By GI Korea on July 31st, 2011 at 8:15 am

ROK Drop Open Thread – July 31, 2011

• Denny
  9:06 am on July 31st, 2011 1

  Japan increasingly alarmed U.S. may miss debt deadline: sources

  http://news.yahoo.com/japan-increasingly-alarmed-u-may-miss-debt-deadline-103105880.html

  TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan is increasingly alarmed that the United States may miss the August 2 deadline for raising its debt ceiling and Tokyo fears markets may be too optimistic about prospects of a lasting solution to the crisis, sources familiar with Japan’s international and monetary affairs said.

  Officials still hope Washington can manage to strike a last-minute deal and even if that proves impossible, will give priority to interest payments to international holders of U.S. Treasury debt to limit the immediate market impact, the sources said.

  But Tokyo’s concern is that if the crisis drags on without clear and sustainable resolution, markets may be thrown into turmoil, just like it happened when Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.

  “There is nothing really concrete that supports the still predominant view that the U.S. will somehow clinch a deal in time and avoid default,” said one of the sources.

  “If there is a default, the impact on global markets will be huge.”

  Another source confirmed this view. “Nobody thought Washington would let Lehman collapse. But look what happened,” the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Sunday.

• kushibo
  10:17 am on July 31st, 2011 2

  The debt ceiling crisis is completely artificial, engineered by the same people on the same side who are doing the negotiating. It was meant to draw attention to the need for fiscal conservatism, which is an important political issue now that they are not in the White House.

  It will get resolved one way or another, unless Boehner and other mainstream Republicans suddenly fear that the Tea Party really will try to vote them out of office or bolt the party in 2012, in which case you will see them try to bring this closer to the brink (in order to avoid looking like they’re giving in to tax or revenue increases), in which case there could be some danger lurking.

• Retired GI
  2:59 pm on July 31st, 2011 3

  I agree with Kushibo. It will be resolved. Obama is upset that the congress won’t just give him what he wants (higher taxes). So Obama and the Senate are playing Class Warfare.

  As with all things Obama, it is created hysteria. We must do it now or the world will stop spinning.

• Retired GI
  3:14 pm on July 31st, 2011 4

  Via harrythehorse comes this:

  1. Why do we continue to send monetary aid to Haiti, Chili, Turkey, Greece, Pakistan, Egypt, South Korea, Philippines, Brazil, etc., if we are broke? If someone wants to borrow money from me when my wallet is empty, I tell them, “no can do”. Isn’t it time to start looking at reducing some of that aid money?

  2. In Seville Spain, local people found a way to stop the construction of yet another mosque in their town. They buried a pig on the site and made sure this would be known by the local press.
  The Islamic rules forbid the erecting of a mosque on “pig soiled ground”. The muslims had to cancel the project. This land was sold to them by government officials. No protest were needed by the local people … and it worked!

  Perhaps that should be done in New york?

• ChickenHead
  5:44 pm on July 31st, 2011 5

  1. As we discussed before, the money we give to other countries is truly nothing… a fraction of a fraction of a fraction.

  Some of it likely has some benefits, both long and short-term, that give a return on investment for American iiinterests.

  The problem is the money we give to Americans that don’t work. It is hugh and it is killing American.

  2. Hmmm… bury pigs? Just kill some of those cops who keep beating up citizens for video recording them and get two birds with one stone.

• Retired GI
  6:53 pm on July 31st, 2011 6

  Debt ceiling fight is over if Obama agrees. No one is happy.

  http://WWW.washingtonpost/politics/the-debt-ceiling-deal-winners-and-losers/2011/07/31/gIQAHi7FmI_story.html

• ChickenHead
  4:58 am on August 1st, 2011 7

  Wow.

  I didn’t even get a nibble with that cop killing bit.

  Was it discounted as crazy-talk or was it so obviously agreeable that it needed no comment?

  http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151806

  http://www.activistpost.com/2011/07/disturbing-trend-many-innocent.html

  Etc.

