Big Long-tail Boats

Thailand Long-tail boat VS Vietnam Long-tail boat เครื่องV8 ถือหางอย่างโหด ใบพัดใหญ่จัด!!
Bike Boat Car

Here I was thinking these long-tail boats were just for hot rodding.

Lucky 666

Lucky 666

I got to thinking about WW2 in the Pacific the other day. My Dad flew as a tail gunner in a B-24 during the war, but he never told me much about it, so I'm thinking there ought to be some books about it, and there are. This one is pretty great.

Port Moresby, Rabaul and Bougainville Island

Lucky 666 is the story of Jay Zeamer, troublemaker, misfit and pilot enamored of the B-17 bomber. The story concentrates on Port Moresby on New Guinea, Rabaul on New Britain and Bougainville Island. The distance from Port Moresby to Rabaul is 600 miles, the same as the distance from London to Berlin.

The climax occurs when Lucky 666 is attacked by a mess of Japanese Zeros while they are attempting to photograph the west coast Bougainville. The Zeros preferred method was to attack head on as the front of the B-17 has the fewest number of guns available to shoot back and is the most vulnerable with the glass nose. The book tells us that after they have made an attack run, it takes the Zeros ten minutes to circle around and come back for another pass. I'm guesstimating a zero can make a U-turn in about 6 seconds, but that will only put them about 1,000 feet to the side of the B-17's flight path. They will also now be a third of a mile behind the B-17, so they will still be in range of its guns. Zeros fly over 300 MPH and a B-17 taking photos is only flying at 200 MPH, so the Zero will be able to catch up to the bomber. The Zeros don't want to just catch the bomber, they want go way past it so they can turn around and head back towards it so they are heading right towards each other. That tight turning radius means they will only be 1,000 feet away from the bomber as they go by which is well within range of the top, tail, waist and belly guns, so they might want to be a little farther away which means a larger turning radius and more time taken. Now the Zero has to catch up to the B-17, then it needs to get several miles ahead so it has time to make another U-turn and time to line up its sights and fire a mess of bullets at the nose of the B-17. So, yeah, I can see that it could take ten minutes.

Metrogon Camera

Trimetrogon camera installed in B-17

Aerial reconnaissance was done using Trimetrogon cameras which were a lash up of three Metrogon cameras arranged so they covered a wide swath of ground. This swath of ground was perpendicular to the line of flight. By taking a set of three photos every few seconds a great deal of land could be covered with one pass.

Relationship of cameras to ground for trimetrogon photography (three cameras)

Metrogon cameras used nine inch wide film. If we assume a resolution of 600 pixels per inch, that's like 30 million pixels. Modern 35mm film might have a resolution equivalent to 3,000 pixels per inch. Funny, I could not find an article that gave a good account of the film versus digital images. They all seem to be tangle of mumbo-jumbo. Seems to me you should be able to make straight forward comparison.

Fairchild K-17 Camera

The Fairchild K-17 camera also used nine inch film. I suspect the camera body is the same as the one used with the Metrogon. Near as I can tell, the Metrogon name comes from the fancy, wide-angle lenses they used.

We've been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty . . .

Stole this article about the Cambodia-Thailand conflict from The Geopolitics, mostly because their page is so loaded with ads that it's annoying to read. The reason I bothered with it is because of #4 in his list of reasons for the conflict:

4. Online Scams and the Criminal Economic Lifeline

We've watched a number of TV shows and movies, where large scale scam operations figure prominently in the storyline (The Beekeeper is one, The Black Swindler is another). It's one thing when you see it in a show, but how prevalent are they in the real world? I've heard about call centers in India that employ hundreds of people working for peanuts, calling people in America trying to sell extended warranties for cars. I was thinking that those operations are slimy, and sure, they will ensnare a few gullible fools, but how much damage are they really doing to society? And here we have a center in Cambodia that seems to be a crucial source of funds for the government.

It's not just gullible fools who get ensnared in these things. I suspect a good portion of their customers are people for whom the $29.95 a month for whatever-it-is is an insignificant expense, people who don't even bother to look at their credit card statement, and may not even pay their monthly bill. Someone with the gift of gab manages to get them on the phone and whatever their spiel is, it just happens to sound like a good idea, so they say sure, give up their credit card number and as soon as they hang up the phone they forget about it.

