to cook them and without a good spice rack, they’re not flavorful to Americans used to eating packaged foods jacked up with flavor additives. Junk food is a narcotic of the poor.

@Robert Koehler: Ted Nugent? Pffft. Bob Seger was the best Motor City rocker.
106 YangachiBastardo September 11, 2012 at 6:23 am: Robert Koehler: Ted Nugent? Pffft. Bob Seger was the best Motor City rocker

Disagree…it was definitely these guys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_Approach
107 slim September 11, 2012 at 6:50 am: I’m going with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufjan_Stevens
108 YangachiBastardo September 11, 2012 at 6:50 am: Actually AIDS recipients, druggies, drunks, fatsos etc. are a net positive for the national budget as what they cost in terms of healthcare is nothing comparing to what they would cost if they lived to an average of 80+ years like it’s now customary for developed economies citizens.

What is really bankrupting the Western world (and soon East Asia) is all the costs associated with old age (social security, nursing homes, medical expenses etc.)
109 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 6:54 am: Sonagi,

Yes, that’s what I meant. Cheaper processed food. I saw Food, Inc. too!
110 hoju_saram September 11, 2012 at 7:15 am: Railway,

At least we didn’t get saved by the French. Viva le revolution!
111 pawikirogii 石鵝 September 11, 2012 at 7:19 am: and not to attack wang but i wonder if he objected to the tax funded bailout of wall street, him being a broker and all. wealthy people get
government handouts too.

ps i can’t syand processed food.
112 hoju_saram September 11, 2012 at 7:28 am: Wangkon,

As an amatuer economist ou should check out the systems that give the best bang for buck, and they’re hybrid systems, not universal systems and not user-pay systems. Check out the German model. Free market models do not necessarily work the best in systems where there are lots of captive clients and opportunities for monopoly (health) and public clinics and fixed wages for health professionals can introduce competition and drive down costs. The examples are out there. The only concern I’d have is that, as you say, there are a lot of Americans in extremely poor health, particularly african Americans. But I still think a hybrid system would be the most efficient in terms of $ spent.
113 YangachiBastardo September 11, 2012 at 7:50 am: Hoju:

In all fairness the American system is ridiculously expensive but the quality of medicine not to mention hospital infrastructure is vastly superior to Europe

I’ve seen better hospitals in Thailand than in France/Germany and even Norway.

Europeans tend to live longer cos they enjoy a way less self-destructive lifestyle.

How’s the system in Australia ?

PS

Belated congrats for the heir… enjoy it while they’re still small and sweet: it won’t be long before you and missus will be plagued by requests for 200 $ sneakers and endless curfew time discussions
114 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 8:41 am: Holy crap…

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/news-analysis/obesity-accounts-for-21-of-us-healthcare-costs.html

Obesity accounts for 21% of U.S. Healthcare costs.

Two ways to attack it. Make food healthier via regs and fines towards food companies and two… a fax tax:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmaris/2012/04/19/is-a-tax-on-obesity-in-americas-future/

America’s population is getting too fat. 1/3 of Americans are classified as obese. They had to replace the boats in “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland because 2000′s Americans are heavier than 1960′s Americans… It’s getting out of hand ppl… and it’s costing us normal ppl too much $$$.
115 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 8:45 am: Yangachi,

I look at your manner in the following manner:

1) One must weigh dying sooner with paying taxes longer for a net gain.

2) If a fat person gets type 2 diabetes and essentially becomes a ward of the state, via universal healthcare, at age 35, then he becomes a net liability to the tax base.

3) If that same person is not obese and works until he’s 65, gets sick for 10 years and dies at 75, then that’s better then being dependent on the state from ages 35 to 55 or 65.
116 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 8:45 am: I mean I look at your view in the following manner.
117 αβγδε September 11, 2012 at 9:42 am: If you took away the Coca Colas, the Mountain Dews, and Pepsis, American wouldn’t be obese. And that’s even if you kept the burgers and fries. And the pizzas. I extrapolate this only by the fact that I can get fat drinking soda regularly but not eating the fries, burgers, or pizza without the soda.

One 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew probably contains more calories than I need in a day.
118 αβγδε September 11, 2012 at 9:44 am: *not by
119 Railwaycharm September 11, 2012 at 10:25 am: @110, that is a stretch! If we sat out WWII you would be speaking Japanese and your lords German.
120 Railwaycharm September 11, 2012 at 10:32 am: @115. You show your true evil liberal colors. People are just numbers to you. What happens if the elderly fall ill? They are just liabilities and you let them die like they do in the U.K., Hoju’s shining city on the hill.
121 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 11:26 am: RC,

I am not a liberal. I am a moderate conservative and I think of things humanistically AND economically.

Think of the tax base as a canteen of limited capacity. There is only so much water in it. I wish to preserve what’s in that canteen as much as possible FOR the old people, the children, the handicapped and whoever else cannot help themselves due to old age, young age or genetic disability. People, through their personal choices, who choose to be fat, CAN help themselves… BUT they take away resources from those who really need it. This is not right.

I believe it’s a sin to NOT help those cannot help themselves, however I DO believe that it IS a sin to help those who CAN help themselves.
122 Railwaycharm September 11, 2012 at 11:33 am: @121, First they came for the corpulent, then the homosexuals……. Universal healthcare is unsustainable. We need to get back to liberty and freedom. What you are proposing is slavery.
123 RolyPoly September 11, 2012 at 12:26 pm: WangKon936,

Don’t use a christian concept (sin) when you want to go Nazi about this issue and tell others to how to live.

You just concentrate on your life. You are not smart enough to tell other people how to live.

Unless you want to be a Democrat.

Adam sinned and God restricted the earth’s resource. Since then, people must fight to get what they want. Wars, Nazis, Communism, Capitalism…People fight. They form herds and attack other herds(nationalism and racism).

Only way one can be free from these animal instinct is to come to Jesus. And, have Him rule your life. He will lead you to His Kingdom, which is forever.

