Intellectual Dishonesty

With the current humanitarian crisis in Burma, exacerbated by the corruption and inefficiency of their military junta government, there's been an outbreak of proposals to 'liberate' the Burmese people. And guess what? All these are written by the same leftoid fools who opposed the US invasion of Iraq, for just about the same(or better) reasons.

The intellectual vapidness of these idiots is astounding. As the people on the Belmont Club have commented, all it takes is for the US to take action, and suddenly these fools advocating the overthrow of the Burmese government will start protesting against the heavy-handedness of the US military, the bombed out remains of shattered Burmese combat vehicles. They are stupid, but more than that, they are dishonest.

Now in all probability if the "good old U.S. military" actually does invade Burma it will incinerate every vestige of armed opposition in its path. Burmese Army units will stand about as much chance as ants before a kid's homemade flamethrower. And then all of a sudden the assumptions will collapse in reverse order. People are going to say, 'we didn't realize invasions meant killing people'; 'we didn't realize we wouldn't have allies'; and finally 'we did not think it would be so expensive'. And then we will hear that classic line: "I was for it before I was against it."

I had always supported the US invasion of Iraq, on the simple grounds that no Saddam is better than Saddam, and the 'peace' of Saddam's Iraq is akin to the peace of the grave, enforced by thugs. For the same reasons, I would support any invasion of Burma, even by China, which would be a damn sight better than the military junta in power now. However, the only world power with the actual capability to do so, the US, has citizens tired and weary of cleaning up the world's messes. They won't lift a finger.

I've commented on Burma last year, and I noted then that freedom bought cheaply with the lives of others is just as easily sold cheaply for a pack of lies. I don't expect anything to change. The best option is to stay out, but if anyone asks, I don't mind donating a few hundred bucks for a fund to raise some mercnaries(ala Rambo) or to purchase weapons to smuggle into Burma for the resistance in the country.

Macross Frontier

It's all Kenneth's fault. We were meeting up to discuss about the gaming convention and to purchase the mechs when he took out his laptop to show us the latest bootleg videos of the latest Shoji Kawamori project - Macross Frontier. Now showing in Japan, it's up to episode 5 now, and has all the classic Macross elements.

A love triangle with a twist. The guy in the middle is actually more beautiful than the girls!!! And this time, both girls are very talented singers.

A desperate war with unknown mysterious aliens. Not much is known of the Vajra except they are essentially biological monsters under the control of some mysterious agency. Oh, and singing by one of the characters apparently revives them, though this is only conjecture from the viewer's perspective at the moment.

Cool transformable mecha. In this case, the mouth watering VF-25, which looks inspired from a mix of the Sukhoi-27, the F-18 Hornet, and the F-14 Tomcat for the variable geometry wings.

The final classic element in Macross is of course music. So far, the soundtrack has been astoundingly good, IMO rivaling the legendary Macross Plus soundtrack. The first episode gave us the OP Triangular, which is topping the charts in Japan, the insert songs from the concert Sagittarius@9 Don't be Late, What 'Bout My Star(synth-pop version?) and a stand-in EP Aimo. What 'Bout My Star has two versions, sung by each female lead. The actual EP for the series is actually Diamond Crevasse from the 2nd episode onwards.

Of all the songs, Diamond Crevasse is actually my favorite, with the rock version of What 'Bout My Star from episode 5 being a close second. The single for Diamond Crevasse has been released, and I'm already impatient for the OST for this series to be released.

Looking forward very much to the rest of series. My great fear is that it'd get too bogged down and go all mystical, which is what happened in Macross Zero, especially the ending which made me go "Huh?". As long as that doesn't happen, Frontier should be a confirmed hit.