• Retired GI
  5:57 am on August 1st, 2011 8

  So obvious. They often believe they are all powerful. Like big kids. You must *enjoy* telling the little people what to do to enjoy being a cop.

  http://www.xdtalk.com/forums/xdtalk-chatter-box/180173-shocking-video-ccw-holder-threatened-expletive-filled-rant-dash-cam.html

• kushibo
  8:19 pm on August 1st, 2011 9

  The case of escaped hijacker D.B. Cooper, of which I learned from AFKN info spots, may soon be solved.

• kangaji
  8:41 pm on August 1st, 2011 10

  http://news.yahoo.com/bank-korea-buys-gold-first-time-since-97-232516314.html
  Korean Central Bank buying gold – What do you think CH?

• Denny
  2:08 pm on August 2nd, 2011 11

  Rob Cohen to direct $100 million Korean War film

  http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/idUS321724107720110729

  Rob Cohen is set to direct the most expensive film in the history of the Korean film industry.

  1950,” a film set in the Korean War with a budget of $100 million. CJ E&M Pictures of Korea and Grapevine Entertainment are producing it along with Brett Donowho and executive producer Paul Hudson.

  It’s based on the dispatches of Marguerite Higgins, then the Tokyo bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune. Higgins was initially barred from covering the conflict by the US Army because she was a woman, but General Douglas MacArthur later gave her permission in a significant moment for female journalists.

  It follows Higgins’ journey across the Korean peninsula with a platoon of marines, ending with the mass evacuation on Christmas Eve of nearly 200,000 South Korean civilians escaping the oncoming Chinese and North Korean armies.

  Production is slated to begin in May of 2012 with a release date the following Spring.

• Tbonetylr
  4:21 pm on August 2nd, 2011 12

  # 11, Denny
  Somehow I don’t think it will ever happen, the Koreans will buy him/her(Rob and Marguerite) off, then do it themselves.

• Tbonetylr
  4:22 pm on August 2nd, 2011 13

  With an Anti-American slant.

• ChickenHead
  5:41 pm on August 2nd, 2011 14

  “Korean Central Bank buying gold – What do you think CH?”

  Hmmm… while it is a large physical amount, it is a very small part of Korea’s foreign reserves… making it almost meaningless in its over-all significance.

  That leaves a couple of ideas…

  A cousin of the finance minister owns a gold brokerage or something like that…

  …or this investment is based off of maintaining a reasonable quantity of physical gold to support Korean industry in case of some distress in the market… although there is no indication that Korea took physical possession of actual gold.

  Anyway, I have no idea. Those are just a few thoughts off the top of my head based only upon that article.

• Leon LaPorte
  8:02 pm on August 2nd, 2011 15

  14. Buy high sell low… If you ask me, buying gold at record high prices seems like a bad idea.

• kangaji
  3:52 am on August 3rd, 2011 16

  Suck it China-will-take-over-everything Prophets

• Those weren't bran muffins, Brainiac...
  4:54 am on August 3rd, 2011 17

  #15, but some Koreans lose $5 per item and try to make it up by volume…

  #16, that’s the inevitable fate of every city created by central planners. Communism just isn’t sustainable…

• Glans
  3:25 pm on August 3rd, 2011 18

  South Korea proposes to send flood aid to the North.

  China’s leading credit rating agency, the Dagong Global Credit Rating Company, has downgraded U.S. sovereign debt. Its chairman, Guan Jianzhong, said, “The squabbling between the two political parties on raising the U.S. debt ceiling reflected an irreversible trend on the United States’ declining ability to repay its debts,” and, “The two parties acted in a very irresponsible way and their actions greatly exposed the negative impact of the U.S. political system on its economic fundamentals.” Steven Jiang reports at CNN.

• kushibo
  3:56 pm on August 3rd, 2011 19

  Glans, that is nothing but a political move, designed to poke the US in the eye for various things (e.g., allowing the Dalai Lama to visit) and domestic consumption (i.e., see how bad things get when you have a full-blown democratically elected republic?).

  The US should seriously consider revisiting demands that China properly value its currency (i.e., let it appreciate to its natural value) and consider retaliation if it doesn’t. If anyone’s going to let the US economy go down in flames, it’s going to be Americans, dammit!

