Far East Cynic

Sometimes a video works (Warning this video is NSFW!):

Link:

And sometimes it doesn’t!

The first video is a Danish commercial for washing machines that is actually quite funny-even with the nudity. ( And those are some really nice body parts!). The second video contained no nudity, had been reviewed, and even seen by the “star” herself. It was enough to make Shortney explode though.

Another H/T to Spike and Salamander.

I did my part to save Ford last summer!

H/T Spike!

Some different pictures from our trip. Suffice it to say I kept my eye out for something more than a little out of the ordinary.

For example I stumbled across this dog, taking a drink from a fountain:

But of course, there is always more to it.

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The appointment of Gen Shinseki to be VA Secretary that is.

I have no doubt that he will do a good job as VA Secretary, but I’m not reading into it the same kind of political vindictiveness that most of the media has. There are several reasons for this.

1) Shinseki was right about the number of troops required for Iraq. However the famous interview with Congress, for which he is credited with incredible foresight? is not so clear cut. He was right about needing several hundred thousand troops for Iraq-but as I was watching the actual tape, I can’t help but walk away with the conclusion that he thought he was saying something that was self evident. I’m not so sure that had he known Rumsfeld was going to throw him under the bus-whether he would have said it or not.  Its not as clear cut as the media makes it out to be.

2) Shinseki was not “fired”-which is the popular description of his leaving. He served a full term as Army Chief of Staff and it is very rare for a service chief to serve longer than 4 years. (Vern Clark-please make a note of this).  What was unusual was the naming of a successor 14 months out-and the utterly rude and unprofessional gesture on the part of Rumsfeld by not attending his retirement ceremony.  This was an intentional slight and a foremost sign of disrespect directed toward Shinseki by the civilian leadership. But then again this was Rumsfeld-class was never exactly in his bag of tricks.

3) Shinseki’s tenure as Chief of Staff had some very mixed results. He did successfully stave off some incredibly short sighted cuts by Rummy, Wolfwitz,  and the other sycophants. At the same time he led the Army down a rat hole with the Crusader program.

Then there is the whole deal with those damn berets. Ask a Ranger what they think about that-be prepared for some profanity.

Furthermore, if Obama really wanted to send a big “fuck you” to Bush and his former cronies in the Pentagon-he would have made Shinseki Army Secretary or put him in the DOD/ National Security establishment. VA Secretary is mere window dressing. The budget for the VA will not increase as much as it should-and if certain  boneheads remain at DOD,  they will fight increases for veterans benefits at every opportunity.

So, lets reward the man for being willing to serve-but one should not read more into it than is really there.

For the most part, I have been impressed with the cabinet appointments President Elect Obama has made. His more liberal supporters are disappointed he did not appoint Kool-aid drinkers, but by seeking to have a cabinet that is at the same time inclusive and broadly based, he showing that he takes this little undertaking seriously. One of his best picks was to keep Secretary Gates on at Defense. Gates has shown how truly horrid, Donald Rumsfeld was as a SECDEF, and the past two years with Gates at the helm have been a tonic after over 5 years of Rummy’s buffoonery.

Gates has signaled however, that he is prepared to make some changes at the levels below him. I sure hope so-there’s a couple of people who are long past their shelf life-one guy in particular who should have been exiled a long time ago. Of course, I am talking about my favorite punching bag, and overall evil Pentagon henchman, Dr. David Chu.

Dr Chu’s sins are long and heinous. I’ve tried to chronicle the worst of them here. Soon, if all goes well-he will back at the Rand Corporation where he can only write about screwing active duty and veterans over-instead of actually doing it.
It really is time for the “Stingy Man” to go away. Gates should not only tell Chu that he is no longer welcome in the Pentagon-he should publicly fire him before January 20th-so as to send a statement that this new administration means what it says about keeping promises to the troops.

Let the healing begin.

I mean, my dues to the association are paid up.

The dues to the US Naval Institute are paid up, that it is. Yet, once again yours truly gets slighted-so that they can promote the work of some other semi-popular bloggers. Sounds to me, like they need someone to balance out the force.

