The Billiken's Bluff

Our boat approaching an island off of Hanoi.


The traffic in Saigon is out of control. Everyone and their mother owns a motor bike.


We were at this Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Wat Pho, and found this basketball court sitting right behind it. Looks like a good setting for NBA Street 2005.


This girl didn't take it so well when I told her I wouldn't be purchasing any dragonfruit from her.


Here's St. Nick at Marble Mountain. Kind of blurry, but there isn't much lighting inside a cave.


I think its pretty obvious why Bird Flu is a problem. The chickens are getting even with us for keeping them in such tight quarters.


Here's some Muay Thai boxing.


We went to Monkey Island in Halong Bay. The Lonely Planet tourbook described monkeys on this island as, "a fairly good source of rabies."


However the only problem I had was that one of them stole my can of coke.



But in hindsight, I got off easy because this German woman next to me got one of her sandals grand larsoned.

Not everything in Southeast Asia is cheeky monkeys and motorbikes. Southern Thailand is known for it's beaches and beautiful landscapes, but its rapidly becoming the next hotspot for global Jihad. The three southern provinces that border Malaysia are home to over 6 million Muslims. They want to secede from Thailand. Thailand's prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been taking a strong stand against these three provinces. Thaksin is a shady character. Earlier this year he declared a war on drugs, claiming he would send drug dealers to 'meet the prince of Hell.' He then sent the police on a spree, killing over 800 suspected drug traffickers, no trial, just swift enforcement.

Two days ago the Thai army suppressed a protest, arresting over a thousand Muslims. They bound and gagged many of them. Over 80 suffocated to death. Muslims were outraged. Indonesia, the world's most populated Muslim nation, did not take too kindly to it. It seems likely that global Jihadists will take an interest in Thailand, using it as a new front on the war against the West. With all the Western tourists, such as yours truly, flooding the country's island beach resorts, it looks like a Bali-style nightclub bombing may be in the cards. Thaksin needs to take it easy with the suffocations and the executions.

That being said, I'm leaving tonight to go to an island resort. Godspeed. Gotim.

There's a storm brewin' in New York City that I think may have been flying under the radar over these past few hectic election weeks. Let's go the map!



People, it looks like we're seeing a pretty strong cold-feelings front moving in from the liberal east coast that's going to merge with some hot air rhetoric from Anti-Bushocrats on the west coast. Now that looks like it has a possibility of mixing with some electoral college results over the swing states, where there's already a chance of some pretty heavy Republican voting participation. With this happening in high-pressure areas over states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, it could mean some nasty weather conditions for the rest of the country.

Right now I'm seeing a 65% chance of riots in New York.

Where am I getting this weather forecast from if not from the friendly folks who do weather on Fox News? Well, Elizabeth Edwards for one made a rather telling comment this weekend that I think we at Billiken should consider for a second. Now I've always kind of liked the vice-presidential hopeful's wife, thinking she seemed pleasant enough in her plump and jolly, well-fed rich lawyer's wife kind of way, so I'm not going to harp on the woman too much here (though I did begin to have second thoughts when Missus Edwards, the corpulent ying to John Edwards' yang, alleged out of nowhere that Dick and Lynn Cheney were ashamed of their daughter for being a lesbian - but forget that for a second). About this comment, I think the woman makes a point that we may have been ignoring.



So what did Edwards Donuthands have to say that caught NDot's attention? Well, when a supporter expressed concern that riots may break in Pennsylvania after the election, she said

Liz Edwards: Uh.....well...not if we win.

Not if we win, eh? As long as we all vote Anti-Bushocrat in this election, says team Kedwards, everything will be all right and we won't have to worry about the bullhorns, burnings, bongos and other silliness that will inevitably accompany the rabid malcontents if they spill back out into the streets. One is inclined to agree; given even the travesty that would be electing an insufferable fake and traitor to the White House in a place of an actual leader, conservatives would be more likely to take their painful loss quietly and keep their discontent indoors.