Everlasting Grace.
124 RolyPoly September 11, 2012 at 12:34 pm: Talking about a war, we may be close to the war I have been predicting for last ten years.

http://www.dailian.co.kr/news/news_view.htm?id=305718

If not this year, the war will take place soon. China is arrogant and Japan is stupid. It takes two to tango.
125 WangKon936 September 11, 2012 at 1:16 pm: RC,

I assume you know how to balance a checkbook? That’s all I’m advocating.
126 Railwaycharm September 11, 2012 at 1:23 pm: @125 If you knew how to balance a checkbook you would run from the socialism that you are defending. You are not very bright.
127 RolyPoly September 11, 2012 at 1:37 pm: The curious case of Comrade Xi,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/world/asia/xi-jinping-chinas-presumptive-new-leader-mysteriously-absent.html?pagewanted=all
128 RolyPoly September 11, 2012 at 1:42 pm: The first thing that came into my mind was that CIA got him for not showing up for the meeting with Ms. Clinton, aka Hillary.

There may be still some old-school field agents at CIA. Resourceful enough to kill Xi secretly, chop the body up and throw them to the river. And, disappear as if nothing happened.

We need some field agents that can do that.
129 hoju_saram September 11, 2012 at 4:44 pm: Yangachi,

I’ve never seen the inside of a European hospital, to be fair, but I’ve been on the wrong end of American healthcare and it wasn’t pleasant. Hard for me to measure the Australian system against much else, but I just had a bub and didn’t pay a cent for the birth process. We had 5 weeks of classes (1 day a week, 2 hours per session – not essential by any stretch) run by the hospital, and then the actually birth, which was a little bit complicated because bub wouldn’t come out. At delivery there were 5 people in the room, the midwife, assistant, two doctors. Again, I have no experience with having babies anywhere else, but we didn’t lack for anything, it was clean and professional. The wife stayed 3 days in comfort, couldn’t complain, and we had two follow up visits at our home by midwives to check on thing like the bub’s health, my wife’s breastfeeding technique, etc. We went to the clinic again today (10 days) for bub’s check-up. Very professional and courteous. There are options for private hospitals for those who pay extra where the care is supposedly much better, and some people opt for that, but I was impressed with the public system, and more importantly so was the wife.

I’ve heard that access can be an issue in some cases (when I tore my ACL I was put on a waiting list for 1 year), but my other encounters have been good.

I’m happy that my taxes pay for this sort of stuff.

I do have issue with health care for people who don’t look after themselves though, like Wangkon mentioned. If I had it my way patients would be screened for health issues when they visited a GP, and in cases where it was deemed that they were unhealthy through poor personal choices (i.e., they were obese or addicted to drugs) they’d pay out of their pocket. But for birth, disability, and other instances of misfortune like cancer, I think my medicare levy goes to good use and I’m happy to pay it.

And thanks for the well-wishes. The little one is doing great (video for her grandparents in Canada), hopefully she doesn’t grow up too fast
130 Brendon Carr September 11, 2012 at 5:18 pm: I’ve heard that access can be an issue in some cases (when I tore my ACL I was put on a waiting list for 1 year), but my other encounters have been good.

And you don’t see a one-year wait for surgery to be a material disadvantage?
131 hoju_saram September 11, 2012 at 10:26 pm: And you don’t see a one-year wait for surgery to be a material disadvantage?

The ACL surgery was technically optional. The doctors I saw – the first one in the US, where I hurt it (they turned me away at first, until I could show them insurance papers – an adventure in a blizzard that further damaged my knee) – all said I could get surgery or let it heal on its own. I put myself on the waiting list, but it healed fine.

Of course, if I really wanted to get immediate surgery I could have paid for it. Also – and here’s the critical part – if I want comprehensive coverage that includes immediate surgery for everything I could opt for private coverage, which is a payer system that costs a little bit more but has added benefits.

Now I’m earning over 100k I’ve considered this, but I still think the public system is good enough for my needs.
132 padaajoshi September 11, 2012 at 10:42 pm: Jeffrey, I was wondering the same thing. So, I asked the waitress of the takalbi restuarant “What is the first day of summer?” because I wanted to see what a Korean would say. She grabbed a calender and brought it over to the table. Summer equinox, June 21st, it said.

They do have their own system for determining the seasons, and it’s a bit different than the ones determined by the angle of the Earth’s rays. But good luck finding anyone who can tell you anything about it.
133 padaajoshi September 11, 2012 at 10:45 pm: RolyPoly: I’m looking forward to the day that driverless cars are invented. That will be the day that all Koreans stop driving, and trying to parallel park as well.
134 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 12:08 am: RC,

Defending socialism? I’m just trying to live with reality. Nationalized healthcare is here to stay. The Republicans probably won’t have enough after November to overturn it.

I’ve voted GOP in every election since 1992.
135 mickster September 12, 2012 at 12:13 am: Summer equanox? Must be summer solstice.
136 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 12:19 am: This… sounds like a very Japanese thing to do:

http://goldsea.com/Text/index.php?id=13566

Koreans tend to commit suicide if they felt like they have failed personally. The Japanese tend to commit suicide if they felt as if they have failed the company/firm/ministry.
137 mickster September 12, 2012 at 12:36 am: #135
Local reports are indicating a story on his personal affairs about to be published by a news weekly could have been the cause. Nothing to do with failing his organization.
I agree with your view, though. Maybe, you could say a scandal would disgrace the cabinet and thus….
He reportedly left three suicide notes, to his wife, to the PM, and to other cabinet members; the contents have not have not be disclosed, so we really don’t yet know why.
138 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 2:09 am: Excellent article from Kosuke Takahashi on Korea/Japan relations.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/NI12Dh02.html
139 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 3:41 am: hoju,

Not fair. Australia’s healthcare is subsidized by China buying all your minerals. But on the flip side, it appears that Canadian healthcare is subsidized by its oil sands resources.

