Saigon December 29, 2016

 Conglomeration translates to sự dính lại, so I guess that is what I'll call it. :)

Corn on the cob.  In Cần Thơ  they coat them with chopped green onion and hot sauces. Excellent.

The female counterpart of the street idiot.  She is fine, but the male is a problem, though nothing will be done about him.

 Yum, yum.

 Crushed ice delivery.

 The sisters were marvelous to view as they played together.

$100 USD (A $100 clean, bill only) = 2,3000,000 dong at a gold store.  Everywhere else is slightly less. 

 Vietnamese New Year ad.

 Christmas ad.

$2K USD a month until you buy for $67K. It says you only make the monthly payment until you purchase, so not sure what else is involved.

The government fireworks for Christmas Eve were cancelled for some reason. So a picture will have to suffice.  Fireworks for individuals have been declared illegal since 1994.  The two years before that we set off ones that could have blown you to bits in Cần Thơ . :)

 

Last year. 

 

I ordered a small bowl of Pho this time and my stomach still hurts.  Insane.

Some things never change.

The lady on the bike furious about something, but couldn't hear why. 

Instead of $ or VND, they are listing as gold, 1.8 ty Việt Nam ($80,000)

They bring the check in these. First restaurant so far.

I used rice paper and noodles along with the rest and could only eat two out of eight.  Actually, I like to just cover the meat with a lettuce leaf and mints as the rice paper and noodles really fill you up. $1.40.

$1.19

? :)

A 960 mg antibiotic pill (Two ingredients ) made by Germans, STADA,  in Vietnam. 48 cents a piece.  The Germans also make another which is 500mg though with different ingredients.  22 cents.

I get my daily exercise at the top floor restaurant.  The plants are so healthy, you would think they were fake.  Parts of the roof roll back if liked. 

 Buddhist shrine

 

Catholic shrine at the place I bought the food below.

I managed to eat half only, once again. :) $1.19.

Amazing.  $400 a month and there is nothing deficient.

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I. Haven't seen school girls bicycling by in their white Ao dais, but hopefully will when I head South. Believe it or not, the Communists banned them when they first took over. :)

II.  There were seldom overweight people here before, but there are now.

III. I've noticed people trash items now that would have been repaired before.

IV. Opposite sexes never showed affection in public before, but some do now sparingly. Nothing much, but observable.

V.  I adjusted monthly payments at home before I came saving about $250.  The hotel is $400, but in three weeks I have only spent $365 on everything, so I am actually spending less here. You could cut these expenses in 1/2 if you prepared your own meals and moved into a cheaper place.  Very cheap if you could do without A/C and this time of year you don't need it.

The Biggest Mistakes of the Vietnam War - Part 3 of a Series - Still Popular in the Liberal Democrat Playbook

Via Mike

 

NAGO on the far left. 
Enlarged 

 Re-post from 2007, 9 and 11 with additional Vietnam pictures...

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President Kennedy’s failure to challenge North Vietnam’s glaring and extensive violation of the 1962 Geneva Treaty on the neutrality of Laos, President Johnson’s compounding of this error by allowing Laos and Cambodia to become sanctuaries for North Vietnamese troops and supplies, and Kennedy’s regime change call that encouraged a South Vietnamese military junta to replace elected South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.

The junta unfortunately murdered Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. This threw South Vietnamese civil government and military leadership into chaos for over two years, which the Communists exploited to the fullest, forcing a huge expansion of American commitment and troops. This regime change was the greatest mistake of the war.  President Carter’s failure to support the Shah of Iran, long-time U.S. ally, in the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the Obama/Hillary Clinton backed Arab Spring involving Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria in 2011 were repeats of this media-pleasing liberal ideological error.

The fourth major error in Vietnam was the Johnson-McNamara theory of warfare—variously called “graded escalation,” “gradual escalation,” “the doctrine of gradualism,” or sometimes just “the slow squeeze.” It was the brainchild of Harvard academics, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was its foremost ranking advocate. Lyndon Johnson became its most faithful and powerful executive disciple. However bright the strategy of graded escalation might have seemed to Harvard whiz kids and game theorists, it went against the accumulated military wisdom of centuries.

The Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff ( JCS),  Pacific Area Commander Admiral Grant Sharp, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department Intelligence Agency, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk all strongly opposed it   The JCS and the intelligence agencies consistently advocated quick and decisive action against North Vietnam, including bombing critical military, air, naval, transportation, industrial, and fuel storage targets in all parts of North Vietnam, especially those near Hanoi and Haiphong. The Navy advocated aerial mining of Haiphong’s strategic port.  Conventional military wisdom is to hit an enemy as hard and fast as you can to maximize his costs and minimize your own risks and costs. A Marine Gunnery Sergeant once gave the advice: “Hit ‘em as hard as you can, when they ain’t looking.”

More @ The Tribune

Abolish the Department of Energy

Via Billy

When former Texas governor Rick Perry ran for president in 2012, he promised he'd abolish the U.S. Department of Energy (at least when he could remember it). Liberals wrote this off as typical conservative stupidity.

Why would anyone want to abolish the DOE? According to one liberal commentator, it was because the department "was established during Jimmy Carter's administration and it perhaps sounds like it might have something to do with solar panels."

Jimmy Carter created it, all right, but solar panels were only a symptom of the real problem. The DOE was conceived in dark and pessimistic beliefs and forecasts that have proven totally wrong. As Obama might say, the DOE is on the wrong side of history. As it stands the department needs to either be rethought or retired.

More @ Washington Examiner

How George Soros Destroyed the Democratic Party - The Left ultimately destroys itself.

Via Billy

It was the end of the big year with three zeroes. The first X-Men movie had broken box office records. You couldn’t set foot in a supermarket without listening to Brittney Spears caterwauling, “Oops, I Did It Again.” And Republicans and Democrats had total control of both chambers of legislatures in the same amount of states. That was the way it was back in the distant days of the year 2000.

In 2016, Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states. That’s up from 16 in 2000.

What happened to the big donkey? Among other things, the Democrats decided to sell their base and their soul to a very bad billionaire and they got a very bad deal for both.

More @ Front Page

REVENGE OF THE LEFT! Politico & HuffPost BLAST Obama’s Failed Leadership!

Via Billy

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported:

“According to Real Clear Politics poll averages most of Obama’s presidency was spent with 60%+ of the U.S. believing that the country was headed in the wrong direction. At several points during his presidency 75%+ of the U.S. believed the country was headed in the wrong direction…

…The Democratic Party suffered huge losses at every level during Obama’s West Wing tenure.

The grand total: a net loss of 1,042 state and federal Democratic posts, including congressional and state legislative seats, governorships and the presidency. “

Politico & HuffPost Take Shots

More @ The Gateway Pundit

Britain cracks down on illegal nail-salon workers in fight against modern slavery

Via Billy

They may be illegal, but I doubt if they are doing anything other than what most Vietnamese do. They work on commission, so the longer hours they work,  the more money they make. 6 12 hour days is normal with some  6 1/2 and 7 days.


British immigration officers have raided nearly 300 nail salons and arrested 97 people, mostly from Vietnam, for suspected immigration offences as part of a drive to tackle modern slavery, the Home Office said on Wednesday.

"Operation Magnify", a week-long operation concluded earlier this month, was a cross-government drive to stamp out illegal working by targeting specific "risk" industries, said the Home Office, Britain's interior ministry, in a statement.

                                                                    More @ Reuters

US Should Not Only Defund UN But Withdraw From It - Let’s take our $3 billion and go.

Via Billy

The United States pays 22% of the total UN budget. What we get for our $3 billion a year is a corrupt organization whose dysfunctional and hostile agencies are united in opposing us around the world.

The United Nations does only two things consistently and effectively: waste money and bash Israel.

Sometimes it manages to do both at the same time.

After an extended, and no doubt costly, visit to the region, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women blamed Muslim men beating their wives on Israeli settlements.

More @ Front Page

Obama shock: Another $6 billion in 'midnight regulations'

Via John

President Obama, who this week has issued a flurry of environmental rules, is planning to unleash another set of "midnight regulations" right before he leaves office that will cost Americans $6 billion.

Obama has already broken all past records on creating federal regulations and red tape, and his new adds will boost the overall price tag to over $1 trillion.

The new regulations, according to the watchdog group American Action Forum, include four from the Environmental Protection Agency and one from Interior.

More @ Washington Examiner

Drexel University professor George Ciccariello-Maher's Info +

Via comment  by Weaver on Drexel University professor calls for ‘white genoc...

  

@ Drexel

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 The Dialectics of Standing One’s Ground

Via David: "Didn't know you had a BMW." Vanity plates: Drivers take to the road with rude, controversial and hilarious slogans

The most outrageous vanity plates in America: Drivers who take to the road with rude, controversial and hilarious slogans