But if Dubya secures another win? Well, you hadn't thought about that have you, Manhattan-dwelling Billiken readers. But you know there's nothing the ABs like better than a protest-riot party, and in what is sure to be a tight election they have the perfect excuse. With only 8 days until the election, I guarantee you the most ardent Anti-Bushocrat orcs have already gone on a bathing strike in order to maximize pungency when their bitter, repellent odor wafts into Union Square. Dreads are being prepared. T-shirt slogans revamped. Effigys are in construction. Armpits across America are going unshaved.

Torches? Bricks? Weapons? These are the variables in post election 2004 hysteria. It would be patently unfair for me to associate impending violence and destruction automatically with Anti-Bushocrats who are going to righteously pissed but want only to be heard (and smelled). But I see enough anger out there on my Anti-Bushocrat Emotional Weathermap to put up a storm warning. These are the people, remember, who destroyed property and lashed out at NYPD in midtown in the weeks after 9/11 to protest the WTO meeting. Should the president win reelection, I for one see a thin line forming between the ABs who deserve our mocking and a mob that deserves our reckoning. Most likely they'll do their usual routine: Union Square will reek for a few days and there will be minor property damages will be the norm. Or, there could be an all-out Anti-Bushocrat fiasco that makes Gangs of New York look like a toddler's temper tantrum. All NDot is saying is be on your guard.



As we are located north of Union Square, my boss suggested we don't show up for work on November 3rd if the man wins, suspecting the worst. Could be unnecessary, alarmist even - but NDot will take that day off anytime. You can find me in Union Square with a fat Bush-Cheney T-shirt and a hammer in an undisclosed location.

Check it out. This is not an article from The Onion , people. I guess after fake CBS documents, The Kedwards "Cheney has a gay daughter!" routine, the DNC voting handbook telling democrats to allege voter intimidation even if there wasn't any, and now this, there's probably a lot you'd could say at this point about the desperation of Anti-Bushocrats in the country and the level they will stoop to get a win.



But there's nothing you really need to say at this point, is there?

....the Bush women are blazingly hot. Admit it.

The last time we had an Explain the John Kerry Statement Challenge, it seems no Anti-Bushocrats were up to the task. No one even took a stab at it! I don't blame you guys, of course; it's tough to actually justify the inane babble the senator puts forth as a foreign policy, and much, much easier just to slap on a few Anti-Bushocrat buttons or bumperstickers and call yourself politically enlightened.

But we're giving you a chance to redeem yourselves here with this second challenge. Remember people, the stakes are high: if you can explain to me the contradiction found in the following statement with any, ANY degree of logic, NDot will wear an authentic Anti-Bushocrat button of your choice from now until Nov. 2nd. This is all about my own education people - I'm counting on you.

This is from the last debate (which a lot of AB's seem to think Kerry somehow won), and frankly it makes me feel like I've been taking crazy pills.

First he said, in response to a question about his flipfloppin':

”Well, let me tell you straight up: I've never changed my mind about Iraq. I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat. I always believed he was a threat. Believed it in 1998 when Clinton was president. I wanted to give Clinton the power to use force if necessary.”

Then, not even a half hour later in response to a question about Iran - in the very same debate, mind you:

”I don't think you can just rely on U.N. sanctions, Randee. But you're absolutely correct, it is a threat, it's a huge threat.

"And what's interesting is, it's a threat that has grown while the president has been preoccupied with Iraq, where there wasn't a threat.”

As of now I'm operating on the assumption that anyone we would elect to office should be able to decide - given years and years to make the call and even being able to refelct on the outcome - if a world power presents a threat. Note he does claim "I have never changed my mind." But if anyone is up to the Challenge of explaining how this makes any degree of sense I am certainly waiting to hear it, cuz I feel like I'm in Alice in freakin Wonderland over here watching this guy talk.



Anyone?

From the AFP:

Nobel laureate calls for steeper tax cuts in US

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Edward Prescott, who picked up the Nobel Prize for Economics, said President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s tax rate cuts were "pretty small" and should have been bigger.



"What Bush has done has been not very big, it's pretty small," Prescott told CNBC financial news television.

"Tax rates were not cut enough," he said.