Dammit, when is our gravy train gonna come? We can’t keep printing dollars forever…
140 Sonagi September 12, 2012 at 6:15 am: We don’t need a gravy train. Money saved from avoiding foreign invasions, occupation, and ‘nation-building’ would be the single smartest budget move we could make.
141 slim September 12, 2012 at 6:26 am: http://www.theonion.com/articles/recessionplagued-nation-demands-new-bubble-to-inve,2486/
142 padaajoshi September 12, 2012 at 7:10 am: Mixter, you are correct, and I know that. I made a mistake. And so did you, in spelling. That’s equinox with an “I” not an “A”. Thanks for being aware.
143 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 7:54 am: “Money saved from avoiding foreign invasions, occupation, and ‘nation-building’ would be the single smartest budget move we could make.”

Sonagi, I’m sure Congress will find a way to screw it up somehow.
144 Brendon Carr September 12, 2012 at 8:42 am: Sonagi — I already done tole’ you, spending on The Wars! The Wars! is about US$100 billion per year. Fine, by your prescription that’s over. Now what to do about the other US$1.3 trillion needed to close the budget gap?
145 mickster September 12, 2012 at 8:59 am: Padaajoshi
Tnx. I’ll keep the equinox spelling in mind. It’s embarrassing to make another mistake when correcting someone
146 Sonagi September 12, 2012 at 9:30 am: Spending on wars is down to about $120 billion from a high of $180 billion in 2008. If Obama is re-elected, we can expect that number to continue to drop since he does not share his challenger’s enthusiasm for military action against Iran and increasing defense spending while the debt clock ticks away and his arty’s Congressional leaders balk at raising the debt ceiling. You are right, Brendon, that cuts alone won’t due. Revenues must be raised by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse, the other other government policy primarily responsible for driving up our present debt.
147 Sonagi September 12, 2012 at 9:31 am: Party’s Congressional leaders
148 RolyPoly September 12, 2012 at 10:27 am: Sonagi,
You got it wrong. Who “invades”? Who “builds”?
Americans. Jobs are created at light speed. People are happy to be employed and the money is spread into society in multiples, since banks make loans.
The money that could have sat in the bank gathering dust are used to pay people (soldiers, contractors, etc) and these people pay taxes. They buy goods and services. We all win.

Money, however spent, creates jobs and make the US more competitive in the world because schools grow to produce more workers.

Reaganomics is good for America! Borrow and spend. Grow.

If not, we will slow down. The downward spiral can take us to another Great Depression.
149 Jashin Densetsu September 12, 2012 at 10:32 am: we do need to stop spending on pointless wars and nation building. but we shouldn’t try to close the budget gap. that would crash the economy bro. we need bigger deficits right now. closing the budget gap or going into surplus would mean that taxes are too high and that the government is sucking money out of the economy and that the economy is in deficit.
150 Brendon Carr September 12, 2012 at 10:34 am: Sonagi — The Bush tax cuts are said to “cost” (which is terrible semantic usage, but anyway) the government US$968 billion over ten years. So that’s another US$100 billion a year. Now you’ve only got a US$1.2 trillion deficit to close, and you’ve got a tough task ahead of you if you continue to adhere to the liberal shibboleth that The Wars! The Wars and “spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for the wealthy” are the primary drivers of a US$1.4 trillion annual deficit.
151 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 10:39 am: Brendon,

You are waving that $1.4 trillion deficit number like it’s a combination of garlic, holy water and a wooden cross to a vampire. In this case the “vampire” being a Democrat and/or a Liberal.
152 WangKon936 September 12, 2012 at 10:41 am: For the record, like Warren Buffett, I favor an end to the Bush tax cuts, but gradually over several years. Listen, I love paying taxes just as much as the next guy…. but sometimes paying taxes is a civic virtue.
153 Jashin Densetsu September 12, 2012 at 10:49 am: we need bigger deficits right now and we should do it by slashing taxes. we should be slashing FICA (payroll tax) and income taxes right now.
154 Yu Bum Suk September 12, 2012 at 10:56 am: Not a word about the huge Mannam event happening this Sunday? For those who don’t know, a bunch of very gullible dupes are soon to get herded to the world’s biggest Bible story at Olympic Stadium.
155 Sonagi September 12, 2012 at 11:21 am: Brendon,

What I actually said was that the wars, spending on which has declined to $120 million from a high of $180 million, and the tax cuts were the principal government policy causes of the present debt. Bush enjoyed the advantage of spending during a growth period of the business cycle during most of his presidency, resulting in higher revenues compared to Obama with less money paid out in unemployment benefits and food stamps and less paid out for entitlements due to a smallretold early population, yet he still couldn’t balance the budget. Present debt is a product of past deficits, so while your numbers are relevant to a discussion about how to reduce the $1.2 million deficit, they do not directly address the causes of the $15 trillion debt. Frankly, Brendon, I’m surprised you would conflate the two.
156 Sonagi September 12, 2012 at 11:23 am: Argh, I hate iPad autocorrects…smaller elderly population
157 Jashin Densetsu September 12, 2012 at 11:24 am: Obama hid ‘gay life’ to become president
Chicago homosexual community shocked he could keep it secret http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/claim-obama-hid-gay-life-to-become-president/

“A prominent member of Chicago’s homosexual community claims Barack Obama’s participation in the “gay” bar and bathhouse scene was so well known that many who were aware of his lifestyle were shocked when he ran for president and finally won the White House.”

“DuJan, founder and editor of the Hillary Clinton-supporting website HillBuzz.com, told WND he has first-hand information from two different sources that “Obama was personally involved in the gay bar scene.”

“If you just hang out at these bars, the older guys who have been frequenting these gay bars for 25 years will tell you these stories,” DuJan said. “Obama used to go to the gay bars during the week, most often on Wednesday, and they said he was very much into older white guys.”

“Obama’s not heterosexual and he’s not bisexual,” DuJan told WND in a recorded telephone interview. “He’s homosexual.””

““It is common knowledge in the Chicago gay community that Obama actively visited the gay bars and bathhouses in Chicago while he was an Illinois state senator,” Madsen told WND.

WND also spoke with a member of the East Bank Club in Chicago, who confirmed Obama was a member there and was known to be a homosexual. The upscale fitness club says it has some 10,000 members, but it’s one of a number of places identified by the Chicago homosexual community as a “gay gym.””