How many calls can a caller make in day? Given that half of the numbers they call don't go through (for any number of reasons) and maybe a tenth will connect them to a person willing to listen to their spiel, I'm thinking they can make a hundred calls an hour, or 800 calls a day, for which they get paid $20. If they manage to ensnare one client, that first months payment pays their wages for the day. But the operation might be able to collect that $30 a month for a year, so the operation is making bank.

If you have a hundred employees making a hundred calls a day, in a year they will have made roughly 3 million calls, which is only one percent of the population of the USA, so you will have barely tapped your market. Hiring staff for the call center is going to run you $60K a month, but when you add in the recurring payments, those calls will be generating $300K a month for a net profit of three million dollars a years. Shoot, you could afford to buy a Rolls, or a McLaren.

Here's the article:

Multiple Rocket Launcher (MRL), likely a BM-21 Grad or a similar Soviet-era system, being reloaded with rockets - Sima Rath

Regime Crises and Geopolitical Perspectives on the Cambodia-Thailand Conflict by Sam Rainsy, Cambodia’s finance minister from 1993 to 1994, co-founder and acting leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

Since May 2025, Cambodia and Thailand have been engaged in an armed conflict of unprecedented intensity in recent decades. Officially triggered by border tensions in disputed areas, the conflict cannot be reduced to a simple territorial disagreement. It reflects a complex interplay of historical, political, economic, and personal factors.

The current Cambodian regime, dominated by Hun Sen’s family for over forty years, lies at the heart of this conflict dynamic. The war highlights the nature of power in Phnom Penh, while reviving age-old geopolitical logics in which Cambodia, throughout the centuries, has owed its survival to its role as a buffer state between rival powers. The crisis today raises a fundamental question: can Cambodia continue to cling to an authoritarian, dynastic mode of governance in a region undergoing profound transformation?

1. Historical Background: Cambodia Between Siam and Annam

For centuries, Cambodia’s very survival as a state depended on the antagonistic relations between its two powerful neighbors: Siam (modern-day Thailand) to the west and Annam (modern-day Vietnam) to the east. These two kingdoms/empires repeatedly sought to subjugate Cambodia, causing continuous fragmentation of its political authority.

A key episode is the Siamese expedition led by General Bodin in the 19th century, during which Cambodia, weakened and vulnerable, oscillated between competing hegemonies. It took French colonial intervention at the end of the 19th century to stabilize and preserve this small kingdom. Without the French protectorate established in 1863, Cambodia might have disappeared from the regional map.

2. Persistent Geopolitical Dependence Since Independence

The independence obtained in 1953 under King Norodom Sihanouk did not eliminate Cambodia’s geopolitical dependence. On the contrary, the Cold War turned the country into a proxy battleground for global and regional powers. Since then, Cambodia has constantly had to navigate the influence of Vietnam, Thailand, China, and the United States.

Hun Sen’s regime, installed by Hanoi in 1979 after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, gradually distanced itself from Vietnam and began a balancing act between Beijing, Washington, and Bangkok. However, these successive alignments never removed Cambodia’s fundamental vulnerability, as the country remains the region’s geopolitical weak link.

3. A Political and Familial Rivalry Between Phnom Penh and Bangkok

The current conflict is exacerbated by a personal rivalry between two political dynasties: the Hun family in Cambodia and the Shinawatra family in Thailand. Once close—Hun Sen once described Thaksin Shinawatra as his “adoptive brother”—the two clans are now bitter enemies.

On June 26, 2025, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visited Sakaeo province and publicly labeled the Cambodian border town of Poipet a major hub for cross-border online scam networks. This comment directly targeted the Hun regime, widely accused of tolerating and even profiting from these operations.

The reaction from Phnom Penh was immediate. On June 27, Hun Sen delivered an unusually long and heated televised speech, accusing Thaksin of failing to “educate his daughter” and of disrespecting “the second most important person in Cambodia, after the King.” This verbal escalation laid bare the personal animosity driving interstate tensions.

For deeper analysis on this dynastic dimension, see my earlier article: Dynastic Politics and Governance Crisis in Southeast Asia: The Case of Thailand and Cambodia (The Geopolitics).

4. Online Scams and the Criminal Economic Lifeline

In recent years, the Thai-Cambodian border region has become the epicenter of online scam networks that defraud victims across Asia and other parts of the world. These scams are orchestrated from guarded compounds often operated with local protection, generating massive revenues.

For the Hun regime, this shadow economy has become an essential financial lifeline. In the face of international sanctions and declining aid, the illicit flow of money sustains Cambodia’s patronage system. Thailand’s efforts in 2025 to dismantle these networks have been interpreted in Phnom Penh as a direct economic and political threat.