• kangaji
  9:50 pm on August 3rd, 2011 20

  More absolute journalistic Gold from Korea’s Sports Dailies!

  This one is about a Chinese Taoist Immortal Woman who came from 500 years in the past to beg on the subway with her smart phone.

  It’s Kangaji’s latest translation of these gems of fine reporting.

• Glans
  2:15 am on August 4th, 2011 21

  The debt problem is Europe gets worse. The Japanese government buys dollars.

• Glans
  2:30 am on August 4th, 2011 22

  Josh Marshall, boss of TalkingPointsMemo, says: “NJ Gov. Chris Christie (R) is a brusque guy who clearly has a temper about as big as the man himself. But watch this video from a week ago of Christie defending his appointment of 47-year old Muslim lawyer Sohail Mohammed to the state bench. He just won’t brook the nonsense and bigotry.” Read more…

• Glans
  4:05 am on August 4th, 2011 23

  Could it be that our enemies were right? David Frum asks this question.

• setnaffa
  5:14 am on August 4th, 2011 24

  Glans, the fact is that our enemies have nearly won. You and many others refuse to see it; but America is a much different place than it was 40 years ago…

  The people who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were Republicans. The people who tried to create and maintain segregation were Democrats. And those parties are still working toward those goals. To take just one example, Affirmative Action teaches minorities that they are too stupid to be successful without Uncle Sam…

  And whether the NYT admits “the new Left” supports Chavez or not is immaterial. Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Danny Glover, and several other Hollywood folks go there to visit periodically. Ask among your lefty friends and see who they consider the biggest threat to freedom, Hugo Chavez or George W. Bush.

  Reread Orwell’s Animal Farm. Notice how certain political leaders are militantly inconsistent? Obama’s views on items he promised during his campaign, for example, are “evolving”? Just like the writing on the barnyard wall…

  Aww, what’s the use… We’re all just kulaks…

• Tbonetylr
  7:33 am on August 4th, 2011 25

  Must be another S. Korean wangtta student on the loose at the Virginia Tech. campus!

• Glans
  2:51 pm on August 5th, 2011 26

  An honest administration. “Obama’s presidency has so far been almost completely free of scandal. No sex scandals, no money scandals, no conflict-of-interest scandals, no nothing.“

• Glans
  1:59 am on August 7th, 2011 27

  Unmanned space exploration is awesome.

• Leon LaPorte
  2:19 am on August 7th, 2011 28

  All space exploration is awesome. NASA is really a good example of a government agency which really gives you bang for your (less than) a buck.

  /all those royalties for technology (for what some consider useless programs and knowledge) go back to the government.

• Glans
  3:18 am on August 7th, 2011 29

  The planet of the apes was the miocene earth, says Kate Wong of Scientific American.

• ChickenHead
  6:04 am on August 7th, 2011 30

  Leon,

  The sad thing about NASA is that they are no longer allowed to do what they do very well… build rockets that put people into space.

  All that institutional knowledge is trickling away as employees retire and die instead of guiding the next generation of scientists to build and improve upon it.

  It is hard to believe that my smart phone has more computing power than existed in the whole world when NASA put men on the moon.

  PEOPLE WALKED ON THE GODDAM MOON IN THE 1960s!

  …and they did it for less than we spend smart bombing some middle eastern bridge just so we can rebuild it.

  With all the advances in computer power, miniaturization, materials, CAD with simulation, computerized machining, etc., one would think NASA could bang out an Apollo v2.0 in less than a year for a couple times more than it costs to build a widebody jet.

  But no.

  NASA is directed to study global warming.

  NASA was once used to make Americans proud and America strong. Now it is used as a tool to tear down America and divide its people.

  This is a good place to start.

  http://bigjournalism.com/rtrzupek/2010/01/30/to-boldly-go-nowhere-nasa-foregoes-moon-concentrates-on-global-warming/

• Leon LaPorte
  7:57 am on August 7th, 2011 31

  30. I wholeheartedly agree with you but this isn’t a NASA failure, it is a leadership failure.

  /duh, lest I forget, when was the last time anyone in our “government” actually governed?

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