“DuJan said he has been told “Obama’s secrets would have to come out just like John Edwards’ secrets came out.”

He said Obama stopped going to gay bars and bathhouses in Chicago when he began running for the U.S. Senate in 2004.

“Back then, Obama could walk around Chicago and people generally wouldn’t recognize him, even though he was a state senator in the Illinois assembly at the time,” DuJan said.”

““President Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel are lifetime members of the same gay bathhouse in uptown Chicago, according to informed sources in Chicago’s gay community, as well as veteran political sources in the city,” Madsen wrote.

He said the bathhouse, “Man’s Country,” catered “to older men,” noting “it has been in business for some 30 years and is known as one of uptown Chicago’s ‘grand old bathhouses.’”

Madsen wrote his 2010 report after traveling to Chicago to interview bartenders and customers at several “gay” bars.

DuJan gave WND a list of “gay” bars in Chicago where older customers hang out and tell stories about how Obama, prior to 2004, frequented visited to pick up men for sex, including several on Halstead Street, widely known as an “uber-gay Chicago street.

Writing in HillBuzz.com Tuesday, DuJan said rooms at Man’s Country bathhouse are still referred to as the “presidential suite,” or the “Oral Office,” because “the current President used to haunt the place when he was a just another Illinois state senator that no one had ever heard of or cared about.”

DuJan said he believes that, someday, “all of this is going to be as public knowledge as JFK’s affair with Marilyn Monroe and the other women he cavorted with while married to Jackie.”

“Someday,” he said, “in the next 10-20 years, everyone will know all about Man’s Country, and the place will no doubt get a plaque of sometime commemorating that place as a gay hangout for the future leader of the free world.””
158 Jashin Densetsu September 12, 2012 at 11:39 am: Where Could Reporters Hear Stories About Barack Obama’s Gay Life in Chicago? http://hillbuzz.org/where-could-reporters-hear-stories-about-barack-obamas-gay-life-in-chicago-93707

“I’ve always been surprised that no reporter has ever bothered to take the time to come to Chicago and camp out in the gay bars here to get the scoop on the current President of the United States — and by “camp out” I don’t mean dress up in drag and be boisterous, but rather to spend a couple of weeks becoming “a regular” in these kinds of places, chatting up the locals, and generously tipping the bartenders until everyone knows your name (the one you choose to give them, at least) and they let down their guard and start telling you tales of Barack’s bathhouse adventures before he became a US Senator (and later the President).

I really believe the “reporters” out there just don’t want to know the truth about this man. Writers on the conservative side of things probably just don’t want to spend that much time in gay bars.

But, you’d be amazed by the scoops you can get just sitting quietly in a corner in these places and listening to whatever the locals are talking about. You can easily nurse a drink for a while and eventually steer the conversation toward “the good old days” and hear about what various bars were like many years ago…say, from the mid-90s through 2004 when Barack Obama was sexually active with men in Chicago.

The way I’ve always heard it has been that Obama enjoyed being with older white men (the more grandfatherly the better) and liked only for them to do things to him (no recip, in the slang). This was most common at Man’s Country Bathhouse where that establishment’s current clientele now jokingly refer to rooms there as “presidential suites” or “Oral Offices” because the current President used to haunt the place back when he was a random Illinois state senator that no one had ever heard of or cared about. All of this changed when Obama ran for the US Senate and someone in his PR team made him stop going to Man’s Country. From then on he’d only have sex with older white men in the steam room or sauna at the East Bank Club, which is a very exclusive and expensive fitness center/social club where Chicago’s well-to-do essentially have the same bathhouse experience found at Man’s Country while paying thousands of dollars more for it.”

“THESE are the guys that reporters should be talking to about Barack Obama. If they want the real story, at least. Though, getting guys to admit they used to (or still) frequent a place as sleazy as Man’s Country is tough. You need to understand that even in the gay community admitting you enjoy going to Man’s Country is something a lot of people shy away from because it’s just that nasty in there. Chicago has two main bathhouses and then a few places that are essentially bathhouse but pull off the “we’re a spa…really!” ruse better. Steamworks on Halsted is more chrome and glass and clean than Man’s Country, but guys still duck into the door when entering and try to slip out unnoticed when leaving. King’s Spa out in Niles, where Jesse Jackson often goes, is totally a gay cruising spot but it’s a Korean full-spa that has a side reserved for women and it’s posh enough for people to claim they’re “just going to the spa”. Another dump that claims to be a Korean spa is Paradise Sauna on Montrose at California where a lot of married guys go to cheat on their wives with men.

I bet reporters would be embarrassed to camp out in any of these places for extended periods gathering tidbits for an Obama tell-all because they’d have to be naked most of the time to do it. Nudity seems to be the protector of a lot of Obama’s secrets, oddly enough. But reporters could also hang out in the following bars here in Chicago where the older guys haunt who would have been around in the days when a skinny, weird-looking, black state Senator with a hard-to-remember Muslim sounding name was looking for oral sex from white men at Man’s Country:

1. The Lucky Horseshoe Lounge on Halsted – Bar none, this place is the best to get scoops. All sorts of people come in here all the time from the Chicago political world. On any given night, you’ll find guys who work for Anita Alvarez (the state’s attorney), Tom Tunney (the Alderman of the Boystown neighborhood), the Mayor, and other local officials ogling the jockstrap-clad strippers at the Shoe. The Fire Chief is a regular here. A lot of black celebrities come here as well, including the guys who played the dads on Fresh Prince and Family Matters in the 90s….”

“If Obama was a Republican, I have no doubt that all five of these places would be chock full of reporters digging up the dirt on him. Hell, Anderson Cooper would have moved to Chicago and volunteered to live in “The Hole” 24/7 until he scooped all the scoop that was fit to scoop. But, Barack Obama is a Democrat so “nothing to see here, folks”.

Someday, all of this is going to be as public knowledge as JFK’s affair with Marilyn Monroe and the other women he cavorted with while married to Jackie.

Someday, in the next 10-20 years, everyone will know all about Man’s Country and the place will no doubt get a plaque of some kind commemorating the times that a President of the United States “slept there”.