Hun Sen’s regime has responded by reframing Thai enforcement measures as nationalist provocation, masking the real stakes of financial survival behind a rhetoric of sovereignty.

This connection between illicit economies and authoritarian survival was explored in my article: Criminal Networks, Not Patriotism: The True Source of Hun Sen’s Fury Toward Thailand (The Geopolitics).

5. Hun Sen’s Failed Strategy to Divide Thai Elites

In response to Thai pressure, Hun Sen has sought to exploit internal political divisions in Thailand. He has attempted to pit the royalist-military establishment against the Shinawatra-led Pheu Thai party, expressing hope for the return of General Prayuth Chan-o-cha as Prime Minister.

Hun Sen even began leaking alleged private criticisms of the Thai monarchy made by Thaksin during their past friendship. But rather than divide Thai elites, this maneuver backfired: it sparked rare unity among Thai political, military, and royalist factions, all now seeing Hun Sen as a vile and shared adversary.

6. A Conflict That Could Destabilize Hun Sen’s Regime

This conflict risks destabilizing the very foundations of the Hun regime. Built on dynastic control, personal loyalty, and entrenched corruption, the system in Phnom Penh is ill-equipped to manage a long-term crisis or negotiate a peaceful resolution.

The personalized nature of power in Cambodia, the use of public institutions for private enrichment, and the reliance on criminal revenues form a model that is increasingly out of sync with regional dynamics that favor rule-based cooperation.

Conclusion: Toward a New Regional and Political Equilibrium?

Regardless of the military outcome or peace negotiations, Cambodia cannot return to the status quo. A new political balance is inevitable. This will likely require the formation of a new government acceptable not only to Cambodians but also to regional powers—Vietnam, Thailand, China—and to the United States.

This scenario echoes the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, which envisioned Cambodia as a neutral, independent, and democratic state. Preserving the spirit of those accords remains essential for achieving a durable peace.

Ultimately, the war now raging on Cambodia’s borders is also a war for political transformation. The era of unaccountable personal power may be drawing to a close. Cambodia is entering a new historical phase in which it must redefine its role among neighbors and rediscover sovereignty through law, transparency, and peace.

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

A bunch of countries in east Asia are working on a free trade agreement. The people in these countries make up 30% of the world's population. 

I'm reading Tyler Durden's post about this and there is a chart of numbers and I don't like the format. The numbers are all left justified, makes it hard to see what's going on, so I muck around 

(save the image, run it through a free online OCR (Optical Character Recognition) service, edit with a text editor to clean it up a bit) 

and then import it into a spreadsheet. Now I can play with it. Lists of numbers like this call for a graph, but none of graphs I call into existence really show me anything useful. Then I realize what we need is GDP per person, so I add that column. Now we have some numbers that mean something.

The top five are no surprise. Number six, Brunei, is kind of a freak, a tiny country on the island of Borneo that just happens to be "the fourth-largest producer of oil in Southeast Asia". Then we have China, Malaysia and Thailand that seem to be doing okay. And then we have the bottom six, who maybe aren't doing so well. That the Philippines are below Vietnam was kind of surprise, but maybe not. Filipinos make up a third of the crews of most of the cruise ships in the world. Working on a cruise ship is not far from slave labor. If that many people are looking for slave labor gigs overseas, things can't be too good at home. Plus we've got a jihadist revolution percolating there.* 

Seems Capitalism worked in some of these countries (the top five again). A couple suffered Communist revolutions (China and Vietnam) and are making progress. You'd think that the Philippines would be doing better what with it being a mostly an English speaking, Christian country with strong US backing, but maybe that's the problem. South Vietnam's corrupt government had US backing as well.

* It took me a while to find this post. Searching for philippines missed it. Searching for philippine would have found it, but Blogger's search function is rudimentary at best and I didn't think of it. Searching for winning finally turned it up because I remembered that from the blurb I quoted.

P.S. The chart in Tyler Durden's post was an image of the chart in Visual Capitalist's post. The chart format in Visual Capitalist's post is still piss poor, but at least it was text, so I could have copied it directly instead of going through the OCR business.

1945 New Guinea Rescue

1945 New Guinea Rescue
The History Guy is borderline too cheerful,  but the intro is over in a few seconds and then you get right into the story, and quite a story it is.

New Guinea & New Britain
Click the link to see the map and read the labels on the placemarks.

