ROK Drop Christmas Open Thread, December 25, 2025

Merry Christmas everyone!

If America ever became communist, a lot of libtards would be highly disappointed to learn the hammer and sickle represent work.

Everyone I ever met who claimed to be communist was a worthless loser who was just smart enough to recognize that freeloading was their best survival strategy.

Or, they were “educated” and had expectations their position would be to travel around to the turnip farms and salt mines to lecture the proletariat on communist theory.

My position would be to torture people until they embraced communism.

Then I would torture them more for being filthy communists.

@Liz, that’s great!

BTW, GI, that is a beautiful photo and captures a part of what made me fall in love with Korea in 1993 when my company sent me to train our joint venture partners.

Of course, I’ve never spent more than 16 weeks in a row (and usually in two to six week visits); but I have been there (between 1993 and the present) during every month except June and July.

There is much to love that even some Koreans miss. Like Americans and Europeans who dismiss their own history and culture. When we see something every day, we often lose the wonder of it.

The wonderful ease with which CH delivers comedy gold should be noted.

In fact, the stark contrast with the puerile dialectical materialism improperly learned and/or lazily mishandled by the Korean Things with their snub-nosed weapons is the only problem here.

I’m hoping they cut back on the copium and learn the invaluable lessons they have been provided.

They should bookmark this page and tattoo CH’s words on their palms.

https://x.com/CynicalPublius/status/2005030256382464493?s=20

Cynical Publius writes about the potential for fraud in the military. I’m going to raise the BS flag here…this might have been true many moons ago but everything is very very scrutinized now. To the point of paranoia. My spouse wrote a check back for accepting a gift over the gift limit from the community for 34 dollars (insert Dr Evil pinky to the mouth here). I’m 100 percent serious. We’ve paid for moves in the past when he was a Reservist because although the commander said it “should be okay” we didn’t want it hanging over our heads just in case someone somewhere decided we took advantage (there is a lot of red tape to moving in the reserves between active duty orders and civilian roles, very complicated and sometimes it is worth shelling out thousands to avoid).
Every commander is required to disclose any financial conflicts of interest, and recuse him/herself from all decisions related…so if a commander has stock in a company and the base deals with that company, for example, they cannot be involved in any decisions. Once one pins on a star their entire financial portfolio is up for Congressional investigation. I do not know a flag officer who hasn’t had his/her identity stolen at least once. Compare this to what a politician gets away with.
[/rant]

LOL CH.
Obviously there are practical limitations to the “conflict of interest” litmus test. Owning a share of the S and P 500 index isn’t going to preclude a commander from any decisions.

People should consider the consequences of their actions..

Now it is fashionable to point out Somali daycare fraud.

But before attacking these daycare providers, they need to think of the nonexistent children.

That ex boyfriend with the grifty church attempt recently sent me a message (completely out of the blue) asking me to donate to his Sunday school. This was the message:
“Please make a monthly donation to help the children and reduce the thousands of dollars each church spends on Sunday School curriculum.”
Also a couple more after I didn’t respond about “helping the children”.
He needs a monthly commitment and claims he has 142 thousand dollars worth of “hard costs” in “Sunday school lessons” for a seven year curriculum. I’m sure he is looking at the Somali situation with envy.

I think I will go for the Coupang settlement instead of joining the class action (which foreigners are eligible for).

“Coupang will pay 1.7 trillion won ($1.2 billion), 50,000 won to each of the 33.7 million users whose data has been leaked, the embattled e-commerce company said Monday.
…
The company will start giving out the 50,000-won compensation starting on Jan. 15 in phases. Wow members, general users and those who have withdrawn their membership will all receive payouts.

The 50,000 won will not be paid in cash but in coupons for Coupang (5,000 won), Coupang Eats (5,000 won), Coupang Travel (20,000 won) and R.Lux (20,000 won) to total 50,000 won.”

Of course if you take this, you will no longer be a part of the class action suits which will likely get you 70 to 90,000 in cash after lawyers’ cut.

(That number is based on my knowledge and belief.)

Soooo…

“Yes, I’d like a 5000 won discount on my purchase that I wasn’t going to make, 1.5 rolls of kimbab, most of a train ticket, and a 20,000 won sniff of the lotion at R.Lux I can never afford.”

I see how this plays out.

There are actually names for these well-known effects.

Endowment Effect (Prize-Induced)

Behavior shifts from “Aktchually, is this really the best deal?” to “Hot damn, I sure don’t want to waste what I won fair-n-square.”

Mental Accounting (with a “coupon framing” effect).

Because people are stupid and deserve to be poor, they value money differently in different domains.

Now combine this with “Five whole dollars off for free! Me me me now now now,” instead of, “Wait, that normally goes on sale for $15 off.”

These clever bastards are going to MAKE money on this.

Thank you, CH. I noticed oddly specific number.

BTW, GI, that is a beautiful photo and captures a part of what made me fall in love with Korea in 1993 when my company sent me to train our joint venture partners

The image looks more Japanese than Korean, probably @GIKorea couldn’t do the correct AI prompt to create that image.

I also don’t think @setnaffa was in Korea back in 1993.

On the other hand, why ruin the festive mood?