You’re just getting the scoop early because a gay guy in Chicago has broken ranks and told you all about it.”
159 Yu Bum Suk September 12, 2012 at 11:39 am: 157, I’d much prefer a 100% gay in the Whitehouse to a guy who wears holy underwear.
160 삼촌 팬 September 12, 2012 at 11:40 am: From Zero hedge @ SPPI Blog,

“Perhaps the US economy should consider a rebooting by allowing everyone to live tax-free”
161 Brendon Carr September 12, 2012 at 11:43 am: The national debt has increased from just under US$10 trillion when Barack Obama took office to just over US$16 trillion now. The Wars! The Wars! and the Bush tax cuts make up less than US$1 trillion of the US$6 trillion increase which has taken place under Barack Obama.
162 Jashin Densetsu September 12, 2012 at 11:54 am: 159

you mean you’d prefer a guy who probably likes to sniff and lick underwear to a guy who just wears it?
163 Yu Bum Suk September 12, 2012 at 11:57 am: 161, yes, if the latter wearer thinks it’s magic.
164 Robert Koehler September 12, 2012 at 12:01 pm: Really, Jashin?
165 jefferyhodges September 12, 2012 at 1:03 pm: Yu Bum Suk (#154), I was approached by these folks for the “World Peace Initiative” only one hour ago in Wangsimni Station. I said, “I don’t need a ticket. I’m not interested.” They left me alone.

What sort of cult are they?

Jeffery Hodges

* * *
166 RolyPoly September 12, 2012 at 1:39 pm: Jashin,

Clinton: ” I smoked but I did not inhale”.
Obama: ” I went to the gay bar just to observe gay life style. I did not participate.”

Clinton: ” I did not have a sex with that woman.”
Obama: ” I always kept my hole clean.”
167 RolyPoly September 12, 2012 at 1:45 pm: Jashin,
What is next? Obama being a trans-sexual?
Obama being a child molester?
Obama had sex with ****?

Well, if it is going to come out 10-20 years later, I do not think anyone is going to care. Being a president does not mean so much.

Being a Fed chairman like Bernanke who can decide on inflation/deflation has real power. 1.6 trillion debt is not much money when a Big Mac is $35 and average pay is $300K.

Inflating economy solves Brendon’s worries.
168 Jashin Densetsu September 12, 2012 at 1:50 pm: @166

lol, good one bro.
169 RolyPoly September 12, 2012 at 1:52 pm: Bernanke has been saying that he did enough already by QE1 and QE2. It is now a president’ turn to create jobs (midnight basketball?) and spread the money sitting at bank vaults.

Just spend them! Save the country!

Invade Mars!

I think the next president, be it Obem or Rom, will spend the money like there is no tomorrow. And, that is the right thing to do.

Reagan did it.
170 Yu Bum Suk September 12, 2012 at 1:57 pm: jeffrey this video by a well known expat video maker is probably the best overview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JKH5zyyCRbU
171 jefferyhodges September 12, 2012 at 2:54 pm: Thanks, YBS. Good thing Mannam looks really boring . . .

Jeffery Hodges

* * *
172 hoju_saram September 12, 2012 at 3:02 pm: hoju,

Not fair. Australia’s healthcare is subsidized by China buying all your minerals. But on the flip side, it appears that Canadian healthcare is subsidized by its oil sands resources.

Dammit, when is our gravy train gonna come? We can’t keep printing dollars forever…

Wangkon, both Canada and Australia spend far less on healthcare per capita than America does.
173 SalarymaninSeoul September 12, 2012 at 3:02 pm: Yes, because inflation cures everything!

Is that a serious suggestion or are you being funny, RolyPoly? The only people for who inflation works are those who get the money first: bankers (Bernanke’s friends) and borrowers and we all know who the biggest borrower is: the government. The people it doesnt work much for are savers, you and I and most people. But hey, let’s just give everyone a barrel-full of $100 bills..we can create such amazing levels of wealth we’d have this economy humming again!
174 Yu Bum Suk September 12, 2012 at 3:04 pm: “Thanks, YBS. Good thing Mannam looks really boring . . .”

I was thinking that anyone who actually finds it appealing deserves to get duped into going to the world’s biggest Bible story.
175 Brendon Carr September 12, 2012 at 3:35 pm: Being a Fed chairman like Bernanke who can decide on inflation/deflation has real power. 1.6 trillion debt is not much money when a Big Mac is $35 and average pay is $300K.

Inflating economy solves Brendon’s worries.

Um, hyperinflation is Brendon’s worry, precisely because it tears poor people and the middle class to bits and devastates their savings.

And we’re already past the point of no return. There will be significant inflation, as that’s the only way to “repay” the accumulated national debt. Enjoy your Social Security checks, comrades.
176 Arghaeri September 12, 2012 at 7:42 pm: 1) One must weigh dying sooner with paying taxes longer for a net gain.

2) If a fat person gets type 2 diabetes and essentially becomes a ward of the state, via universal healthcare, at age 35, then he becomes a net liability to the tax base.

Don’t get you Wang,

1) Most people pay income taxes until they retire at say sixty five, relatively few obese people work less long, but are like to live less long. So obese people are more likely to be the optimum.

2) type 2 is late onset diabetes, not all obese get this, and doing so at 35 is unusual. Even then it is normally manageable through diet, and doesn’t prevent working, so why this acopolyptic scenario you paint of sufferes beung wards of state at 35.
177 hoju_saram September 12, 2012 at 7:49 pm: Them Koreans be clever folk.
178 RolyPoly September 12, 2012 at 11:42 pm: Brendon Carr,

“devastates their savings” – that is good. There are too many people who are not working or don’t want other people working because they want to maximize the value of their savings account.

There are lots of them in Europe and Japan. They want to save their nickles instead of acquiring new skills or work hard.

Inflate the s*** out of economy. People with money will invest and everybody abled-bodies will be at work. Making cars, building houses, teaching next generation, launching space rockets…

8% unemployment is abomination. Tea-partiers are the stupidest people in the US. Do-nothing f****s.