Lower tax rates provided an incentive to work, Prescott said.

Prescott and Norwegian Finn Kydland won the 2004 Nobel Economics Prize for research into the forces behind business cycles.

The American analyst, who is a professor at Arizona State University and a researcher at the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Bank of Minneapolis, said a large tax cut in 1986 had lowered rates while collecting the same revenue.

But "in the early '90s the economy was depressed by the tax increase in '93 by about four percent, and it's right at that level now," Prescott said.

Bush, who is fighting to get re-elected November 2, has cut taxes by about 1.7 trillion dollars during his term.

The US leader accuses his Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites) of favoring tax increases, despite Kerry's promise to cut taxes for everyone earning less than 200,000 dollars a year.

Paul Krugman and others who are sippin Haterade on the tax cuts, how many nobel prizes have you won for economics? Oh wait, zero - my bad.

With our own presidential election heating up during a week where Yankees and Red Sox are preparing for an equally bitter play-off rematch, it doesn't come as much of a shocker that the collective American attention span has little appetite for a slice of the Australian political pie. But given that Saturday's Australian election represented a major test of international support for the current administration's policies in Afghanistan and Iraq and has profound significance for our electoral battle here, it's a slice we here at Billiken would have to serve up hot - with a scoop of NDot biased opinion on the side. As Arsenio would say, Mmmm mmm - that's some good-ass pie!



Quick take: The reelection of Prime Minister John Howard gives anyone serious about fighting terrorism a reason to crack open a Fosters in celebration. The disparity in resolve and vision was clear going into this weekend: while Prime Minister John Howard has long been a strong ally of America in general and was committed to supporting the United States in the Afghan and Iraq wars, Labor Party leader Mark Latham had run on a firm Anti-Bushocrat platform (or the Australian equivalent) and had committed his party to bringing home Australian troops in Iraq by Christmas. Had Latham claimed a victory, it would surely have been seen as a dramatic setback for the American president and British Prime Minister who claim international support for the intervention in Iraq, as well as a sign of weakening resolve in the face of a terrorism threat that has already been successful in replacing a US ally in Spain with a Socialist government that ran on an Anti-Bushocrat platform (or the Spanish equivalent). It would have been celebrated exuberantly by the following, in no particular order: France, Germany, terrorists, Middle Eastern despots, the United Nations, various international NGOs, the DNC, and other Anti-Bushocrats throughout the world.

Thankfully, Howard won. And not only won, but cleaned up; after three terms in office - when most voters are getting a little sick of seeing your mug and hearing whats coming out of your pie-hole - Howard actually increased his majority to a big dog 30 seats and gained control of the Senate, marking the first time since 1981 that the conservative Coalition has controlled both Houses.

In other words, it's John Kerry's turn to scowl. While the Kerr-bear has been on the mic dissing our allies ("that's not a grand coaltion!"), flip-floppin' around on whether the undertaking was a mistake or not, and vehemently trying to convince the world that international support is crumbling, its genuinely inspiring to witness the victory of a leader who took an unpopular stand and stuck with it, ultimately convincing his electorate that an Australian alliance with the US that has been strong since 1917 was worth keeping. Score one for political courage abroad - even as some of us once arrogant and self-assured are a bit more nervous about its victory at home.

Still confident, though. Same with the Sox.

Speaking of events abroad, the Billiken readership still awaits word of our intrepid correspondents in Thailand. Gotim, St. Nick - are you receiving our signal? Over.

As Zwill alluded to, I am leaving tomorrow on an extended trip to Thailand and Japan, among other places. I will still be performing my own special brand of investigative reporting from abroad. As long there is an internet connection and news for me to make fun of, I will do so. If anything I will be ahead of the game, a whole 11 hours ahead of you NYCers, with your Eastern Standard Time.

It's great to see so many people, old and new, contributing on Billiken. The political posts have dominated of late. I think the dialogue, however heated it gets, forces us all to be better writers and become more informed. Let's remember though it's all in good fun, and let's try not to take everything too seriously. There's plenty of news out there that is begging for commentary.

Keep your ear to the street.