Of course, if they did-who knows, it might lead to an embarrassing moment like this:

Anyway, go read their new blog.

Sorry, Kitty……………..

Can’t forget this day. Especially when December 7 2008 is also a Sunday. Plenty of words to describe it-I’d prefer to let one picture talk:

We honor their memory!

Navy won and Alabama lost.

Life is good-and it will be especially fun to see the chagrined faces on Monday morning at work.

Where I live, it is considered a sacrilege not to worship at the altar of SEC Football. Thus I was not surprised when the local fish wrapper here had not one word-NOT ONE SINGLE WORD-about the Army Navy game in it on Saturday morning.

Lots of columns about Alabama was going to beat Florida though.

Serves them right.

Look at babes.

I’m rooting for Navy too!

Maybe watch the game on a big TV with one of these on the end table?

And at half time-compare notes with a new friend:

I am not a Naval Academy graduate and I am quite proud of that fact. However when the Army Navy game approaches I always root for Navy. This year is no different:

While I thoroughly loved Vienna and am ready to go back-Prague had to be the highlight of the trip.

It started with dinner the night we arrived:

Our hotel had a wine restaurant in the basement-some what pricey, but we were really not in the mood to venture far afoot and it was late. So we said, “Why not?”

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While I was gone, my Amazon order came! (It was supposed to have been here before we left). Besides buying this book:

Which I have been meaning to read for a while now-and has applicability to the country’s current situation. There were also two CD’s for the S.O. and finally, something for me-a stroll back into my ancient past:

I loved that album and have not heard it in a long time-mainly because I did not have it on CD and the vinyl (plus a means to play it)-went bye bye a long time ago.

One of the good things about where we live now is that the mornings are simply glorious when the weather and the Almighty cooperate. That makes my drive to work sometimes glorious too-especially in the S.O.’s car with six cylinders of fine German technology purring like a kitten.

Yesterday was such a day-at least till I got to the parking lot. A glorious morning, clear sky, and color in the hills. In the middle of it all, me, with the speakers turned up and listening to this:

Jerusalem and the all three Karn Evil #9 tracks are my favorites on that album.

In my high school days I never realized that the hymn, which was written by William Blake in 1804 as a Preface to his work, Milton-is now somewhat contriversial. I read somewhere that it was popular during the inter-war years as a symbol of the British Empire-and even today is still popular as an “unofficial anthem” of Great Britain.

All I really know is that-while cresting over a hill and seeing the outstretched straightaway of road ahead, with the mountains that shelter the Tennessee Valley out on the horizon, basked in the clear sunlight of a beautiful clear winter’s day-I can feel, for just a brief period of time, as master of all I see. King of MY little empire. Instead of just another faceless, nameless, man walking government corridors. And that’s a great feeling indeed.

Sometimes you just have to live within the moment.

I did more eating than I should have this trip. (Also consumed copious amounts of my favorite food group-beer). Dinners on these trips with the S.O. are always an event I kind of dread-not because I don’t like eating with her, its just that getting her to decide on a place to ear is always an ordeal. She just can’t reconcile the fact that time also has value, and sometimes you cannot eat a great, unique, meal at fast food prices. Her desire for tasty food, often cannot be reconciled with her nagging obsession with price.

Now its not that I am against saving money. But when you are on vacation and want to experience new and different things-it takes some time to find a place that is both good and inexpensive. Especially if you have been doing the tourist thing for a while all day-which usually places you in a location that is not conducive to good cheap eats. So I try to do copious amounts of research to find places that meet the bill-only to have my hopes dashed when we get to the location and she decides its “too smoky” or “its a drinking place”. (She says that like that’s a bad thing). Vienna was particularly frustrating in this regard- we passed on several really intriguing places due to the “smoky/drinky place” routine.  And since it was starting to rain-it was not doing much for my humor-to say the least.

Which is why I was doubly suprised that in Prague-she agreed to go into this place we stumbled onto-Parlimentu-on our last night in Praha. It was smoky and it had a lot of people drinking. (Like there is something wrong with that………). It also had some really good food:

It was onion soup-but with a better flavor!