Reaganomics time! Borrow and spend. Borrow from China and freeze the payment when it goes to war with Japan.
179 WangKon936 September 13, 2012 at 12:50 am: Arghaeri,

1) Most 65-67 year olds stop becoming tax payers at that age and start becoming net tax consumers. When the ceiling was first established in the 30′s. the average life expectancy at the time was 68, so the government only had to worry about them for three more years, on average. Now, life expectancy is 78. Personally, I believe we should raise the retirement age. A healthier population makes that easier to do. We should, of course, grandfather the ones that are going to be 65 soon, but create a cut off at some point.

2) Getting type 2 diabetes at 35 is unusual, but getting increasingly more common, unfortunately, and especially even in children.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/type-2-diabetes-more-common-more-dangerous-in-children

Diabetes makes permanent damage to the body, even at younger ages. Thus, they are going to be net consumers of taxes rather than net contributors, much sooner than people who made healthier choices when they were younger.
180 jk6411 September 13, 2012 at 1:23 am: Borrow and spend!

Um.. Moody’s is gonna downgrade the US again unless we take major steps to reduce our deficit.
Who’s gonna lend us money if our credit rating goes to cr*p?
We’re gonna have to pay super high interest like those European countries.
Isn’t that how you get into a debt crisis?
181 Sonagi September 13, 2012 at 7:37 am: The national debt has increased from just under US$10 trillion when Barack Obama took office to just over US$16 trillion now. The Wars! The Wars! and the Bush tax cuts make up less than US$1 trillion of the US$6 trillion increase which has taken place under Barack Obama.

Ah, yes, the $6 trillion increase in the debt. Obama must be spending though the roof on everything. Let’s compare federal spending increases under Obama with his predecessor, shall we? During Obama’s first term, inflation-adjusted spending SHRANK by .1% (+1.4% unadjusted) compared to 5.9% (10.2%) for Bush Jr. Hmmm, why would the federal government run up such a large debt with such a tiny increase in spending? Reduced revenues owing to the recession, perhaps? Let’s take a look. Total receipts peaked at $2.6 trillion in FY 2007 and then dropped to $2.1 trillion in FY 2009 before climbing slowly to $2.3 trillion in FY 2011. So the debt on Obama’s watch appears to owe mostly to decreased receipts due to the recession. Under Bush, non- inflation-adjusted spending increased 10.2% during a period in which defense spending doubled, jumping from $366 billion in FY 2001 to $730 billion in FY 2009. The wars! The wars! .
182 WangKon936 September 13, 2012 at 7:55 am: jk6411,

Congress is gonna play chicken with the economy again in 2013! Expect more brinkmanship!

Gawd I love how partisan we’ve become in the 2000′s… :/
183 Brendon Carr September 13, 2012 at 8:35 am: Keep fucking that chicken, Sonagi.
184 jk6411 September 13, 2012 at 8:53 am: Gawd I love how partisan we’ve become in the 2000′s… :/

We seriously need a strong leader in the White House.
I’ve never seen so much partisanship in US Congress.
If Obama gets re-elected, I’m pretty sure we’re gonna go over the fiscal cliff..
185 WangKon936 September 13, 2012 at 10:04 am: jk6411,

Yeah, but I dunno if the children on both parties are gonna listen to Romney either. Where is a Regan when you need one? Hell, I’ll even make due with a Bill Clinton.
186 Brendon Carr September 13, 2012 at 10:15 am: We’re going over the fiscal cliff either way. The question is who do we trust to help pick up the pieces, after the prolonged period of inflation destroys Americans’ purchasing power? In this election, I’ll settle for a President who will at least show up to work. Obama has nothing on his schedule before 10:00 a.m., rarely anything past 2:00 p.m., and even so he manages to attend just over half his Presidential Daily Briefings on foreign intelligence, and skips out entirely on his economic briefings. When it was undetermined whether Ambassador Stevens was alive or dead, Obama went to bed.

Remember that famous situation-room photograph of the Obama Bin Laden raid, where the President was in a low chair over in the corner? That’s because he’s made himself completely extraneous to what’s going on in his Administration. Empty chair, indeed.
187 Railwaycharm September 13, 2012 at 10:50 am: Let’s just hope and pray that Acorn is held in check and Obie is defeated.
188 jk6411 September 13, 2012 at 11:02 am: Empty chair, indeed.

Yeah,
I still remember the 2011 debt ceiling crisis.
Everyone was wondering where the president was..
189 CactusMcHarris September 13, 2012 at 11:17 am: There’s a new Korean and Sushi restaurant in Kamloops, making it the first one, too.

I highly look forward to going there- Hangul on the menu and panchan on the table, Mama, I’m comin’ home.

I may have already bored you with the supposition, but it seems all good sushi chefs in town are Korean. Mr. Shim down at the Chinese / Japanese restaurant downtown makes some great unagi rolls.
190 RolyPoly September 13, 2012 at 1:09 pm: jk6411,

Don’t worry. We are living in a country where top 1% owns 50% of asset. So, when the country is about to go broke, these fat cats have to sell some of their stuff to rescue the country.

Alaska for sale? To China or Japan.

We can buy it back when these two losers go to war against each other.

In any case, it is fat cats turn to pay their “fair share”!
191 mickster September 13, 2012 at 6:11 pm: RolyPoly
Japan is in deep debts and ain’t gonna want to buy Alaska.
How seriously do you believe (hope?) China is going to war with Japan?
192 jkitchstk September 13, 2012 at 7:33 pm: # 183,
You sound sillier than Romney.

# 186,
Stop shooting and aiming later.
193 slim September 13, 2012 at 9:10 pm: So, when is Samsung’s knockoff of the iPhone5 coming out?
194 JW September 13, 2012 at 9:44 pm: Shit Samsung came out with the knockoff of iPhone5 before it even came out! How’s that for bballi bballi bitches!
195 jk6411 September 14, 2012 at 12:34 am: #189,

And I thought Kamloops was the name of a breakfast cereal.
Sorry about that.
Congrats on your town’s first Korean restaurant!
196 WangKon936 September 14, 2012 at 12:48 am: Wait a minute…. Steve Wozniak owns a Samsung Galaxy SIII?

