The Good Shephard

I went and watched de Niro's new movie, The Good Shephard, with a few other Marines I work with. I have to say that "The Godfather of Spy movies" is a bit much but it was one of the best movies I've seen in some time. Two reasons: Matt Damon and refusing to pull punches. I loved Damon's character and despite a slow mid section the last 20 or 30 minutes of the movie were great. Most movies try and redeem their characters from themselves or make an effort to make everyone feel a little better, but not this movie. Damon's character sticks by his personal morals and ambitions for the CIA to the very end of the movie and it makes him one of the most admirable and righteous characters that Hollywood has spit up in a long time. I won't spoil the movie but I say that I was very happy with it in the end. Go see it.

Banzai Bitches!

It seems that the Japanese are getting serious again about national defense. I knew this was only a matter of time but to be frank it's long overdue. We've been footing the bill for Japan's defense with American personel and equipment for over 60 years and this is a big step forward in fixing that. With the movement of the third Marine Expeditionary Force out of Okinawa to Guam almost a done deal I think we can expect to see US Air Force and Navy assets moving away from the mainland as well as the Japanese get serious about building their own strategic and offensive capabilities. The idea of Japan having a couple carrier groups, expeditionary forces, bombers and theater ballistic missles on call gets me all hot and bothered. Right now the Japannese spend a little over 1% of their GDP on their own defense. About 40 or 50 billion. The US spends about 3 times that amount in GDP or 20 something times that in dollors. With all the problems the new conservative goverment in Japan is having I wonder how they are going to be able to get double or tripling that number without folks losing their minds. Or even suggest the real possibility of that down the road. I bet they could get people excited if their next-gen weapons platforms had huge swords and glowings eyes. It's the new Japanese Gundam Self-Defense Force!