It was more of a bar than a resteraunt proper-and its menu was fairly typical of the tourist offerings that advertised “Czech food”-but I thought on the whole it was quite good. At least the steak with pepper sauce tasted good:

The S.O. had something vegetarianey-seemed mostly rice to me-but it had good flavor:

Whatever tickles your fancy.

We split the sour cream on cucmber salad-as was normal for just about all of our Prague meals this trip:

Too much sour cream if you ask me-but still good.

We skipped dessert-we already had that earlier. With a view.

A really good view!

See! Mili is not the only one who takes cameras with her to dinner!

I thought it was going to be like sliding down a greased rope to go home. I was wrong.

Actually getting out of Munich worked fine. The hotel we had chosen was right above the S-bahn stop of S-8, the line that runs directly to the airport. So after checkout, all we had to do was take an elevator down two floors and walk to the escalators. 35 minutes later we were at the airport.

We spent the final night in Munich-and had gotten in by the most direct train possible from Prague. Which was both good and bad. The train was Czech train and the cars were in disrepair somewhat-we could never get the heat right in the compartment. So we either roasted or froze during the journey. Funny thing, when we crossed the border into Germany after Plzen-it settled down nicely. Important safety tip though-if you want to ride a train that sells food, leave from Holovince, not from Hvlani Nadrazi. We learned that lesson the hard way. Even though we had eaten a big breakfast-we were starving by the time we got to Munich.

So we dumped the bags at the hotel-and headed straight to City Hall, to go to the Christmas market which had just opened. We just walked around and ate sausage and drank beer at various stands. Walk around some more and repeat the food buying. After 5 bratwursts and about 1.26 liters of fine Munich beer, we were both full. We said screw going to a restaurant and explored some.

After a pretty good flight to Dulles, the adventure began. I can’t blame America’s worst run airport-much as I would like to. The weather was really bad all over the east coast and apparently getting worse. We talked our way into the United lounge and hunkered down. Our flight back to Shopping Mall ended up being delayed by over 5 hours. When we did get airborne the flight was a REALLY bumpy one-it did not help my attitude by knowing that our pilots looked both like very young guys-made me wonder how many hours they had between them, 5-600 perhaps. Not as reassuirng as that might have once been.

They got us home though and I got back to work yesterday. The process of digging out has begun. The agency I work with is going through some big changes and the powers that be are trying to anticipate them-everyone knew they were coming, but its still interesting to watch people deal with them. I should be somewhat concerned for myself I guess-but I’m not. Whatever happens is going to happen. I’ll just take one day at a time and stay fixed on my personal goal. I do need to buy a frame for my mission statement. I’ve got a spot picked out for it above my monitor here.

Its early this morning, but I could not get back to sleep. So I thought I’d get up and answer e-mails, I was supposed to do last night-when I fell asleep on the couch.

I’ve not been blind to the events that have gone on in India last week-and the appointments of Obama’s security team yesterday. I’ve got some ideas and opinions on that, as well as the recent snark from some about “victory” in Mesopotamia. But I want to close the book on the trip first. To do that I’ve got to recharge my laptop and move some pix for you to see this evening. I’m going to put all of them up on a Flickr account as well. Link to follow.

Regarding India-more to come-but I would caution anyone who draws long term conclusions about this attack and the so called global Islamic threat. I personally believe that this has some unique, Indian, causes to this particular escapade-and that the danger it could escalate into a war between India and Pakistan is real. The German paper I brought back with me had a pretty graphic article about a woman who had lost her husband in the attack. (“Mein Mann starb im Bombay Terror”-despite my clumsiness with the spoken German, I can read it pretty well).

Time to go change and go to work this morning. Bills are not going to pay themselves you know and Tuesday’s start early each week. Too damn early if you ask me, but the schedule is set by the slave masters in DC. My crackberry is buzzing to tell me so. ( I did not ask for one-but the powers that be thought it would be a good idea).

O kaeri nasai!