Southeast Asia, especially the islands between the mainland and Australia is complicated mess. It covers a large area, so distances are vast, but then you find out things like New Guinea is a stones throw from Australia. (Yes, that's Australia sticking up from the bottom of the map.)

The whole WW2 New Guinea campaign was kind of weird. There were a whole bunch of battles fought there, but they were just so we could build up enough clout so that we could attack the ginormous Japanese base at Rabaul on the neighboring island of New Britain, and then we didn't. By the time we had enough clout in the area we were able to blockade Rabaul, which made attacking it superfluous.

Three volcanoes are simultaneously erupting on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
Two, on opposite ends of the island, are indicated by red markers. The third is marked by the stream of ash flying south.

Links, if you want more.

• Ray T. Elsmore
• Battle of Hollandia
• Dani people
• 1945 New Guinea Gremlin Special rescue
• Wewak

Pic of the Day

Tumpak Sewu waterfall at sunrise with Mt. Semeru in the background
East Java, Indonesia

Looks like Jurassic Park.

Shades of Empire

A member of Kuala Lumpur Municipal Council Horse Unit waits for their turn to march during the Malaysian Independance Day Parade on August 31, 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia celebrates the country's 56th Independence Anniversary in hope towards becoming a self-sufficient industrialized nation by the year 2020.

Doesn't that uniform look like something the Brits would wear? Britain took over in Malaya in 1786 and held onto it until WW2. After that it's kind of a blur.

The Honourable Schoolboy by John LeCarre

There's supposed to be an accent mark over the last 'e' in LeCarre, but I don't know how to put it there and I am not inclined to find out. I mean it's a pen name for Pete's sake, it's not even his real name. And putting on the accent mark means adding another syllable when you say it, and who needs that? I suppose I should make the effort as I have really been enjoying his books lately. I've read half a dozen in the last few months and they were all perfectly wonderful. It wasn't always this way. I read one of his books a long time time ago and I didn't get much out of it. I thought it was horribly convoluted with too many incidental characters. But that was then, and now he's my current favorite. I'm still not putting the accent mark on the final 'e'.
    This story takes place in Southeast Asia around the time that the USA is winding up our involvement in Vietnam. We hit all the hot spots: Hong Kong, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Laos, Saigon. Looking at the map I noticed that Bangkok, Phnom Penh and Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) lie in a straight line. Rangoon and Calcutta, too, but they aren't part of this story. Bangkok is about 500 miles from Saigon as the crow flies. Check it out.


View The Honourable Schoolboy in a larger map
The story is all about people, but a couple of bits of technology get mentioned in passing. First was the "Elephant Cage" antennae at Ramasun Station (blue placemark on map).

This was a high frequency direction finder radio antennae. They got their start during WWII as Huff Duff (HF/DF). When the Cold War started the USA built half a dozen of these things all over the world. With them we could pinpoint a radio transmitter anywhere in the world, or at least that was the story. I knew there was one in Alaska, but I didn't know there was one in Cambodia. They are pretty much obsolete now. I'm not sure if we are even using any of them anymore.

Ramasun Station was about 50 miles South of Vientiane, Laos, another focal point of the story.

Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair

Then there is the Carvair, an exceedingly ugly airplane originally built to ferry automobiles across the English channel. You might remember it from Goldfinger.

Last was the T-28 which I remembered as a military trainer. Seems it got drafted for use as close air support in Vietnam. (There was also a WWII Russian tank known as a T-28, but that's not part of this story.)

Update October 2019 replaced picture that disappeared when I fixed a typo.

Burma Railroads

    I've been reading about WWII in Burma, and I came across a couple interesting bits of railroad lore. This is the same part of the world as the "Railroad of Death" and The Bridge on the River Kwai, though those are more in Thailand.
    First we have Gokteik Viaduct, "the largest railway trestle in the world" at the time of its construction in 1900.

Next we have the Double Fairlie Locomotive. This engine became famous because of its success in navigating the twisting Welsh mine railways. Apparently some people thought the twisting railway lines running across mountainous Burma would be another good place for them. No, it's not a photoshopped image of a regular steam locomotive and its reflection, they really built them like this.

1907 #2200-2201 0-6-0-0-6-0, 3'3.3/8" (metre) gauge, Burma Railways (2 loco's) Double Fairlie Patent

The Goteik railway trestle is still in business. The large version of the map will show you where it is in relation to the rest of the world.


View Burma WWII in a larger map