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-13/apple-s-wozniak-hopes-iphone-photos-beat-his-samsung-galaxy-s

Get this:

“I hate it,” Wozniak said when asked about the patent fights between Apple and Samsung. “I don’t think the decision of California will hold. And I don’t agree with it — very small things I don’t really call that innovative.
197 WangKon936 September 14, 2012 at 12:52 am: Oh, and there’s this:

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/ipod-nano-looks-like-a-samsung-mp3-player-from-2007-20120913/

And this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/10/if-apple-can-copy-braun-then-why-cant-samsung-copy-apple/
198 Railwaycharm September 14, 2012 at 12:56 am: @ 190. Bullshit. the 1% theory is not accurate.
199 jk6411 September 14, 2012 at 1:08 am: Wait a minute…. Steve Wozniak owns a Samsung Galaxy SIII?

Wowee
200 thekorean September 14, 2012 at 1:15 am: Shit Samsung came out with the knockoff of iPhone5 before it even came out! How’s that for bballi bballi bitches!

I had the exact same thought. What does iPhone5 have that Android phones did not give to the world already?
201 jk6411 September 14, 2012 at 1:43 am: What does iPhone5 have that Android phones did not give to the world already?

Which is exactly why Apple sued Samsung.

Seeing the new iPhone5, it’s clear that Apple has run out of ideas on how to innovate the smartphone.
Apple is afraid of Android phones. Very afraid.
So now they’re trying to sue them out of the market.

I wouldn’t be too bullish on Apple stock.
202 slim September 14, 2012 at 1:49 am: (As someone predicted a few weeks back) Consumers are treating rulings by various courts around the world as full endorsements of these iPhone clones and snapping them up. I would, too, if I were in the market or not stuck with a Blackberry at work.
203 CactusMcHarris September 14, 2012 at 1:50 am: #195,

That practically makes you an honourary Kamloovian, then.
204 JW September 14, 2012 at 2:37 am: Thank you Mr Bernanke for a nice little inflation bonus on my stock portfolio! I’m sure Brendon Carr appreciates it also!
205 slim September 14, 2012 at 2:48 am: A decently hip little music blog just listed 2NE1 as one of the best “new” bands of 2012. (New is always a relative term, especially with foreign artists).
http://stereogum.com/1142542/stereogums-40-best-new-bands-of-2012/franchises/listomania/

They’ve been prefab future-pop stars in their native South Korea for a few years now, but this K-pop girl-group had their internet-style breakout in the West this year when American bloggers (ahem) realized how eye-poppingly bizarre and compulsively rewatchable their tremendously popular music videos are. Their “I Am The Best” clip is the best music video that anyone, in any genre, has made in recent years, and, like a resurrected Destiny’s Child, they’ve got the tough, vulnerable virtuosity that it takes to sing on fizzily expensive electro-beats and come across as badass human beings.
206 DLBarch September 14, 2012 at 2:55 am: Slim, you are just KILLIN’ me. That song/video was gawd-awful!

Who votes for these things?

DLB
207 slim September 14, 2012 at 3:21 am: I dunno, frankly. K-pop is not my dance at all — and I can’t imagine “badass” ever being an appropriate adjective for music in Korea. Other than 2NE1, which I know of only as a Korea-watcher, there were only 3-4 bands on that list I’d heard of, and way too much hip-hop for my taste.
208 jk6411 September 14, 2012 at 3:55 am: CMH,

Hey, thanks!

I just learned another thing new.
“Kamloovian” = resident of Kamloops, BC, Canada!
209 WangKon936 September 14, 2012 at 5:20 am: Again…. TMH just has the wrong demographic to evaluate k-pop.
210 slim September 14, 2012 at 5:27 am: I dunno, I’m sure there’s a teenaged girl or two lurking out there..

http://www.theonion.com/articles/asian-teen-has-sweaty-middleagedman-fetish,2649/
211 DLBarch September 14, 2012 at 5:34 am: “Drawn by her curiosity, Nakajima has scheduled a vacation to St. Louis for early March.”

Hehe!

DLB
212 WangKon936 September 14, 2012 at 6:01 am: Well… only if he will buy her a Louis Vuitton bag. These girls have their judgement impaired, not their eyes.

[NSFW] http://www.expathell.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/korean-girls-toss-salads-for-expensive-hand-bags-sexy.jpg
213 CactusMcHarris September 14, 2012 at 6:13 am: Dang, WK, I never thought I’d see the suggestion ‘Eat my ass’ here, but TMH covers it all.
214 WangKon936 September 14, 2012 at 6:16 am: Stop whining. I did give you the [NSFW] warning…
215 CactusMcHarris September 14, 2012 at 7:16 am: You misread me, WK – no whining or whinging going on in #213. That ‘dang’ is part of an…hmm…ejaculatory sentence.
216 DLBarch September 14, 2012 at 7:58 am: Somehow this seems an appropriate follow-up to WK @ 212:

https://en.korea.com/blog/enter/tv/psy-will-appear-on-the-popular-american-tv-show-today-show/

That’s Friday morning for all you U.S.-based MHers.

(I, however, will be watching CNBC, as usual.)

DLB
217 WangKon936 September 14, 2012 at 9:30 am: CactusMcHarris,

I’m surprised you haven’t seen it. It’s been circulating around the expat crowd for a few years now.
218 RolyPoly September 14, 2012 at 12:21 pm: While these politicians lying and f***ing each other, Uncle Ben has spoken. It is going to be stimulus all the way. Till unemployment going go down.

Obem did diddly squat and Rom promises to do even less.

So, it took real American hero to save the country. Uncle Ben.

And, he did what no politicans even dare to speak. He said he would solve unemployment problem. By inflating. And, inflating. And, inflating.

Japanese penny-counters could not do this. They played too small. No Fed Reserve. They have to “obey” their prime minister.

In America, we play hard and swift. That is why we are the number one. With an American hero like Ben, we cannot lose.

Those who threatened to hang him should now hang themselves. This is Ben’s country.
219 Arghaeri September 14, 2012 at 12:30 pm: When it was undetermined whether Ambassador Stevens was alive or dead, Obama went to bed.

The preceding comments had some sense, but this kind of ad hominen is just petty.

What do expect him to do, stay awake all night, 36hrs, 78hrs, a week until the confirmation comes in. Or perhaps go to bed with instructions to wake him once there is news.

Now if he went to bed woth instructions not to be disturbed you might have a point.
220 Arghaeri September 14, 2012 at 12:48 pm: I dunno, I’m sure there’s a teenaged girl or two lurking out there..

I thought the Onion was supposed to be satirical, when did it start reporting simple truth.

As a sweat middle aged man in asia I can speak for the veracity of that story. Odd though that one of the side effects of this fetish is that it tends to wear off when they find out I have no money
221 SalarymaninSeoul September 14, 2012 at 12:55 pm: Obama went to bed knowing the job was done – the job being undermining American interests in favor of the interests of people he feels more affinity for. Now, Obama will pay lip service to “bringing to justice” those who were responsible, but he’s only doing it to keep his job. He went to bed because, quite frankly, I doubt he cared one way or the other if Stevens was dead. The death was just the cherry on his sundae when he woke up.
222 RolyPoly September 14, 2012 at 12:59 pm: While the black prince and the financial mob front guy could not even give a solution to the unemployment problem, it took a Jew to show the road map on how to solve the problem.

“As a teenager, Bernanke worked construction on a new hospital and waited tables at a restaurant at nearby South of the Border, a roadside attraction in his hometown of Dillon, before leaving for college.[3][13] To support himself throughout college, he worked during the summers at South of the Border.[3][14]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke

It takes a working man to do the right thing.

Politicians are just actors – reading off the tele-prompter, reinforcing people’s prejudices.
223 Arghaeri September 14, 2012 at 1:01 pm: Wangkon, not sure how you expect to make a case by essentially repeating my point.

1) Thats what I said, the bit you missed was that most type 2 sufferers will continue working until retirement, but be much less likely to live long beyond it. i.e they will statistically pay taxes as long as everyone else but not live long beyond that to be a drain on the system. Those healthy types will still get sick, just later and will be a burden for 15 or more years after.

2) Yes, but the but you missed was that its generally manageable by dietary control, and as such see 1) they will likely be net conributors for much the same time, but as the effects accumulate into old age be a net burden for much less time.
224 Arghaeri September 14, 2012 at 1:10 pm: Basically your simllistic analysis fails to take into account life cycle costing and cost benefit analysis.

Also, many are not entirely to blame, the increase in diabetes 2 is largely down to the modern reliance on processed foods due to hygeine, shelf life etc, not to mention additives to make it taste nice. These are not entirely easy to avoid.

The answer like smoking, is to perhaps tax such non-fresh healthy it at such a level that the net contribution to taxes is higher for those placing themselves at risk to ensure the cost benefit analyis balances equitibly or as in yhe case of smokers such that it posively favours thd healthy by reducing the net contributions they need to make into the system.
225 SalarymaninSeoul September 14, 2012 at 1:11 pm: Yeah, Bernanke is doing the right thing. 40 billion dollars a month indefinitely. Discounted at 1% (and Im being generous by discounting at all given the fact that interest rates are now about 0%) the present value of this PERPETUITY (let’s be realistic, this will not stop because there is no incentive for a BANKER to stop handing money over to his buddies) comes out to about $48,000,000,000,000.00. (thats 480 trillion dollars) Now would probably be the right time to buy gold, because the price of gold against an absolutely debased dollar is going to skyrocket. Bankers will benefit, workers and savers will be decimated. At 0% interest rates, inflation will eat savings like there’s no tomorrow, and those working for wages are going to be paid in monopoly money.
226 RolyPoly September 14, 2012 at 1:25 pm: SalarymaninSeoul,

You are only looking it in bad way. When inflated, more tax money will be generated. The US gov’t can pay back more of its debts.

With higher employment, more goods and services will be generated. GNP goes up.

Within a few years, the US will be in good shape. Very good shape. In unemployment, in general economy, tax receipt, industrial growth…
In all sectors, including education ( I am talking about universities).

I think Ben is doing the right thing.
227 RolyPoly September 14, 2012 at 1:27 pm: “The US gov’t can pay back more of its debts”..

I was just dreaming.
228 SalarymaninSeoul September 14, 2012 at 1:27 pm: And inflation is not something that can be controlled. Id suggest you google the term “crack-up boom.” What happens is that at some point people lose confidence in the currency, expecting further loss of purchasing power, and exchange fiat money against other vendible items. Once that starts happening, it becomes essentially uncontrollable, and it leads to collapse. We don’t know how much money Bernanke will conjure up, but most likely QE3 will be larger than QE1 and 2 put together. The people who benefit most from freshly printed money are the ones who get it first because they hold it before it has entered the money supply thereby devaluing the currency. That would be the bankers, i.e. Bernanke’s pals.
229 SalarymaninSeoul September 14, 2012 at 1:32 pm: It doesnt work like that. Who will take American dollars when the currency has been eaten away? Why not 10x the money supply? Then you can just pay off all the debt and have more left over! Voila, new found wealth! Fiat money is just a piece of paper that has purchasing power. It is not wealth, it is just a means of exchange, and when you have more pieces of paper each piece of paper is worth less.
230 CactusMcHarris September 14, 2012 at 2:23 pm: #217,

Since I’m not an expat, I didn’t have the need to know.
231 Brendon Carr September 14, 2012 at 2:47 pm: Have you gone full Canuck?
232 Jashin Densetsu September 14, 2012 at 3:02 pm: It is not wealth,

i’d be glad to take them off your hands if you don’t want them bro.
233 Jashin Densetsu September 14, 2012 at 3:15 pm: instead of giving bankers more money first, you can give regular people more money first with tax cuts. we need bigger deficits by slashing FICA, sales taxes, income taxes, etc.